There was a time in my life, not too long ago, that I did whatever seemed right in my eyes. In other words, whatever I wanted. If I wanted to watch a vampire movie, or movies filled with profanity, nudity, violence, gore, destruction, or read a book or listen to music with the same things, then I did and thought nothing of it. And I am sad to say that I didn’t keep much of it from my kids either.
Then I got saved. I accepted the call from our Lord to follow Him. So everything changed, or did it? This is a response about the discussion from Tuesday.
1Co 6:12 “All things are lawful for me…”All things are lawful for me,”…
1Co 10:23 “All things are lawful…. “All things are lawful…
According to Paul, in these verses, I can pretty much still watch, read, and listen to what I want. This whole concept known as the grace and mercy of God has freed me from a legalistic definition of the Law in an attempt to reach and serve God. And some certainly do live a life, even after “accepting” the call of God, that show us that they believe what Paul said here wholeheartedly. Paul even repeated this four times in only two verses.
I, as an atheist, watched people for a lot of years do exactly what I did and called themselves Christians. So naturally I concluded, along with a lot of other observations, that God was not real. But this was a large part of the conclusion. Christians and atheists were doing so many of the same things so, what was the big deal about a supreme being. But look at the following verses in their fullness.
1Co 6:12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything.
1Co 10:23 “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
I left the emboldened parts out originally to point out how it seems that Christians read the verses, based on their perceived lives. Based on the choices of countless Christians I have watched both before and after I joined their ranks, I have to conclude some have never paid attention to the three concepts Paul stated about all things.
In the first verse Paul has been talking about different types of sinners, not sin, but sinners. And he has concluded that the believers at Corinth used to be these sinners but are now washed clean by Christ. Then he does let us know that all things are lawful because of that cleansing.
Looking at the next verse in context we find Paul again concluding that whatever he does is lawful. But in both cases he is quick to let us know that it is not really good for us, because all things do not help us in mission, in our freedom, or in our witness. Read chapter 6 and 10 of 1 Corinthians with this in mind.
A real relationship with Christ brings change. We become new creations and I stand as a witness to this. When I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ, some of the things I did for entertainment became vile to me. So I knew instinctively that they were vile to the Holy Spirit because His taking up residence in me was the real change that had occurred in my life. Dee concluded that Jesus being in the room would decide her choices and she is right. We just have to remember He is in the room.
The questions we really have to ask ourselves about entertainment choices are; does it help us in our mission? Does it help us in our freedom? Does it help us in our witness?
Does it help us in our mission? Probably not in most cases. As Laura stated about Seventh Heaven and such shows, they may actually hinder us because of the false gospel that is being presented. Our mission is to reach the lost with the good news and make disciples of them. The very idea behind entertainment implies a suspension of mission.
I do not think it is terrible to take a break from the warfare and work we are to be doing for the Kingdom, but God gave us an example of six days work and one day of rest. But it seems most Christians do the opposite. They might actually do something for God on one day by going to church but then they take six days to relax from the real work by ignoring the things of God.
Does it help us in our freedom? Jesus freed us from our slavery to sin. But many of us are so willing to visit it again and again like some really exciting, fun, and enjoyable relative. The implications beneath the quote that Heath provided point to the reality of the intoxicating hold that ungodly things can have on us.
Most of the comments had some suggestion of the idea that we need to be conscience of the effect on our spirit that our choices have. We can become addicted to entertainment and addiction is the exact opposite of freedom.
Does it help us in our witness? The very heart of the whole matter is how our choices can affect our witness. Reread what I used to think about Christians. People who see absolutely no beneficial difference in the narrow path and the wide highway are not going to creep along on the narrow. Why should they.
Finally, if you love your children, you have to filter what they watch, read, and hear. There is absolutely no way that the correlation between the rise of violence, sexual promiscuity, death, the demeaning of women, and other things that are accepted in all the mediums of entertainment and the rise of the same in real society today, can be dismissed.
So to conclude I am offering these thoughts to ponder.
Do you watch The Shield but would never watch Charmed? Do you watch Friends but would never watch Will and Grace? Would you read Jeff Lindsay but never Stephen King? Is country and western music okay but gangsta rap taboo?
If you answered yes to any of the above, you might want to ask Jesus which one he would rather enjoy. He is right there with you.
Love you all
Tags: atheist, Death, Entertainment, fun, gore, Grace, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Kingdom, Mercy, nudity, profanity, rap, Sin, spirit, vampire, violence, witness
I learned something about fish, especially goldfish. The aquariums led to outdoor creations called water gardens. I have built four of those over the years. We lived without an abundance of financial resources, as you might imagine, so I looked for ways to do things on the cheap. I found that I could go to Wal-Mart and buy “feeder” goldfish for about a dime in those days. So I would pick up about twenty and put them in one of my little ten gallon worlds and see what happened. These goldfish were not very hardy since they were only bred as food, but some would surprise me and live a while. But they never got very big.
Today’s discussion is going to be lighthearted and friendly. I need a break from the heavy lifting.
