This is an excerpt from a book I'm reading by John Piper entitled, Don't Waste Your Life. I thought it was interesting. What do you think?
"Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age. And, of course, the Internet is running to catch up, and may have caught up. You can be more selective on the Internet, but you can also select worse things with only the Judge of the universe watching. TV still reigns as the great life-waster. The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem. Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you're watching. The greater problem is banality. A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God. Its facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels.
So there is no adultery, no stealing, no killing, no embezzlement, no fraud--just lots of hard work during the day, and lots of TV and PG-13 movies in the evening (during quality family time), and lots of fun stuff on the weekend--woven around church (mostly). This is life for millions of people. Wasted life. We were created for more, far more."
Niagara Falls (with kids!)
4 years ago
3 comments:
Joy, thanks so much for the comment and the snippet from Don't Waste Your Life. "The mind fed daily on TV diminishes." This is such a powerful statement. During this recent "urge" we actually checked prices on cable and finally decided that we don't want to waste our time nor our money. Making wise decisions about media in our home is really important to us. I pray God continues to satisfy us in Him and give us wisdom to make the right decisions for our family (the flesh is often weak *smile*) Thanks for your encouragement :) I would love to get together sometime!
I think John Piper is a "shock jock". He just says things to get attention. He does have a point, but he says it in a "shock jock" sort of way.
I should point out the irony in having that post directly across from an American Idol poll... Sorry couldn't resist that!! B/c while I agree that TV can waste your brain... I do believe there are some really great programs out there on channels such as the Discovery and the History channels... although most of us get sucked into the grimy stuff instead of the healthy stuff. Human nature.
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