Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Christians often ask questions like, for example, Michael wrote these questions, but Christians ask them why that disclaimer, what was the point of that? Well, I don't know. I don't know. I just, you know, because you're a Christian. Christian and you ask these questions. Is TikTok sinful?
This is where Ryan answers.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: I knew it.
Is it okay?
I'm just setting you up on these. Michael set you up on these. Is it okay for a Christian to watch any particular TV show? How about a show with a lot of violence? How about a show with like pretty graphic sexual content? For example, Game of Thrones.
Can I listen to not explicitly Christian music?
And if so, what kind of music is okay? What kind of music is not okay? Where should I draw that line?
What about violent video games, for example?
That's specifically a young people, you know, young guys kind of question.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Is there a limit to that? Are certain ones okay and certain ones not okay? Grand Theft Auto. Is Grand Theft Auto okay? Right. But these are all questions that Christians honestly ask and I think, you know, well, meaning Christians want to have an honest answer to even. Is it wrong to spend an entire Saturday watching college football or watching golf
[00:01:42] Speaker C: so much that your 2 year old says, go, Scotty.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: That's just a total hypothetical situation. That's right. Right.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: At least he's a Christian.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: But seriously, these are questions. And man, a million others like them that Christians ask and they ask. I think really trying to see how does my faith apply to all these granular moments that I encounter in my life? How do I apply my faith? Well, to this, how do I use Christian liberty? Well, in this.
And we're gonna jump into some of that today. This is actually part one of a 1000 part series. I don't actually know how many parts it's gonna be, but it might be
[00:02:21] Speaker B: several parts, plus or minus 10.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
Part one of a series that we wanted to start on what we're calling Matters of Conscience. Is that what we.
[00:02:30] Speaker C: I think that's where we've landed.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:32] Speaker C: Matters of Conscience.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Catch your title.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Disputable matters.
[00:02:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Matters of conscience, though some people call them gray areas. I don't know if I like that.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Food, sacrifice to idols.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: There you go. I mean, that's the. That's the actual sort of New Testament example given. But yeah, we're going to jump into over the next weeks here for a while on the podcast, questions about things that aren't explicitly spelled out in the scriptures because believe it or not, there is not a verse in the Bible that says, thou shalt not have an Instagram account.
It would actually be easier if there were one.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: I wish.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: So in some ways it would be.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Yes. In some ways it would be. But that's actually generally not how the Bible works. And that's why we're left with these questions, and that's why we want to spend some time unpacking that, helping give the church some guidance in that. So that's a long, sort of meandering intro without a welcome. So we'll give it official welcome. Welcome to Word and Flesh podcast, a podcast from the elders of Riverview Baptist Church. For Riverview Baptist Church. We hope that this podcast is an encouragement to you and equips you to walk more faithfully as a Christian, to press into the kingdom of God and to extend it out into the places that God has put you. So in the studio today, we've got the regulars. We've got Pastor Michael Bean.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:03:47] Speaker C: Glad to be here.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: And Ryan Anderson.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: What's up?
[00:03:49] Speaker A: What's up? And. And we may be actually cycling some other elders.
[00:03:53] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the hope. At some point.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Soon, eventually. But for now, it's the. The gang of three in here. I don't know. That's just. I'm trying different names, but today we're gonna. We're gonna jump into this matters of conscience thing, and the first issue we want to go into on it for. For this episode, the issue is gonna be questions about, like, social media and entertainment.
Maybe technology. A little bit.
[00:04:18] Speaker C: Yeah, a little bit.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: And how a Christian can rightly think about those things. As Ryan takes out his phone, you know, and, like, silences it or, you know, whatever. TikTok real quick, I don't have that.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Never have.
So.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: But how a Christian ought to deal with those things. Well, think well about those things, live well. And honestly, I think live in a way where you can go, I have a clear conscience before God and men in what I am doing with this. Right. Because it's actually kind of miserable to always be going, I don't really know if this is okay or not. Right. And so I think that while we're not gonna give a long list of, like, this is not okay. This is okay. We might give some of those, actually. We're definitely. I think.
Yeah. And we're gonna get into some, like, you should just not do this thing. A lot of this actually ultimately comes back to broader principles that are found in the scriptures, wisdom, and how we apply those into this modern moment.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: Right, Absolutely.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: So, okay, that's a intro, at least. Where do we want to kind of jump into maybe the main idea. Get us to the main idea here, and that will kind of. Yeah, yeah. Go off of that.
[00:05:26] Speaker C: Well, and the reason that we wanted to do this, because this doesn't just apply, I think, for social media and technology. It doesn't just apply for the way you eat food or, you know, all kinds of matters, how you use AI, whether or not you choose. We'll talk about this down the road. To use contraceptives. I mean, there's thousands of things that's quite a cliffhanger. Doesn't immediately address.
But here's the goal. The goal of the Christian life is not merely to avoid sin, but also to glorify God with your freedoms. And so we're free to do many things, but not everything is beneficial, as Paul says. So what is wise and right, and how do we have a framework to think biblically about some of these gray areas? That's the goal of this series.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it's just important to say that another one of the reasons for the series is that a lot of times Christians ask the wrong questions on these matters.
The question I often get is, well, essentially, where is the line?
[00:06:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: How far can I go? How close can I get?
I just think those are all fundamentally the wrong questions. The question is, yeah, how can I glorify God with my freedom? Or how do I live a life of holiness?
What about the inputs of my life as leading to or leading against holiness? That's the question.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. And I think those are saying the same thing different ways, which is very much like, how do I extend the Christian life beyond just like a list of don't do this stuff and just whatever, but into the kingdom of God reigning in every millisecond of my day and how I spend it.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Which is supernatural. Yeah, supernatural. And is of eternal importance and which also can be kind of daunting or, you know, like, hard to figure out. Right. You go, oh, my goodness. Okay, so the kingdom of heaven is supposed to extend it to every single moment of every single day. I thought it was just, you know, whenever I have my quiet time in the morning and.
[00:07:35] Speaker C: And then Sunday.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Or what.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: I'm, you know, overstating that a little bit, but you know what I mean? It's like. It's a little scary in a way to think.
Good scary, but scary to think the kingdom should actually apply into every moment of my life. And the gospel has something to say about every moment, every decision.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: It's not always. You know, sometimes it requires some reflection and some thought. It's not always. Again, it's not always turned to go, oh, thou shalt not. It's like, oh, well, that was easy. Right. But. So that's why we want to unpack some of this. So the goal of the Christian life. Yeah. Is not just avoiding sin, but glorifying Christ with our freedom.
Let's talk a bit about social media. Yeah.
[00:08:17] Speaker C: And we wanted to go to social media to start the series because I think almost every member of our church is affected or directly engaged by social media.
So this is just the water we're swimming in. It's the air we breathe. And many of us have, if we're honest, probably haven't thought very carefully about how does my use or presence on social media glorify God?
