I had to stop myself on page 30 because I wanted to share some of the precious gems I picked up to share with you all.
The book is only 107 pages but I tell you what, the 30 pages I read alone were enough to make this one of my new favorite books to read besides the Bible and Created To Be His Help Meet.
I would like to share a few things with you from these 30 pages...
Just in the 'introduction pages' this is what gems I got...
* We live in a culture that loves to be entertained at almost any cost. The word entertainment is derived from the French word entretnir which means 'to hold between'.
Many people are being held captive by the various forms of entertainment currently available.
The trouble with this captivity is that there is growing evidence of a direct relationship between the decline in common decency and the consumption of today's popular entertainment.
We are entertaining ourselves to death!
* Even if this obsession were just a problem for the unsaved world, we would still have a massive job on our hands as we navigated our way through an increasingly impolite, hardened, rage filled society raised on perversion in a box.
Unfortunately, Christians are also being massively affected by watching programs, renting videos, or viewing things on the Internet at which they would never glance twice if Jesus were sitting beside them in the room.
* God never meant for us to adopt the customs and ethics of this 'wicked and perverse generation. Romans 12:9 tell us that we are to 'abhor that which is evil' and 'cleave to that which is good'.
Television lures us to imitate and eventually become that which is not acceptable to God. If you don't believe this, listen to the young people talking next time you're around a group at church.
The English language as it is used today reflects the disorderliness of our current generation. After years of viewer indoctrination, Christians are sounding, looking, and acting worldlier than at any other time in history.
Since the book is called '10 Traps of Television' the first trap (chapter) is titled The Time Waster. I will share a few gems from that.
* How much time have you spent in Bible study today? Now compare it to how much time you've spent watching TV or using other electronic distractions such as video games or surfing the Internet. If you are an average Christian, you are probably in the hole spiritually. Instead of hiding God's Word in your heart that you might not sin against Him, you are storing up a toxic treasure trove of images that have the power to sway you to live what you see.
* If Bible study suffers, the prayer life will follow. We won't be spending time in sweet fellowship with the Lord because television dulls that God given desire causing us to draw away as we build up iniquity in our hearts through illicit viewing habits.
* The effect of television on our young people is already a concern but it is compounded when it disrupts family worship time. And when mom and dad aren't interested in their Bibles personally, they aren't going to be in a hurry to conduct a family altar.
In fact, with the TV on in the same room, who would want to think about the things of God?
* Face it: the less time you spend in the Word, in prayer, or having family altar, the less you will care about how you use or abuse the gift of time. The enemy wins by distraction!
I won't go through all the chapters but I do want to type out one more thing that I found great. It's coming from Trap (chapter) 4 which is titled Discontentment for sale.
The subtitle is labeled Mind Control at it's Finest.
* Television served no real purpose until advertisers took it over. You would have had a very hard time convincing hard working Americans of the post Depression era to sit around watching pictures flashing across a screen in a box if they could be out working instead. Prior to the TV age free time was spent reading, working with the hands on some sort of craft or sitting around the family radio.
Once people earned their money the hard way, they were not quick to part with it. The mentality of the average family of the 1940's was to save money, not spend it. Changing the minds of such a group was going to require a strong tool. That tool was television and now it's more powerful than ever.
* Advertisers target people today by markets or groups. The male group has a different type of advertising aimed at them than the women's group.
If you are a man, how many cars or trucks have you owned since you began driving? How about your father or your adult brother? Men are the favorite target markets of vehicle manufacturers. There is something about the sight of a shiny new car or truck that sends a man's hand right for his checkbook. Add a beautiful woman or two, some fancy maneuvering around curvy terrain, zero percent financing, and some music and they have hooked their big fish!
* While men are being courted by the car industry, women are targeted by the 'looks' industry. We are constantly blasted with ads for anti aging creams, hair colorings, diet pills and potions, as we start to age, menopausal magic tonics. We are never pretty enough, never have the right hair color, always need more 'powder and paint to make a woman what she ain't', and above all, no matter what we weigh, it's way too much!
* No wonder there is an epidemic of depression in our society. With women being told that they don't measure up, and their spouses also being exposed to false standards for feminine beauty, it's a real wonder women aren't collapsing from the weight of the pressure if it all.
Oh, I can go on with other things I have read within only those 30 pages so far but my fingers hurt from typing already :-)
Truly, this book is wonderful. I can't wait to finish it!
