Do You Read the Terms of Service?

From our phones to our Netflix subscriptions, everything has "Terms of Service." You are probably a better person than me, but I do not read them. I just agree and hope for the best. That may change though. This week I saw an article about strange clauses hidden in some terms of service.

• Facebook and Instagram have full licenses to use your photos for anything they want. They can even have CVS print out your images and hand them out on the street corner. While they probably will not do this, when asked, a Facebook rep did not rule it out.
• If you thought you owned a SodaStream sparkling water machine--you, in fact, do not. You only purchased a non-transferable license to use the product. Which means you can never sell it according to the terms of service. If you see one at a yard sale, stay far away from it... you may break the ToS if you buy it! And I know how much you would hate to do that.
• Amazon recently added an interesting "Zombie clause" to its terms of service. Its "Software is not meant to be used in life- or safety-critical systems such as medical equipment or self-driving cars unless a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.”

In Nehemiah, we have seen that God had his own ToS. From Abraham on, God created a covenant with his people. He would love them, bless them, and take care of them, but this covenant was not one way. They were supposed to love him back. Last week we saw that they rarely followed God's ToS, and this led to their capture by Babylon. But in Nehemiah, they finally read them! Still, we are going to see that It is one thing to check the box that you have read them and a whole other thing to follow the terms of service.

We will find out that, even though we are separated from Nehemiah by 2,500 years, people are still the same. We have similar struggles, pains, and sins. Yet through it all, we can see how God loves us even when we have not followed his ToS.