It just kind of happened to us.
You got a Facebook in college, or you got a social media account on Instagram or TikTok as soon as mom and dad would let you. And there wasn't a ton of thought behind why and how. And so that's one of the hopes of our talk today.
So rather than give you some, I think, really, like, hard and fast rules that would say thou shalt not use TikTok or you're in sin if you have an Instagram account or something that, frankly, is unbiblical and unhelpful, we want to try to give you some guiding principles to help you think through your use of social media technology, those sort of things.
To that end, Ryan, I know you've got a lot of thoughts on technology use.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: I told my wife this was the podcast. She's like, don't talk the whole time.
[00:09:38] Speaker C: But I do think, in all seriousness, I do think you've done some things really well.
Describe just a little bit, even of just your engagement, like, with your phone, some things you've done to try to fix your gaze wisely and help you set some healthy boundaries.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I will speak to that, but I want to say why that's fine, which is I'm afraid of my own heart.
My heart is deceitful above all else. And I remember a very vivid moment in high school where, you know, I basically, all my life have only really listened to Christian music. That wasn't really. Because I made a decisive choice that early on. It was just like, that's what I enjoyed. Like, people would give me, like, casting Crown CDs for my birthday, and I thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. Like, I've always been Weird. Okay. And I got to high school, and of course, you know, what high schooler doesn't do some measure of exploration.
And everybody listening to what I'm about to say is going to be stunned at this. But there was.
I happened upon a Wiz Khalifa song who's a really obscene and horrible rapper, and he has a song I'm not going to quote, but I listened to it maybe once or twice, and I could sing the chorus for you right now, and no questions asked, because it just. It attached to my heart. It attached to my brain. And I realized in that moment, okay, I got to be really careful about what I let in, because that thing attached really easily. And all of a sudden, it formed me.
And anyway, you know, there's a lot more I could say there. John Piper has a quote that I use often. I remind myself of it often. He says one of the great uses of social media in the end times will be to prove that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.
And so, you know, there have been times where I've been better on my phone and times where I've been worse, but I try not to have any games on my phone at any time.
I try to have. Really generally, I haven't had social media on my phone right now. I only have one, which is Facebook, which is like.
Well, I don't want to say it, but young people don't use it. And only nice way to say it. The only reason I have it is for Facebook Marketplace. But recently I've realized, man, I spent a lot of time there.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: And, yes, you can actually spend a lot of time.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: A lot of time there.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: There's cool stuff on there.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah, there's really cool stuff on it. It's cheap.
And anyway, the.
I don't want to be a slave to anything except a bond. Servant of Jesus.
And the way in which culture has given us a computer in our pocket, has invited us into a slavery that we didn't know we were invited to.
And that doesn't mean we don't. We just, you know, I don't think it exactly means we don't have a phone. It can mean that if it's causing you to sin over and over again, if you have to do that, cut off your hand, do it.
But I think it means we have to be actually serious about what we're allowing in our hearts, because the call of the Christian life. We've mentioned this catechism question many times. What's the chief end of man to glorify God and enjoy him? Forever. In other words, to have your affection and your gaze wholly fixed on him.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: So that actually is a perfect segue to the first principle today, which is essentially, your attention should belong to God first and foremost.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: So if you're thinking about social media and technology and that becomes the number one all consuming thought is, I need to check X, I need to check Twitter, I need to check.
Just fill in the blank, whichever one.
If that impulse starts to crop up in you, that should be a warning, like a flashing light that says, hey, does God actually have your attention above all else?
And so I think that's one of the guiding principles we think of. You shall have no gods before me. And we think idle. And I do think that's generally the number one application.
But we're kidding ourselves. I think as Americans, if many of us don't think the little metal and glass thing in our pockets isn't a God for a lot of people, I think there's a lot of people that bow down to that and spend a lot of time and energy and effort on their phones thinking about what's on their phones and what people are thinking about what they've posted on their phones.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: I'm going to build my aesthetic on my Instagram account. It's like, I don't want to be an expert at something that doesn't matter, so let's do something better and different than that. I think we're also kidding ourselves to at least not acknowledge that social media is tailor made to appeal to the ugliest desires of our heart, which is, I want to one up somebody, I want to get attention, I want to live in comparison.
That doesn't mean we can't use it. It just means we have to be honest that it is made to enslave you.
[00:14:57] Speaker C: Yeah. So I do think that's principle number two. Social media often magnifies the inclination towards comparison. And you and I know this.
Even on just the most innocent level, most of us don't want to post a picture of ourselves where we're having a horrible day, our hair's messed up, we're crying, and your hair ain't messed up. I don't ever have that issue. But, you know, the point is we don't look good.
Most people aren't going to post that photo. So what did we then think about when we watch and we scroll through countless photos of everybody smiling and looking great and on vacation, we think, man, when's the last time I had a vacation?
Why do I feel sad? Every photo I see, people are smiling and happy and looking good and healthy. What's wrong with me?
And so it just feeds constantly in the background comparison. I'm doing better than so and so. I'm not doing as well as so and so. I'm more healthy than that person. I'm not as healthy as this person. I've gotten this many vacations, that person's had more. And so you're just constantly comparing yourself in ways that, I mean, God says absolutely do not matter and are actually probably sinful.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: So then we can go back to the scripture on that one and go, oh, well, there actually is scripture that talks about that.
So we could go through to the Ten Commandments and we could go to commandment number 10, Thou shalt not covet.
[00:16:16] Speaker C: Thou shalt not covet.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: And covet, you know, was wrapped up in the idea of envy. And that is.
So then you can kind of reverse engineer it and go, is doing this thing causing me to. Or whatever, leading me into covetousness? Yes, well, yes. I just mean you can ask that of yourself.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: No, I'm saying I'm agreeing with that.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: You should. Yes, exactly. But the answer may not always be yes. Right. Like, you sure, you know, I mean, goodness for my work, I have to use social media for what we do. You know what I mean? So that's what I'm saying. We're not here to sort of go cancel all your accounts. I mean, you might be happier actually, generally very well if you did.
But like real world is that social media is a, is a, is a piece of it.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: Right. It's a tool.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: It's a tool. And so, so then. But this is how you start to get to a matrix of, okay, am I using it the right way or should I be on it right now? Right. And this again, plus social media, plus a lot of things. But you go to what the Bible does say, which is do not covet. And you go, is. Is my use of this tool really just like cycling me through covetousness over and over?
Oh, maybe I need to either just not use it for a while, change very much how I use it, ask somebody else who I think is using it wisely, what parameters they've created around using it, Various other things like that.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: Very well said. Yes.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: I think James has a very succinct statement to get at that heart condition for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist. There will be disorder and social media attacks those two things.
