Has the Bible Changed What You Watch?

Being a Berean means studying the Bible so that you’ll gain knowledge and be able to rightly handle the word of truth. (2 Tim 2:15)  Believers who study God’s Word in context know His heart. They understand who He is and His ways. They know what His will is for their lives. Moreover, they know what pleases Him — and what displeases Him. One of the ways we please God is by striving to become holy as He is holy. Not perfect, mind you. God does not expect perfection from His people. What He does expect is for us to guard our minds and hearts against unholy evil influences.

That said, we want to share a guest post we came across on Michelle Lesley’s blog, penned by Leslie of Growing 4 Life.  Leslie takes on Christians who profess Christ as their Lord and Savior, proclaim their undying love for Him, and say that they believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God — and yet….these lovers of Jesus will sit through profanity laced, sexually explicit, exceedingly violent TV programs and movies.  Leslie has a word of warning for Christians such as these. She writes:

What do allow to enter your heart and mind through your television or the movies you watch?

As a young married couple, my husband and I got in the habit of watching a particular TV show. Almost every week we tuned in to laugh at the antics of its characters for a half hour. We watched it without any conviction or qualms. At that time, it was simply a funny show.

Fast forward about fifteen years when this same show started to air again in re-runs. But now we were a little wiser. We were more grounded in Scripture. And we were more discerning. And so when we tuned in a few times for old times’ sake, we were most uncomfortable. We finally realized that the fornication and other sin that we were subjecting ourselves to for a few laughs was most definitely an offense to our Holy God. We turned it off and haven’t watched it since.

The same thing happened with a very popular 80’s movie. We had fond memories of watching it ourselves as teenagers and so one Sunday afternoon we turned it on for our kids. A few minutes into it–after listening to the characters take our precious Savior’s name in vain with appalling regularity– my husband turned it off.

This is a great example of how the Bible has changed us and what we watch. Has the Bible changed you and what you allow to enter your heart and mind through your television or the movie theater?

There has been a kind of strange dynamic over the past thirty or forty years with Christians and entertainment. This is probably due to a number of factors, including biblical illiteracy and our deep love for the world. But whatever the reason, most Christians have grown extremely comfortable watching sin on a screen with horrifying regularity.

If anyone dares to mention this trend as troublesome, they are immediately labeled a legalist. But is this legalism? Is the gray area of entertainment as gray as we would like to believe?

The more we study the Word, the more we understand that it is truly our grid for all of life. While we often focus on it being the grid through which we run pastors and Christian authors, it should also be what we use to evaluate all things worldly, as well. Continue reading

See our White Paper on Discernment

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5 Responses to Has the Bible Changed What You Watch?

  1. pesh July 24, 2017 at 3:26 am #

    nice read. the bible has changed my life

  2. Mary August 12, 2017 at 12:51 pm #

    Back in 1987, a pastor advised everyone in our congregation to turn off the television and to avoid watching Hollywood movies altogether. Our family hearkened to this advice and we have not consumed the nonstop Hollywood propaganda from either television or movies over all this time.

    Our children were home schooled, and thus, they grew up without the obvious cultural “shared history” of their peers who are Millennials. Our children (now young adults) think critically and do not subscribe to “group think” or the popular mob mentality. They work hard to remain clear-thinking because they are surrounded by peers and colleagues who cannot think outside the box that has been drawn around them by decades of brainwashing.

    Hollywood produces garbage, plain and simple. If you go back in time to the early Disney cartoons and even the children’s TV shows from the 1940s and 1950s, and you watch these shows with your understanding of the Bible, you will see that these shows were impregnated with a lot of sinister images and messages which were designed to imprint filth on the minds of those who would watch. The results of those images and messages, combined with the years of toxic brainwashing young people received at the hands of the public school system, have produced the out-of-control — obnoxious and spoiled — Millennials (Snowflakes) we see today.

    Today’s Snowflakes are a product of nonstop brainwashing from both Hollywood and the public school system. The colleges continue to refine the brainwashing until many so-called graduates become radical adherents of various damaging ideologies.

    The wisest thing any parent can do is to prevent his or her children from watching TV, movies, and even professional sports. All of these consumer pastimes contain subliminal images and message designed to program our children in the ways of the enemy.

  3. Jack August 12, 2017 at 9:00 pm #

    I believe you’re correct on all points Mary.

  4. lyn August 12, 2017 at 9:47 pm #

    Well said Mary, your comment is filled with much insight and wisdom into what is happening in our rotting culture…..

  5. Carol August 27, 2017 at 7:23 pm #

    Good Word! most people hate teachings like this but I love it. We need to hear more of these kinds of teaching.

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