On a side note, the virtual yard sale here on On A Quest For Plain Living is not going be able to happen. :-(
We found out we ship our car June 3rd and that just doesn't leave enough time for money to come over here to my neck of the woods from America. I don't do the Paypal thing either. The less account numbers I have plastered online, the better.
I am sorry if you all were looking forward to it. I can still sell the stuff once we get settled in Texas though :-)
Tonight is the 'hail and farewell' dinner at some restaurant around here.
I took out €40 yesterday for this dinner and it cost me $65 to buy that Euro!
Well I must be going. Since I have the car today I got lots to get accomplished!
You all have a super Friday! God Bless!
Dawn
8 comments:
This is exactly why we don't watch TV! There's no TV in our livingroom ~ we refuse to have it running our lives, telling us what to think and how to behave, what to buy and what to look like.
Britain is odd about TVs ~ you have to pay a yearly television lisence and if you shut down your television connection they send the government TV Gestapo to endlessly harass you because they think you are lying! It never stops either! They constantly come to your house and demand to search it from top to bottom, inside and out. They send endless letters demanding that you pay the license... it's unbelievable! So basically you *have* to have a TV connection and you *have* to pay the license fee even if you aren't watching TV. Otherwise you are hounded and harassed and your house is endlessly searched by the government TV Nazis!!!
It used to be that the BBC played really interesting documentaries and shows but now it's all trash. Just plain trash. So many of the shows are your typical trash-shows that idolize wild sex, drugs, booze, nasty behavior, harsh rudeness... So basically in Britain you are harassed into paying for television shows that are downright dreadful and not worth your time or your money!
The UN is trying to pass a thing called "The Rights of the Child" and in it it stipulates to kids, "You have the right to access information via the Internet, the television..." Hmmm. I wonder if that means soon parents will be forced to give their kids a TV so that their little "human rights" aren't being violated?? Will I be taken to court by my own child because we don't have TV in the house?
The thing that really stinks is that while we won't have TV here in our house, our kids' friends will have TV coming out of their ears. When they go to play at someone's house I just know they'll sit in front of the TV!! The thing to do is to not let the kids go to houses where TV is rampant but in this day and age that's cause for folk to call child protective services on you!!! "Something's wrong with those parents ~ they isolate their child!!"
Wonderful wonderful post.
I am not sure if I have ever commented but I recently discovered your blog! Thank you for taking a moment of your day to post this and thats...as I am surprised that we have some connections.
We were stationed in Germany in 1990-1994. I had two sons over there and had an incredible experience living on the economy.
And I live in New Mexico...just 65 miles from El Paso Texas. Where are you going to in Texas(if I may ask)?
Well have a safe PCS and I will swing back again.
Jennifer
That looks like a really good book. We do have a t v and Jack watches it more than I do. Now I do like a good show about history and This Old House and Quilt In A Day but if I miss them it matters not! A lot of time during the day I don't even turn it on. But I wasn't always this way. I used to watch a lot of t.v. You have to be careful!
Hi Dawn! I saw your comment about this book on the Biblical Womanhood blog and had to read about it. Sounds like an interesting read!
Lauren
wow..you gave me a lot of things to think about in this post, some things I never even thought of!! Where do you get copies of this book at? Sounds like a good read...thanks for sharing!!
Jennifer
Confession - I've been a TV addict for a long time. Its a bad habit! Talk about couch-potato-itis... yep! Thanks for sharing this info. I'm gonna find a copy of this book!
There is an off switch!;-}
I agree with that but my husband doesn't :(. What can ya do! He claims that t.v. just reflects society, and if people are shallow and vain and violent, then that's what's going to be on t.v. I disagree. I think television violence only adds to the problem and perpetuates it like a cycle. Especially for young children who are so impressionable. With not only t.v. but violent video games as well to desensitize them, is it any wonder that children are becoming more violent??
I like old movies and shows where if something bad was necessary to the plot, it was mentioned or implied. They didn't show it! I really see no need to be so graphic!
I hope that book mentions about how television is a strong political tool. Many very evil organizations have paid a lot of money to "sponsor" television dramas and push thier political agendas through the story lines. Because t.v. isn't reality and doesn't necessarily reflect it, they can make the plot come out however suits them. The married women gets a divorce for selfish reasons and lives happily ever after (in real life she just sliced her lifespan literally in half) or the teenaged girl gets an abortion and goes on with her life and it's no big deal (in reality she has a 7 times higher death rate from everything from suicide to drug use).
I think it's important to talk about sensitive issues, so t.v. can be a useful tool to get information out, but my problem is WHO is giving this information and are they telling the truth. Most of the time they're not.
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