[00:18:00] Speaker C: Yeah. And I would just add to that another principle is, in all seriousness, if it is a tool Then it should be a tool to help me glorify God and love others. Well, not glorify myself and love myself first and foremost. And so even. And I feel this even as a pastor when I'm on, you know, I engage the really only platform I use is X.
But the algorithm knows what to feed me.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:18:28] Speaker C: And it knows, interestingly, the things that frustrate me or stir me up are the things I'm going to click on.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: I use X a fair amount right now too, but more than I should. I'm right here.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: But the for you tab at the top should just say rage bait.
Because I'm like, wow, that thing was built to make me frustrated and angry.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: And it works.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: It does work. Save yourselves all that to say. Yes. Looking at the. And man, I'm gonna. I'm butcher this quote. I don't remember who it's by, but it's the more or less the idea of it is look at what the thing is doing and you can tell what it was built for kind of thing. Like the telos of it is built into the. To what it does. Right. So the doing of it shows the purpose of it.
And again, that's probably all I need to say about that. That answer kind of reveals itself through that. So you go, what is this doing to me?
[00:19:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And so let's just be honest then. Much of social media is built for really to foster outrage, culture comparison and. Or a sense of lust of some.
Some sort. And so let's be honest, those things sell. All three of those things sell.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Well, and it also gives you the impression that people are your friends that aren't really. Which also sells.
[00:19:49] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Artificial connection stuff. Okay. So I mean, we've nearly landed on. You're not allowed to have social media. Thou shalt not. Right, right. Not quite there, I think, but. And also.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Okay, I think I can give a principle there.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: Give a principle. And I want to. I want to. Yeah. I at least want to soften the corners on that one and. And give some wisdom on how to use it.
[00:20:08] Speaker C: I would agree.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: You do have to. I mean, again, a lot of us have to use it.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: The term that Michael has used a lot and I've used as well is it's a tool.
And we use tools. Tools don't use us.
We pick up the tool to do something very specific with it.
My concern is that's happening alternatively is Facebook is owning whatever the social media is. It owns us before we actually have control over it and deploy it for.
For Good and beautiful uses.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Let me round out that idea a little more. It is a tool, a tool.
We use tools.
And tools are, I think, neutral when they're, when we're not using them.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: But you can use a hammer to drive a nail or to commit a crime or touch your finger. Yeah, or that.
But what I was going to say was that the tool does shape you.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Definitely.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: So somebody who uses a hammer all the time, their hand eventually gets stronger, right? Yeah. Somebody uses. Who, who gives up the hammer and uses just an air nailer. Gets worse with a hammer. Right. So my point is simply that tools are neutral from a certain standpoint when you're not using them because it's just a tool laying there. But the moment you use the tool, you say, what am I using it for? And how am I being shaped by using it? Right. And that. I don't think that there's a tool that we couldn't ask those questions about.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Definitely.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: So anyways, there's some, at least questions as you, as you filter through. But I think, Michael. Yeah. Maybe some more concrete stuff for us too.
[00:21:48] Speaker C: Well, just, I think the timepiece is critical. Is absolutely critical. You know, how much time do you use on your device and in particular social media?
The reality is for each of us, if we're honest, we probably spend more than we need to.
Whatever that is, whatever that looks like.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: How do you know what that is, though? Honestly? Here's the question. I would love to prescribe that. I'd love to prescribe it for a teenager.
I'd love to prescribe it for a 13 year old and, and also a 17 year old. You know what I mean?
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: Yeah. How do you, how do you even go? Because I would go. Seven hours a day is too much time.
Seven minutes a day. You could probably have a little more than that. So then where do you find it? So, I mean, I know I'm, I know I'm setting you up with.
[00:22:38] Speaker C: I'm speaking from experience and I can't remember the name of the app and it would take me a little while to find it, so I'm not going to try Now. Bark is helpful, but there's, there's one that I downloaded for myself and I can't think of the name of it.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Canopy.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: No, but it's actually just a time constraint app. And so all you do is you drag in whatever apps you want it to limit for you and then it will actually just pop up and say, your time's up. You can click, I want five minutes more. Ten Minutes more.
Yeah, you can click that. And there's a time where it's appropriate for me to click that, but the rest of the time I've got. I think it's a 30 minute timer on X. Okay. I can't use more than 30 minutes and then when that thing pops up. All right, I'm good.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: In a session or in a day?
[00:23:22] Speaker C: In a day.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: On iPhones you can. I don't know about Android, but on iPhones you can do this just with the built in screen time thing too. You can per app.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: I don't even know how to do that.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: But yeah, no, I mean, Boomer ask chatgpt, but no, you can though. I'm just saying, actually it's even built into the iPhone, so there are a lot of tools there and you can actually do that to regulate how much your kid uses of any given, you know, app or set of apps. So anyways, yes, that's your point is saying you can and ought to probably create some fences for yourself.
[00:23:56] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Because you look up and you've been doom scrolling for an hour and a half.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: I think I'm very comfortable to say you guys might push back. I think an hour is sufficient of
[00:24:04] Speaker A: an hour of what?
[00:24:05] Speaker B: An hour of social media day.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, plenty sufficient. I don't. Yeah, I think there shouldn't be many reasons to be on it for more than that for just the average person. Maybe if you. Maybe your job is literally posting for your business, whatever. But yeah, no, but even nowadays they
[00:24:20] Speaker B: have apps that you can to do that for you. You just write the post in an app that's not there. And yeah, you know, I think that that is. And you're like, man, that's so arbitrary. And I would just say, yeah, but consider that so many things that you could be doing that are good and beautiful and true.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Like it is a crisis of our time that less than 10% of Americans have completed a whole book in the last year. That's a crisis.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: I wouldn't go there with books.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: That's a crisis. It's a crisis that we don't have meals at our table more than once or twice a week. That's a crisis. You name it. It's a crisis. That we don't have more scripture memorized and more time. That's a crisis. Think about all those good things you'd be doing at that time that are being neglected because of.
[00:25:07] Speaker C: Right. And to that argument, I would just add, for millennia, people have been just fine without this stuff.
And so for the Overwhelming majority of the.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: But I need to keep my Snapchat streaks. Right? Right.
[00:25:20] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't even know again what that means.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Stupid.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: I really don't.
[00:25:25] Speaker C: But I would just say that ultimately the world. And here's the other thing that I think is so important.
It goes back to our series in Ecclesiastes. If you're really honest with yourself, no one cares.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: No one cares.
[00:25:41] Speaker C: Say that louder and no one will remember.
And it really doesn't matter.
And in fact, you won't remember how many clicks you got or how many likes you got. Next week you'll need more. You'll want it again. And the algorithm's built for that. And so I think there's a lot of wisdom to recognize how vain a lot of that is. Again, is there a time and a place where it can be a good tool? Yes.
