Part 1: It’s Good | Part 2: On Purpose | Part 3: Loving Your Neighbor | Part 4: Down with Slavery
As promised, here are some questions you can ask yourself as you decide how to get your entertainment, pleasure, and relaxation.
Will It Defile Me?
The Psalmist said, “I will set no wicked thing before my eyes” (Ps 101.3).
That’s good advice, even though it’s getting more and more difficult to follow in the present culture.
A little thought experiment.
When I was coming up in the 1960’s, pretty much all conservative Christians agreed that Christians shouldn’t go to movies—even the good ones, because even then you were supporting a corrupt industry. Now, I didn’t grow up in “fundamentalism,” so I’m not talking about the stereotypical “against everything” folks. These are Christians in the broad circle of evangelicalism. Today, of course, the percentages are exactly reversed: pretty much everybody agrees that it’s fine to go to movies. And in the 50 years between those two surveys, the movies have gotten a lot worse.
I promise you that I’m not making any point about going to movies; that’s not my purpose here. My point is that we are no longer repelled by the things that we used to be repelled by. Our consciences have gotten less sensitive, more leathery.
That’s what daily defilement will do to you, without your even being aware that it’s happening.
Will It Make Me Lazy?
Solomon said, “An idle soul shall suffer hunger” (Pr 19.15). And in case you need a New Testament verse to be convinced, Paul urges the Roman church not to be “slothful in business” (Ro 12.11).
Fun is refreshment to empower the return to work; it’s not a lifestyle. We can’t lie in bed all day just because it’s warm and relaxing and easy.
Will It Make Me Discontent?
The writer to the Hebrews urges them to “be content with the things you have” (He 13.5).
Playing the lottery doesn’t do that for you. Going to Vegas doesn’t do that.
That’s pretty obvious.
But some people will face the same result from less obviously tempting things, things that might well be fine for other believers: going on a cruise, following the lifestyles of rich people, even collecting things (again, if it becomes obsessive).
We’re all different, and that’s why it’s a good practice to ask yourself the question.
Will It Help Me Approve Excellence?
Let’s end with a positive one.
Paul urges the Philippians to “approve things that are excellent” (Php 1.10). And at the end of that letter, he famously encourages meditation on “whatever is true, … honorable, … just, … pure, … lovely, … commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise” (Php 4.8).
I note that this well-known list focuses on moral excellence. Nothing wrong with admiring the physical prowess of a top-notch athlete—that Simone Biles is remarkable beyond words—but in the end our most diligent observation and endeavor should involve being really good at being really good.
We ought to educate our moral standards, rather than finding enjoyment and passive relaxation in the degraded. The long view from the latter seat is nowhere you’d like to be.
Eat. Drink. Play. Love. Enjoy it all.
All to the glory of God.
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