Sensuality, Banality and God-Absence

One day I opened my email and was captivated by the subject of a newsletter. It was John Piper addressing a Q & A session that he had at the last conference just recently. The title goes like this "Why I Don't have a Television and Rarely Go To Movies".

That certainly aroused my curiousity and ensured that I should remember to read it. So tonight was it, I read with anticipation that newsletter. Below is an excerpt.

"I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.

If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them."

~ "Why I Don't have a Television and Rarely Go To Movies", June 25 2009, John Piper

What an exhortation to behold the glory of Christ. Reflecting on my life, I'm glad to be able to say that I do watch little TV, but more of movies. This is to me but a reminder that this world is no friend to Godliness. Almost everything in this world has been re-designed by sin to distract us away from Christ.

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

~ 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV)

May His Glory continually compel us to behold its infinite wonder and awe in spite of this increasing world of godlessness