But if we're honest, I think the majority of times, the overwhelming majority of times is that it's actually not being
[00:26:15] Speaker A: used well or a tool just that's allowable within Christian liberty to use, provided you're not sinning, lusting, coveting, hating, whatever. Right. So I mean, hate what's evil, actually.
[00:26:27] Speaker C: That's exactly right.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: What is evil? So the only other slight parameter specific that I'll give to it is I think a lot of times we find ourselves on what is social media scrolling in the little accidental moments, like waiting for an elevator, whatever.
Sometimes it feels kind of nice to have a thing to do.
I don't know that on the net we're better for that.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: It's not human.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And so here's my prescription then, is that if you're gonna use them social media, use it intentionally. In other words, don't use it accidentally, because what happens is you bumble along throughout your day, always at every idle, 17 seconds, popping out the phone, and you just do a quick scroll check and then you're buried in it, and then you're lost in it.
Know what I mean? I actually think it's almost better to just let the idle moments be idle moments and use the think.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: Use.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Yeah, think. Let be quiet.
[00:27:27] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Talk to the person next to you waiting in the elevator line.
[00:27:31] Speaker C: I'll just. I'll say this. Most of us. Yeah, they're probably actually scrolling most of us, if you were honest. What it is, is it's actually an adult pacifier, definitely.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: It.
[00:27:43] Speaker C: It's a. I need.
I just have this anxiety, this angst, and this feels good.
And so I actually would say lean into that and I'm Preaching to myself as much as anybody. I don't have all this mastered. It is easier to pull out your phone when you feel awkward in public and you're around a crowd of people you don't know. It makes you feel like you're doing something and you're busy.
But to lean into that and say, yeah, it's actually okay. I don't have to pull this thing out to feel comforted.
How about this? Christ is with me.
God is with me in this moment, and he is enough.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Good. Yeah, that's great on that one. And then. And then we'll also. We'll just jump right over to kind of like part B, maybe entertainment a little more broadly.
[00:28:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Here. Because we wanted to move this one along.
[00:28:30] Speaker C: We do.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: Yeah. But with entertainment and with social media. You mentioned it. I want to just. I want to just beat it a little more on this one. Is.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: I'll do it, whatever you're talking about.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Pick up a book. Oh, I. And I'm saying it to myself, too. I've really been trying to be more intentional about picking up a physical hard copy. Hard copy.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: I'm a purist about that.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: Forget the E reader.
You know, it was cool when Kindles came out. I had, like, a gazillion books anywhere you went, and it, like, the idea of that was cool. And that peaked a while back because that was what was cool about that, was having infinite information at your fingertips.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Like infinite books.
That's not cool anymore. I kind of hate it. Right. There's actually something beautifully limiting about a book, a physical book that you pick up and you read and you touch it. And I love smelling an old book or a new book, actually, but it has a smell.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Your.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Your. Your tablet doesn't have a smell.
[00:29:32] Speaker C: No, it doesn't.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Right?
[00:29:33] Speaker A: It doesn't.
[00:29:34] Speaker B: I hope it doesn't.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: Hope it doesn't. And so really, though, I find that sometimes if I haven't read that day or even days on end, I go, well, you know what I did do? I spent some time on X. Oh, yeah. I caught up with some headlines, you know, got rage baited a couple times.
And I didn't pick up the. One of the, like, multiple books I have going and just read a chapter of it. And so that's a gentle admonition to myself and to everyone, is set it down and pick up a real book. And if you need some book recs, maybe we'll do an episode on that at some point.
[00:30:12] Speaker C: But a lot of good books up
[00:30:14] Speaker A: in the faith at home center at Riverview.
[00:30:16] Speaker C: I want to say this because I do think this is an important clarification as we're saying these things. I'm even listening and thinking, there's places I need to grow.
None of us have this mastered. We're not here saying, look at us, we've got it all together. We're saying, as God's people, these are things we should ponder and aspire to and think carefully about. And then the last thing I would just say as a point of clarification is that we won't always agree. Exactly. That's why they're called matters of conscience.
And so, yes, where Nathan may read 35, 40 books in a year, some of the members of review may do really well to read one book. Don't be upset or offended by that.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: Start that book.
[00:31:00] Speaker C: Start the book. That's right. And that's okay. For every one of us, it will look a little different.
For some of us, it may be an hour. Some of us may say, hey, I'm doing this.
My screen time app says I'm using this nine hours a day. Cutting back to an hour and a half would be massive for me.
You know, whatever that looks like. To just take your next step.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Press into what's good there.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: And God will. And then. And this is the thing about your arbitrary one hour thing. Just if you're like, whoa, man, that sounds almost impossible.
Try it for like a couple weeks.
[00:31:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: And just see if it bears good fruit. And if it bears no good fruit, come talk to Ryan about it. But if it bears good fruit.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Wow, that was. I think I win the argument.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: That was a good recommendation. That's what I mean. There's like by, by, by the fruit of that thing.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: But I think show itself as a matter of just general help, though it doesn't help to say I'm going to go down to an hour and not have something really specific to replace that time.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: Find something.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Right. Get that book. Or, hey, we're going to watch this, you know, Christian documentary with our kids. I don't care what that thing is. But even though that's tech, either way, get the point. Like, you don't just say, I'm going to cold turkey. This could be an hour. Find something helpful, beneficial and good to actually replace.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: The only other real quick prescription I'll give. Because I think that this is just one that. I don't know. I think this is probably true for you guys. Don't look at your phone when you're laying in Your bed?
[00:32:19] Speaker C: Yeah, it's dangerous.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Plug it in wherever it needs to be. I mean, mine is my alarm, but it's like it actually is on a shelf that I have to like get uncomfortably reach off the bed to get to. So I lay it there and I can't. It's not like right next to me.
And that was kind of accidental, but actually kind of a mercy. And so I. I plug it in and I leave it alone. Don't lay in bed and scroll. Don't lay in bed and scroll. I'm going to give that as a directive. If anybody asks me what's something I should change, I would say stop laying in bed and scrolling.
[00:32:53] Speaker C: And I'll just add there's actually again, the Bible would help us, I think, in some ways in terms of when you talk about. And you think about the. The first thing out of the bed, the first thing or last thing in the bed.
The Bible actually helps us about waking up and setting our mind on the Lord and fixing our mind on him. I would also say this secularly. There's research that shows the blue light and the screen and all that is not good for rest. It is not good for helping you wind down and actually get restful sleep. And so again, it's amazing. But God's ways are best.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: And it's probably just good marital advice too.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: Preach.
[00:33:35] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: Good. Okay, Part B.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: Entertainment.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Entertainment. Are there forms of entertainment that Christians should avoid? Because entertainment itself is not bad. I think we can say that, right? It's not. Or maybe we should define. Should we do definitions. Well, honestly, what is entertainment?
Is it anything that just. You don't have to do, that brings you pleasure, you know, kind of happiness? Is that what entertainment is? Is it.
