Hmmm, another exhausting Saturday! Started off quite early this morning down at the church building as a small team of us set about painting walls, fixing carpet, repairing hymnbooks, digging up weeds, sweeping up leaves and a whole host of other practical tasks which were required to keep the building in a good and useful state.
Wandered down to the snooker hall with David in the afternoon to play a few frames of snooker, eventually finishing 5-4 frames in my favour. I think my opponent is improving, either that or I’m getting worse, or even both!
In the evening most of the usual suspects went down to the Uxbridge Road Tabernacle in Shepherd’s Bush to listen to a talk entitled “Are we what we watch?” We ended up in a KFC afterwards, to discuss what we had heard amongst other things.
The whole of the talk was grounded on these verses from the bible:
“Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22
The talk focussed mainly on television – hence the title – as in today’s western culture, it it the most pervasive source of ideas and entertainment. Also, by its very nature, as well as its dominance, it is also a very powerful medium.
Throughout the bible, we are told to “test everything”, to think about everything we do, everything we see, hear, touch, smell and taste. Of these, what we see and hear are the primary sources of ideas and information, which is part of what makes television so powerful. Many forms of communication require our brains to be thinking, from talking and listening to other people, reading books, and conversely their ‘modern equivalents’ of instant messaging and blogging. With these forms, we can stop and think about things as we communicate. The very word of God is presented to us as a person in Jesus Christ, and in written form in the bible. Yet, with television, it is possible to receive information without thinking, as the medium itself is one way, and doesn’t stop to allow you to think before moving on. It also very powerfully uses images as well as sound, and as we know, an image doesn’t always tell the whole story, yet can appear to be the whole story and be very convincing. It is interesting of note that God didn’t give us an image, but words.
This is not to say that television is therefore evil. For in all forms of communication, we should think about what we will expose ourselves to, as well as think about what we have exposed ourselves to. There are good things which appear on television, things which can teach us good things. Yet, by its very nature it can be easily abused, extolling an anti-Christian worldview, where image is everything, where self is all important and where God and true reality are ignored and even opposed. These anti-Christian viewpoints can very quickly affect our thinking, as they have entered through our eyes and ears without allowing us to think them through.
We should also be careful that books, newspapers, music, the internet, as well as television, do not become an addiction by which we cannot live. Are we switching on the television mindlessly to fill our lives with meaning, whilst at the same time neglecting to do something useful?
Therefore, if we are Christians, we should think about everything we do and consider whether it is permissible, beneficial and ultimately glorifying to God.
