by Tad Lindley
Did you ever get subtweeted? You don’t have to be on Twitter to get subtweeted. Now for those of you in the middle age bracket like me, you may be unfamiliar with subtweeting, so let me explain. You know how sometimes you try real hard to make a nice hot steam, but sometimes it just comes out flat. Your regular crew shows up at the qasgiq and the pouring commences, but it just never quite gets hot enough and you make excuses and hope they’ll soon forget. Unfortunately when you rush back into the house to check your social medias you see that one of your guests has just posted:
Some people think they’re so big, but when they invite you to their steam bath it’s super CHEAPPPPP!!!!!!! #lookingforanothersteam #hardlyevensweat
Guess what, you just got subtweeted. They never mentioned your name, but anybody in the know can figure out it was you they were talking about.
Pre social media
Before there was ever social media, people had to talk to face to face. They still subtweeted though. Look at Jesus subtweet in Matthew 26:23-24, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with Me will betray Me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about Him, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed. It would be better for him if he had not been born.” Of course Judas knew that Jesus was talking about him but he tried to deflect: Then Judas, who would betray Him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” Jesus answered, “You have said it yourself.” (Matthew 26:25) If you read ahead in the book you see that Jesus subtweet was right on the money.
If they had FB back then
Here is another subtweet. This one would have played out different if it happened today. Imagine that Pastor Nathan posts this on his Facebook page:
Pastor Nathan
11 min
I’m so mad right now. I just saw this heard about this. There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”
King David
10 min
As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity!!!!!!!!
Pastor Nathan King David
“You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more! Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife!!!!! (II Samuel 12:1-9)
When you get subtweeted by God
Sometimes we read the Bible or we are listening to the preacher preach or catching some sermons on the internet and all of the sudden BAM! We stop dead in our tracks. “Was that guy just talking about me?” or, “Did God read my mind and suddenly put that in the Bible?” At that point we are faced with two choices. We either get mad and blow up at God or the preacher and accuse them of spiritual bullying, or we do what David did when his pastor, Nathan, subtweeted him: he fell on his face in repentance before God! Here’s how that one finished, So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. (II Samuel 12:13) When the preaching fits, wear it. God is not using your preacher to spiritually bully you, he is reaching out to you in hopes that you will repent and thereby be saved!!!!!!!
Tad Lindley is a minister at the United Pentecostal Church in Bethel, AK.