I don't know. Help me out. Understand. What's entertainment versus what's like leisure or.
Yeah, you know, I mean, is there some that you should avoid or is it all bad? Is all entertainment bad? I mean, I don't think we're ready to say that. So.
[00:34:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, the way I would classify entertainment is. Is unnecessary delight or unnecessary leisure. I actually would say that's. I think that's fair. Unnecessary relaxation.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: I mean, the very. What necessary delight.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: You don't have to have it to exist.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, that.
[00:34:41] Speaker C: And on top of that, I would say it actually. I mean, you are commanded. Delight yourself in the Lord. It is necessary to delight in God. And it is necessary to enjoy his creation appropriately.
But there are human creations, there are human screenplays. There are human things that we have created to direct our minds and fill our time that are not necessary.
What I'm getting at is those things are not, again, automatically sinful. They're not automatically edifying.
Whereas if you go out into creation and you spend time, you know, enjoying nature, taking a walk through the woods, like, there's something unique about that because you didn't put that there. You didn't do that. God did that. And even as you enjoy that creation, as you go to the beach, it should, in some small way, you're running into the creature creator dynamic. You don't do that in the same way when you watch a TV show?
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Absolutely not.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Interesting.
Interesting. I think of when we use the verb entertain.
Sometimes we say, like, oh, you know, that person's going to entertain us this evening with their music or something. If you're like, at a. I don't know, an event. Yeah. You also use it like ponder. You'll say, like, entertain this for a second. Just entertain this idea. Which is kind of an interesting usage of it there. And then it makes me think that maybe it just. I'm not doing, like, etymology, breaking down the meanings of the Latin or whatever here, but maybe it means something like allowing something to take our attention. Right.
[00:36:20] Speaker C: To fill your mind.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. To fill your mind with this thing. And again, a lot of things you fill your mind with, some of them are edifying and some of them are not edifying.
But I think it may be like something you direct your attention towards that kind of takes over it for a little while. Something like that. I don't know. I don't know. That was just a total off the.
[00:36:42] Speaker C: No, that's good.
I would just add to it when we talk about, for this conversation, entertainment, the things that God has created that you can set your mind on are generally going to be more edifying than anything that people can create that we can set our minds on.
And so that's a whole nother, almost philosophical conversation.
But at any rate, yeah, I think it's unnecessary to survival and to the enjoyment of God is how I would add it.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: So then with that loose definition, we've given it a little bit, the question is, and we'll try to move quickly through this one, is are there forms of entertainment Christians should avoid? I think that question answers itself. Yes, there are. How do you know how to avoid a particular form? How would you know?
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the most basic things here, it's the first principle that we have, is Christians have to realize that every single thing that we consume is forming us in Some way. I hear a lot of people say, well, Pastor Ron, I can watch this movie and it's not going to form me.
Nah, that's not true. That's a lie. Everything is forming you. Now, you may be able to render it useless in your heart, but everything is participating in your formation.
I remember I had a crisis when I was in college and I don't really watch movies because I'm just boring and lame. That's not really a. That's not really a convictional decision. That's just I'm boring and I don't enjoy them.
All these people are like quoting movie quotes around me. I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about.
But anyway, I remember I didn't even watch the movie, but I remember when some college buddies came back after. This would have been, I don't know, probably 2019, I think it was when the last joker came out. Oh, and they were talking about the movie. They had seen it in theaters and it was just like this really mentally sick guy going on this killing. I don't even really remember the storyline, but I remember thinking to myself, like, when did we get so desensitized that this was entertaining?
Why did they have to go so far to entertain the person?
And it's because over time we've engaged all these things on the lie that they're not forming us.
That in the end, if you watch a lot of movies nowadays that are bestsellers, there's not a lot of building of the plot and rising action and climax and then falling action and conclusion. It is just action, action, action, action, action, action.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: It's like a gluttony, weird feeling.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: Because our pleasure circuits, gluttony have been
[00:39:30] Speaker B: so overwhelmed because we forgot what was actually entertaining, what was actually edifying to the soul.
And I think we'd just be well served to just remember everything. Especially, I mean, think of the song, Be careful, little eyes. What you see, everything's forming us.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:39:48] Speaker C: And so to that end, whatever principle number one, whatever shapes your imagination does shape your heart. That is un.
In fact, our memory verse for last month, Romans 12:2, actually helps us with this a lot.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. So there's formation by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what God's will is. His good, pleasing and perfect will. There is something happening constantly. You let something in. It is shaping you in some way, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. You don't live in A vacuum. You are not omniscient and omnipresent and omnipowerful. You're just not. And so in some way it is influencing you. And just to come to terms with that, I think is actually really important.
[00:40:31] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's great. You did a good job reading that off the teleprompter, by the way.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: Whatever.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: No, good, good.
Keep memorizing those scriptures out there, folks. Good work. No, you're exactly right.
Whatever shapes our imagination, shapes our heart, that we are fools. If we think the things that we put in front of our eyes and let roll through our minds don't shape the way that we think about God's world and the people made in God's image, we're fools. And so then if you, you know, now, does that mean that you couldn't watch, for example, I'm not condemned. I'm not ready to condemn. Like all movies, of course, watching a movie or something. So does it mean that you couldn't watch a movie that had people doing something wrong in the movie?
[00:41:17] Speaker C: No, not necessarily. Yeah.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: So, I mean, because goodness, then you can't read the Bible.
[00:41:21] Speaker C: But then if you can.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Right. Like if you can acknowledge in the Bible. Right.
[00:41:24] Speaker C: Ye.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:25] Speaker C: And I think that's where, you know, if you're going to watch a movie, then part of the stewardship of that is maybe taking the time to digest it a little bit and point out what was sinful and wrong, what was good and edifying and even maybe have some of those conversations with your kids if they're watching the movie with you. Hey, where was the movie? Right. Where did this person reflect God's image in good ways? Where did they not.
What was actually a message in the movie that it's not God honoring?
[00:41:53] Speaker A: Right. And then by extension, I'll say, what if the people in the movie are doing something wrong that stirs my.
Tempts me or stirs my heart towards evil? Whether it's. Again, I mean, generally the one that you can think of is, you know, like a. Like sexuality, you know, your nudity and I.
[00:42:11] Speaker C: Which, by the way, is almost never. I can't. It is never. It is never actually helpful to any storyline whatsoever. Yeah, it's not necessary.
[00:42:19] Speaker B: Not.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: It's not necessary. I mean, so, like, I think that's an easy one to go. Well, you should just say no to those. In fact.
Yeah. You should just draw that line and be like, I'm not watching movies that depict sexuality and certainly that actually have nudity on screen.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: No. Yeah.
[00:42:43] Speaker C: John Piper has a really good quote about nudity in particular, that movies, by definition, are meant to be. They say they are acting. They are portraying something that is not absolutely, totally real, but that falls apart the moment that a naked body is fully displayed.
