I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:11

What’s on your Instagram ? Nothing, to answer my own question!  I don’t have any social media accounts, except for an ancient, now out of date  Facebook   page when I was director of the local food bank.  In fact, I am pretty  ignorant  of  the concepts governing the  cyber universe  to which the popular culture is tethered.  “Social media  speak” is a foreign language to me and one I’m not sure I want to be bothered to learn. But the Lord  instructs us  to be wise as serpents  and to discern the times.  Language is the outermost exposed  layer of a culture’s inner moral and spiritual health.   In the Bible James says that  the tongue (and by extension language) has the power to speak life or death. So too do written words – and more subtly,  cyber  jargon which speaks to millions of people.    

I’ve recently come across the word “influencer”  which  describes individuals who rise to importance on social media through sheer numbers of their followers.  According to the Oxford Dictionary, to influence is “to  have effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something.” Therefore, an influencer is a person who has considerable  power over those who  logically can be influenced. They typically show up in social  media platforms, like Twitter, Instagram,, Tik Tok and You Tube. The target audience are the young and the impressionable.  Influencers operate by getting people to follow their accounts and by pushing products, ideas, personalities  or trends. The more followers they  generate,  the greater is their “influence” on others.  Influencers  receive payments from businesses  based on their followers.  Some of the biggest influencers are sports, actors, and media personalities. The Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Renaldo, has over five hundreds  million  followers.   That’s two and a half times the population of Chicago! His influence is huge. Dwayne Mulvaney, the transgender influencer, has almost two million devotees (almost the size of Chicago.)  His influence is also huge.  Well, except for Bud Light.

What should disturb all who pay  attention is  that influencers “effect the character, behavior, and development of others.”   If the influencer is after money and notoriety, what  effect does that motive  have on others?  What restraints does he put on himself to do no harm? If the influencer is an agenda driven  activist  like Mulvaney (among many others)  he becomes the sales rep for a lot more than  beer or  cosmetics. He’s shaping the behavior and character of impressionable people  especially  adolescents  already foundering in confusion and lies.  The influencers don’t care about the physical,  moral, emotional  and social well being of their followers.  They’re invested in self gain and self promotion. “Just click on the button (or whatever )  and become one of my mega  million followers.” 

If you’re a follower, you’ve chosen to walk behind someone.   Basically, you become  sheep in someone’s flock.  Or is it cult?   I’m convinced Influencers are  a type  of shepherd who will shape your  character, behavior and development. They will herd you into their  fallow fields, separating you from  more nourishing pastures and  clean waters.   They are the hireling shepherds Jesus warned about. They  will never call you by name, protect you or go after you when you’re lost.  How can  they? You’re just a virtual number, not a human person made in God’s image for His purposes.  

The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own. When he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf pounces on them and scatters the flock. John 10:12

 It’s a very old story. Satan can’t come up with anything new so he mimics God’s Word with deception. His hoof prints  are all over this influencer craze, even  to appropriating Jesus’ words,  “Come follow Me.”  Jesus, our Good Shepherd  will make His followers disciples.  Something is required of us. Influencers make followers  more and more sheep like!  The Internet is vast and if I listen with my heart, I can hear the sad bleating of  millions of sheep  being led by pied pipers   dangerously into the thorns and thickets.  Who will  go after them if not us.?

Choose wisely whom you follow.  Choose who is your influencer. The time for the arrogant Influencer/Deceiver of the Age and Air is coming to its end. Jesus our Good Shepherd guards His flock of sheep and will never abandon us to wolves or  hirelings. He will return to claim His followers for Himself. To Him be the glory!