Sunday, May 22, 2011

Sunday Quick Takes

1.  I was once warned by a pastor that "there's no such thing as harmless entertainment."  He labeled it one of the great lies of the 21st century.  I don't know that I agree 100% with that statement, but the truth is, most entertainment has a point behind it, and most of the time, that point does not fit in a Christian worldview.  I think back to the days of the Romans sometimes, when "bread and circuses" were sometimes viewed as the main needs of the masses --  entertain the masses and distract them from the costs of empire building, was the thinking behind that phrase, I believe.  We certainly enjoy our "circuses" these days, whether it be reality TV or movies or technology-based games.  The Christian worldview asks that we see past these entertainments to the things that really matter, and it does get hard to do that sometimes. 

2.  I saw a good sermon online today about putting family first and modeling our marriages on the instructions in the Bible from Genesis and Jesus in Matthew -- "leaving" one set of family (mom and dad), "cleaving" together, and "weaving" a new family from that union.  This process is an important act -- building a Christian family takes "exercise," he said, and one of those exercises is learning the love language of your mate.  So, M and I might go through the "love languages" book that we have and try to learn more about each other.  I'm not really capturing the details of the sermon, but the whole thing is available online at the following link:  http://www.gvchristian.com

3.  All this talk about pastors reminds me that Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest.  We don't do a very good job of that in this country.

4.  I watched Meet the Press this morning, and I couldn't believe how David Gregory was pressing Paul Ryan about Newt Gingrich, trying desperately to "make news" instead of letting Congressman Ryan speak for himself.  I found myself wishing for Tim Russert's more likeable approach. 

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