There's no way to do that. That is not a real human body that is on display to be devoured by lustful eyes. And so that is distinct and unique in terms of content inside of a movie. I think, yeah. There's a line we can draw at nudity that is pretty well universal.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, we could watch a movie about that depicts things like betrayal or depicts things like murder, crime and things. And you can have thoughtful conversation about those. You can wrestle with the good and evil of the person.
And generally speaking, those things don't, in the moment and after the moment, tempt you towards sin or cause you to sin. But watching, again, nudity, sexuality on screen almost without fail stirs up.
[00:43:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: Stirs up lust. Yeah. So again, that one, to me, kind of helpfully, is actually an easy one to just go, don't do that. Don't do that. And if you're. And actually, you know what's honestly kind of helpful, I found there are a lot of, like, screening different websites. IMDb, frankly, is just the Internet movie database. There's a parents guide on there that says has sex and nudity. And it's like, tells you what's in it.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: And there's Christian organizations to do that.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: Yeah, Right. So there's a lot of resources to where you don't have to go, oh, well, I couldn't have known that was in there, too. Yeah. It's like, no, you could have. And so. And so you should.
[00:44:25] Speaker C: And that's actually a good use of technology.
[00:44:26] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:44:27] Speaker C: So there you go.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: You go full circle on that.
[00:44:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
I mean, that fits with our next principle. Christians should not make peace with what God hates.
[00:44:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:35] Speaker C: And so, I mean, a classic example of this. And I mean, to my shame, I'm going to be transparent here.
There were, in my very early years, I would watch South Park. I thought it was funny.
And there were moments where they were laughing and making mockery of Jesus Christ and depicting him as effeminate and doing these things. And it's like, okay, what am I laughing at?
[00:45:02] Speaker A: Right, Right.
[00:45:03] Speaker C: And if there's something that makes me laugh that is clearly something that God would hate. I'm essentially making peace or agreeing in some small way in my heart. That's sin. That's wrong. That's not okay.
And to just, again, be Honest with yourself.
You know, overly crass comedians that are just over the top, crude and lewd, and you're laughing and patting people on the back about it. Maybe you need to pause. Maybe you need to reevaluate. Why am I laughing? What am I laughing at? And am I making peace with sin?
[00:45:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the idea of making peace with sin, like, putting it that way, because we know that we ought to be waging war on sin and evicting it from every corner of the house of our souls in which we find it, never giving it quarter. Right, right.
Hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
[00:46:01] Speaker C: There it is.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: And so if that's our posture, then we find ourselves not going, maybe this one's justifiable, like trying to make excuses for sin, but rather going, you know what? Not going to do it. Right. And again, that doesn't mean that applies to 100% of, say, example movies. Or we could say various other forms of entertainment all the.
But I think it's just a totally different posture when we approach those not going, what can I get away with without, like, you know, feeling bad or, you know, whatever? But going, am I waging war on sin?
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:37] Speaker C: Well, I need to wrap up.
[00:46:38] Speaker A: Yeah, you got to wrap up. You could just exit. We could just continue.
[00:46:41] Speaker C: You want to go ahead? I'm fine with that.
[00:46:43] Speaker B: Yeah, we could wrap it up if you want us to.
[00:46:45] Speaker C: All right.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: Michael has to slip out.
[00:46:46] Speaker C: I've got an appointment I've got to get to. But, you know, I'll just say this.
Two books that have been helpful to me.
It's. What is it? Social Media Technology and the Christian Life by Tony Rinke. Another one, Brett McCracken, excuse me, wrote Gray Matters, and he has a quote. Wisdom is more than avoiding obvious sin. It is learning to discern what is excellent. Man, that is something to think through. And so I'm going to slip out. You guys take it home.
[00:47:17] Speaker A: Okay. So you had. You were going to throw something in there.
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Yeah. On the. You know, Christians should not make peace with what God hates.
You know, if you are watching something, I'll just say one like the Bachelor or the Bachelorette, which obviously depicts sexual scenes which disintegrates God's vision of marriage and singular covenant commitment sexually to one person for one lifetime. You know, and that's enjoyable to you and not a little concerning, like, there's something wrong. There's something off in your heart.
And, you know, those things seem to be put to death.
And, you know, even if you just think about all the TV shows you watch and all the entertainment you consume. I mean, when's the last time you watched one of those where there's a husband and wife and the husband is the clear leader who's depicted as courageous, smart, joyful, cheerful, and the wife is faithfully following and supporting him in the work?
[00:48:22] Speaker A: By the time they were making films, that whole vision had more or less it been abolished from American culture for the most part.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: And so it's not only is the entertainment sometimes just explicitly bad and we should say no, but it's often not glorifying God's good designs, which means we should wrestle with it a little more seriously. Yeah.
[00:48:41] Speaker A: And then one thing that we wanted to put out there is that stories in particular hold power.
They disciple us. Right. Entertainment catechizes us, it teaches us, it shapes us. And again, that's a good and a bad. Right. Like, look at how Jesus teaches generally with stories.
[00:49:05] Speaker B: Definitely.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: And you could even say, to a certain extent, those stories have a kind of entertaining quality to them. Right. Like, I mean, they're engaging. Right. When you're. When he was telling those stories, you could imagine they would be engaging and interesting. There was a sense in which I think Jesus.
People found Jesus. I don't mean to say it in a quite this way, but almost entertaining. Right. Like, in other words, he didn't stand there in this monotone, you know, unappealing way and give directive. He wrapped his teaching into stories interactions, and then we read about them in stories. So my whole point there is simply that we ought to not discount how much stories shape us.
[00:49:49] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: And. And then. So then go at them really thoughtfully. You know, I've talked with a lot of different people about, well, where should I draw the line? Like, for my children, what kind of things should I allow my children to watch?
[00:49:59] Speaker B: That's a hard one.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: Well, at what age?
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:50:02] Speaker A: That's the other one. Should I just. As soon as they're 13, can they watch all PG13 movies now? You're like, goodness, no. Right. I only recently discovered that, you know, it was only like after.
It was after one of the Indiana Jones movies. It was the Temple of Doom. You want to hear? This is just an anecdote.
There used to be GPG and R, and it was after Temple of Doom. Have you seen Temple of Doom?
[00:50:24] Speaker B: No.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: You knew that when you were.
[00:50:26] Speaker A: I did know that they, like, tear a man's heart out. Like. Like scene, like beating heart. It is horrifying moment in a movie. And I'm like, so that was PG Crazy interpret. And actually there was some outrage and I think Spielberg or others, you know, kind of were like, yeah, maybe we should have another, like another one in between PG and R. But the point even there is I still don't trust their.
