let me entertain U

g
c
g
c
g

I've been thinking on life before and after TV. Entertainment(s) are not new. The Greeks had their tragedies, and Shakespeare is wonderful. But from the point of view of Jesus, just what is the value of entertainment? This question just will not and cannot avoid the asking of the all time question of the universe: "What is the meaning (the value, the purpose) of life?”

If there is a God, everything must reference from God's being and the meaning, value and purpose He assigns (entertainment). Now some will say: "There is no if about it, certainly there is a God." And others will laugh or be angry that God be suggested as real. But if there is no God, then it is, as is so popular today with every age group, it is so that there is no absolute. (Never mind the fact that "No absolute exists" is a truly absolute statement. This is the same as asking "If a liar tells you a lie, is he/she lying?") No God: yields no absolute truth, no immutable benchmark of right being, nothing to reference yesterday or tomorrow on, let alone today.

So if you believe God is, you must begin to think like He thinks, even about entertainment, perhaps especially how He thinks about entertainment today. For what is so popular, and so important to our economy, TODAY, as entertainment? This is so in the USA, where entertainment began to flourish, in Europe where propaganda and entertainment married each other in the early 20th century, and now everywhere an electrical cord or a satellite dish is available.

God "thinks" about everything we do. Better said He JUDGES everything we do. Yes He does!!! That is what makes us so uncomfortable RE: GOD, or should make us so, if we really believe He is. But if we are able to believe in not only God, but also His Son Jesus, we will have a hope that unbelievers do not have. And we will be more comfortable "thinking" and, yes JUDGING as God does JUDGE.

Do you say "Judge not lest ye be judged?" Those are the words of Jesus. But read the whole statement:

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ' Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

This is not about letting everything slide (into the abyss of moral equivalency). It is about avoiding hypocrisy. We are just not allowed to say "you're wrong about 'X'" without the knowledge that we are wrong about "X" too, or at least wrong about "Y" or "Z". To pretend we are not wrong is to have two faces, and to speak from our second face is to have two tongues. This has been done so long and so often by humans that the behavior has been codified and we call the behavior pretence, or ACTING. The root of the Greek word "hypocrite" does mean ACTOR. Now can we see some light? Who are our entertainers? They are actors. They are persons we pay and pay attention to for their ability to be something they themselves are not.

In "real life" we do or should expect our family, out neighbors, our citizens and officers to be true, at least to be true to us. It is very plain that today, most care not for what befalls their neighbor as long as "life" treats them "fairly". But most learn later, and some sooner, that life is not fair. We are born equal in God's sight, but that time and chance, combined with our own (responsive) deeds and misdeeds, brew quite a different blend in each soul. And we do expect and even ask each other to "be real" or to "get real" occasionally. Why? Because we are all hypocrites at times.

Now back to entertainment, to Radio, TV, Movies, and Internet; to drama, music and the information super-highway. And to getting real. Wait, that is an oxymoron, now, isn't it? Well listen to this true account.

I was riding a transit bus in Baltimore, Maryland one morning. I had just discharged a difficult duty, which had left a bitter taste in my mouth, and was returning home. Often at such times I am able to share the gospel most effectively. My appetite for relief from my heart's distress is so great I am better able to "plunge in and swim" than at other times.

I encountered this young man, about 14 years old on the bus. He was speaking to a peer about a comic strip character that was named with a bible name. I began by asking him about this character, "Is this the real (I have forgotten the name) ________ you are talking about?" I had to explain to him that there was character in the Bible named ________. But as time went on it became apparent this child did not know that the Bible was held by some to be a historical and true account about actual men and women. Not only so, it was clear he had as much, if not more, belief in his comic book characters as in any Bible character. This in itself was something to marvel at, yet I got the distinct impression he really believed these comic strip characters were REAL !!!

Now was he one of a kind? Or are many children growing up believing their entertainments to be more real than what shall we say: Their family relationships? Their communities and their needs? The church, the Bible, even GOD Himself? Perhaps not, yet I think that we might agree that the Lord's will for us, and for our communities can be, and I will say is, negatively affected by what passes for entertainment today. I would rather be alone with my thoughts for an half hour than in front of ANY sitcom. And for this reason have no TV in my home. My nemesis today has become the internet, (by which this writing will reach you, and I does hope to reach you, please feel free to forward this along), - the internet which will I hope soon become more manageable entertainment for me.

I make this confession: Given only one opportunity to view the "wrong" movie or TV show (and this has happened even in the last month), my soul will revert to enjoyment, laughter and lust over the basest images and dialogs. I was a "corinthian" before I followed Jesus, and the depths of my heart are very vulnerable to sin.

Whatever you were or are now, my question is: “Are you willing to think and judge as God does about entertainment?”


1 Corinthians 2
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

But as it is written:

" Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,

Nor have entered into the heart of man

The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.