Tag Archives: TV
Dangerous Technology!
I’m all for technology, but it can be incredibly dangerous at times, right? And sometimes technology is just a way to facilitate our laziness. I remember when one had to get up out of one’s chair and go to the TV to turn it on — and sometimes stand there holding the rabbit ears with the aluminum foil so the TV channel would come in clearer. Anyone else remember that? Have a good day!
Time for a Great Cartoon! (reality)
My, how Calvin defines “reality”! In this life, “the colors are less intense and the people are uglier.” There’s some truth to that statement, isn’t there? And this life does suffer from less action and drama that we find on TV.
But do we really want to live in a fake world governed by deodorant commercials? The challenge of the entertainment industry, one might argue, is to give us a break from reality, not to replace reality with its unreality.
Living in God’s reality is a daily challenge — and that’s partly why we need an everyday dose of God’s Word!
Time for a Great Cartoon! (achieving a lower consciousness)
How might you and I achieve a HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS in this New Year? May I suggest that we must, absolutely must be into God’s Word every day.
What Bible study practices help you to stay in God’s Word every day? What practical benefits are you deriving from such a discipline?
Time for a Great Cartoon! (environmentalism)
We are polluters at heart. We pollute our environment, our culture, and ourselves. My wife and I were watching a movie the other night (“Land of the Lost” with Will Farrell), and we were disgusted! Within the first few minutes, there were numerous vulgarities, sexual references, and even the inappropriate touching of . . . (well, you can guess). This is a movie rated PG-13. We had to turn the movie off.
It’s one thing to criticize Hollywood for its pollution, but we watch and buy 
and rent, don’t we? In my files I have a cartoon of a TV repairman holding up the cable to a lady’s TV and he says, “I’ve found the source of the stench, Ma’am. It’s your cable TV!”
Your thoughts?
If your Bible is dusty on the outside . . .
How critical is it that we read the Word of God? Many Christians, I would suggest, are not functionally illiterate (those who can’t read), but voluntarily illiterate (they can read, but choose not to).
The horseback rider circuit preacher and 
evangelist John Wesley once said: “It cannot be that the people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people.”
What have you been reading these days? My stack of books that I want to read is pretty high. I recently read Greg Viehman’s book The God Diagnosis. This is a fascinating description of how this medical doctor examined the evidence for Christ and came to Him by faith. You can find Dr. Viehman’s book here.
John Piper doesn’t have a TV set in his house! He writes in Don’t Waste Your Life:
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. . . .
Questions:
1. What books are you reading right now?
2. If you were brutally honest, on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being you are a monk living in a cave without electricity and 10 being one who has his TV on 24 hours a day), where would you rate your TV habit?
Dr. Larry Dixon