[00:50:50] Speaker B: I don't trust them.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: There's letters. I mean, those are, you know, generally helpful to go. It's R. Probably just avoid generally. Right. But yeah, I'm not gonna go, oh, okay. Well, the culture said my kid could watch this, so, you know.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah, don't trust them.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: My goodness, no. And so being thoughtful about at what age am I going to, you know, I think put this or that in front of them and those things. And then am I allowed to watch things that my 5 year old can't watch? Yeah, right, of course. Because maturity is different. So go ahead.
[00:51:19] Speaker B: I think if you go back to our previous episode, when we're talking about the family unit, I think it's important to connect that to entertainment to say, generally, families engage entertainment together. That's just a much better principle than, hey, you can go watch that TV show in your bedroom. Nah, that needs to be played in the family room where there's eyes around to see what in the world your kids are watching. Because I've had a lot of parents say, like, man, Ryan, we had this show going for a long time and all of a sudden it was playing in the living room. We're like, what in the world are they talking about? They really looped us in and so, you know, like, just allowing my home.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, there have been some animated shows that you thought were fine and maybe actually were fine. They were for a season after season.
[00:52:00] Speaker B: Then they sucked the crowd in and
[00:52:01] Speaker A: they like throw the trans kid in there or whatever. And you're like, whoa, was not ready to have a trans conversation with my 5 year old. But here we are.
[00:52:09] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:52:10] Speaker A: It's just wise that frankly, in that moment at least, you know, of course that it happened. But yeah, right.
[00:52:16] Speaker B: I'm pretty against lots of technology, access in private bedrooms in the home. I think that really does need to be a familial thing. And your kids are gonna despise you for it a little bit, but it's for their protection and so you can, you know. Cause I think it's a beautiful, you know, when kids get to high school and they want to watch a movie that maybe you've seen before, you've heard, like, hey, it's not awful, but there are some things in there I'd like to have a conversation about. Okay, watch it. And make it a family conversation, assuming it's not explicit or awful.
Watch it and have a family conversation afterwards. Hey, buddy, what did you see in there that glorified God's good designs? What did you see in there that was like, God doesn't like that?
[00:52:55] Speaker A: And I'll just say, I mean, since we're kind of riffing on this now and then, we should wrap up probably fairly soon. But there are some encouraging little things coming out in the world of entertainment that offer families good things, a great alternative. I appreciate Angel Studios a lot of what they do because there's, you know, not perfect, but like some really.
So we went and watched Young Washington at the movie theaters.
Outstanding, outstanding, outstanding. Movie. And not like it's a Christian movie. So I'm gonna give it a couple of like, handicap points and then it's outstanding, outstanding, period.
[00:53:29] Speaker B: Yeah, they did a great one on Bonhoeffer too.
[00:53:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And, and, and afterwards I found, of course I didn't take my 4 year old to that movie. There's an example.
[00:53:36] Speaker B: Right.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: But I took my 10 year old, 12 year old and 15 year old and we had some great conversation about it afterwards.
Showed some battle scenes, show some Indians dropping at some people. Right. Like, but it wasn't. Somebody asked me, was it like the Patriot level gore? I was like, no, actually. And that's, that's even a helpful distinction to hold up. Man, the Patriot you can't watch with your kids.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: It's.
[00:53:59] Speaker A: Oh, it's, you know, that kind of movie where it's like over the top levels of gore. But man, it showed battle scenes in a way that lended themselves towards conversations. This is a roundabout way of saying that it doesn't mean that you can't watch a bad thing happening in a story in a.
[00:54:17] Speaker B: There's a line there, but.
[00:54:18] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right, but. And again, we've been saying entertainment mostly we've been talking about movies, but is there anything else you want to.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Well, I just think the reason we're talking about this is because not only as parents, as individual believers, are we to not make peace with what God hates in our entertainment. If we are parents, it's also our responsibility to not show our children that we are making peace with what God hates.
And that often plays itself out in the entertainment world.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: What about video games? Let's do that one before we close.
Let's talk about that a little bit because that one is a gray area.
It is easy to go.
Don't play video games ever.
Right. Like you can do that. I'm not quite ready to do that.
[00:55:02] Speaker B: Yeah, me either.
[00:55:05] Speaker A: And then again, maybe we're distinguishing amusement versus entertainment. Maybe they're the same thing. But how do you give some guidance on video games? I mean. Cause there's like the content question, there's the time spent question, there's the. How is this shaping my. I mean, generally it's kids. I mean, some adults play video. Every once in a while I'll pick up an old vintage game.
[00:55:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, me too.
[00:55:25] Speaker A: But yeah. So how do we think? Well, about that?
[00:55:28] Speaker B: Well, that's a very long conversation.
[00:55:30] Speaker A: Kind of a guy question a lot of times too. So, you know. But yeah, you know, again, broad principles.
[00:55:34] Speaker B: Yeah, broad principle is. Again, I think that it's just, it's. It's far more wise to allow your kids to play video games that are communal in nature.
Like the difference between going in your bedroom and playing a single shooter game where you have access to the online world and anybody can talk to your son through the headphones.
And having a family Mario Kart competition, that's two vastly different ways to use the tool.
And that doesn't mean, you know, that the kid can't have a video game that he, that he likes to play.
But I think, again, think of the family unit.
Let's do these things in public, because it teaches you to share. That means you can't play your video game for six hours straight. You play for a little bit. You know, one of the. I think it was an accidental blessing is we only ever had one console in our house in the living room. And boy, there were some mega fights. I got four brothers. There were some mega fights about who it was. Basically like who gets to get up. Who gets up earliest and gets at it.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:31] Speaker B: You know, but the blessing in that was there wasn't really access in my bedroom.
And so it was a family unit deal.
And it's safer. It's much safer that way.
I think the reality is on the other side of this equation is there's not a lot of Christians making video games for our kids. No.
And so just, it's baked into the cake that there are some just really bad aims to some of those games. Like, no, I don't think your kid should play Grand Theft Auto.
[00:56:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:56:59] Speaker A: Yeah. We can just say that one should be banned.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: There's a strip club.
[00:57:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Ban that game that your kid can go to.
[00:57:03] Speaker B: And it's like a well known thing for those kids to go to that strip club in the game.
[00:57:06] Speaker A: Delete it.
[00:57:07] Speaker B: How about right kid. Your kid maybe play. Call of duty. I'm not vehemently opposed to that, but I do think it needs to be communal, just not the online world. Hey, you want to play with your buddies, that's a little different than go play with the online world.
[00:57:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, I don't want to split hairs too much on that, but I think just approaching those thoughtfully. And here's what I'll say, having walked through this a little ways already, not all the way is being willing to learn as we go on how it's being used, how it's shaping, not being an all the time, 100%, no. Because I'm. Because it's hard for me to.
Because it's hard for me to approach this thoughtfully. I'm just going to be a no, I actually don't think. I mean, there could be instances in which that's actually just better because life is wild. But I actually think walking into that going, okay, well, you know, on the Xbox we actually have a weekly report that it emails us on how many hours were spent. And there have been a couple times where I was like, whoa, hey, let's talk about that. And those conversations are good and actually allow you to kind of give some broader guidance on what are we doing with our time. Are we getting the stuff that we need to do? Are we spending some time doing things that are not screen related, whatever. So I guess my point there is simply that because this is a little bit of a gray area, it's not. There's so many dynamics to families and games and stuff and things. I think the heart of it is, and now we're talking about parents with children more. But is staying close to the heart of your children in those. And not mailing it in, not just going, yeah, not using.
[00:58:53] Speaker B: Not using as your own parental pacifier.
[00:58:55] Speaker A: Right, yeah. And going, I think it's probably fine. And not bothering to check in, not bothering to notice how. How it's shaping your child or you for that matter.
[00:59:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Right.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: And so those kinds of things, I think, because then you make course corrections, that's kind of what you do. And you go, we shouldn't have allowed that in there. We shouldn't have allowed that game on there. We're law.
[00:59:16] Speaker B: We're.
[00:59:17] Speaker A: There's too much time is happening on there. We're going to make a correction. And man, that's way better than going, I screwed it up, but I don't want to admit that to my child. And so we're just going to carry on, you know.
[00:59:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the last comment I'll make on the video game thing is, you know, do I think that a kid playing just playing video games is bad entirely in and of itself? I don't think so. I mean, some video games, yes, I don't think so. But I think I would just encourage brothers and sisters that are listening, who are parents to say, you know, we got a parent with our kids being parents in mind.
We got a parent with our kids being faithful, serious adults in mind.
[00:59:56] Speaker A: Right, Right.
[00:59:56] Speaker B: And I don't know a lot of really faithful, serious adults who are spending lots of their life on video games. That's just not real.
[01:00:02] Speaker A: Right.
[01:00:04] Speaker B: And so how do you fight that? It's like, well, son, you can play some video games. But I think also it is important for parents to give our kids meaningful things to accomplish and fight for that, aren't that? Because a lot of what those video games are inviting you into is a mission to complete.
[01:00:18] Speaker A: Right.
[01:00:19] Speaker B: And so if we can give our kids a mission to complete, that's hard, that's challenging, that's invigorating, that isn't video games. I think that the fight against video games will become lesser because we're inviting them to do hard things that are actually meaningful. Hey, why don't you go build a table, you know, whatever, and teach them how to do it. Why don't you go take a hike? Why don't you memorize a chapter of the Bible, Things that I think you've done. Well, because it's, you know, video games are inviting them to do meaningful, meaningful things, Accomplishments, alongside their friends.
[01:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah, right, Right. So which is actually what we want. We like, we want. We want to have done something great with our comrades. Right. With our friends, with our people. And so you're right, they've been so well crafted over the decades that they push that button over and over. And it feels good to push that button, of course. And so, yeah, going, let's go out into the real world with some real people and do some real stuff. Yeah, that's a great. A great admonition and a great way to pivot your kid away from just the digital, you know, suck into the digital space and losing them in that and all their wins being digital wins. Right. That's. Let your wins be real world wins.
[01:01:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And the last kind of principle I'll just make on this, it's entertainment, and then we can wrap up, is that all the things that we are called to do in the Christian life are in service to the other.
And just fundamentally, most entertainment is not training us to love One another.
It's training us to be entertained, to passively engage, and we need to use our Christian freedom to live out the one another's, not to sack a pacifier.
[01:02:12] Speaker A: That's great. And I think that at different phases of life, the temptation to abuse our Christian freedom, to just lean into just being entertained all the time looks different.
[01:02:24] Speaker B: Looks way different.
[01:02:25] Speaker A: I think it looks different for a teenager than it does for an elderly widow.
You know what I mean? And I think for everybody, at every stage we have to go, am I using this time, this gift of time and this gift of attention, my attention that I can give, I mean, to other things? Am I using that for the kingdom of God, the advancement of the kingdom, and to serve others for God's glory, or am I wrapped up in entertaining myself? Again, that's not to say that entertainment is all evil, but to say, how am I leveraging my time? And again, often we find, how have
[01:02:59] Speaker B: I served somebody else this week?
[01:03:01] Speaker A: Right. So those are good questions to ask.
It goes. And again, so we'll wrap up like, Paul gives these really helpful metrics where he says, you know, everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial.
Everything is lawful for me, but not everything builds up.
I can, you know, everything is permissible, but I will not be bound by anything.
[01:03:30] Speaker B: Yeah, don't be a slave.
[01:03:31] Speaker A: And so that even is a principle, like, am I enslaved to this? Whether it's social media, whether it's a video game, whether it's a TV show or whatever the entertainment thing is, am I bound by that? And if the answer is yes, you're bound by that. Like, if I'm being honest, I'm bound by that. Well, man, you just got your easy answer. Cut that out.
[01:03:50] Speaker B: Put it to death.
[01:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah, put it to death. And so a few helpful diagnostic questions and we'll wrap up some of those very things that we were just saying from scripture. And then some other things. Does this thing stir my affection for Christ or does it dull my affection for Christ?
Does this make temptation more likely? In other words, does it open the door to temptation, or am I slamming the door shut on temptation?
Does this feed sinful desires, or does it put to death the flesh?
Would I consume this?
This is always a gut check one.
[01:04:28] Speaker B: This is a parent question.
[01:04:29] Speaker A: It is a parent question. But, you know, honestly, it's so helpful. Would I do this if Jesus were physically sitting right next to me?
[01:04:36] Speaker B: I want to make a really cool comment on that. Yeah, please don't use that with your pastor's name.
Oh, Would you watch this if Pastor Ryan was sitting right next to you? Forget about what I think is let Jesus be the guide there. Good.
[01:04:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And again, that one is definitely like the classic.
But honestly, it is a good gut check definitely.
And then does this leave me more grateful, more oriented towards serving others, or more self focused and focused on the values that the world lifts up?
So that's a handful of things that you can ask yourself. And again, I hope and pray that the answer sometimes is like, actually this entertainment or this thing passes the test on that. This is edifying, this is good, great. Let that be part of your rest and leisure and things. But I think that we will all find that there are some things we need to trim or maybe some things that we don't need to trim, we need to like, throw in the fire.
[01:05:39] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I can think of a few already.
[01:05:41] Speaker A: And so. So we'll wrap up with that thought. Our encouragement and admonition to you is if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away.
The things that lead you away from your affection for the Lord, be happy to be rid of those things and bring things into your life personally and into your home that edify you, orient you towards serving others, and ultimately drive you and your family forward into the kingdom of God.
Until next time, further up and further in.
[01:06:21] Speaker B: We'll see you soon.
Sam n.
Lord sam
[01:08:17] Speaker C: ra.
