That is just slightly out of context there brother and is clipping out in mid sentence ...
If I recall correctly there is a [i]'while'[/i] in there ...

[i]... you sit around watching T.V while your family go to hell?[/i]...

Quite abit before and after that.

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Mike Balog

No problem brother, actually ... am thinking now the "while" is [i]"and[/i]"

Just a point of clarification though brother, that's all.

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Mike Balog

A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small Tennessee town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later.

As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. In my young mind, each member had a special niche. My brother, Bill, five years my senior, was my example. Fran, my younger sister, gave me an opportunity to play 'big brother' and develop the art of teasing. My parents were complementary instructors-- Mom taught me to love the word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it.

But the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spell-bound for hours each evening.

If I wanted to know about politics, history, or science, he knew it all. He knew about the past, understood the present, and seemingly could predict the future. The pictures he could draw were so life like that I would often laugh or cry as I watched.

He was like a friend to the whole family. He took Dad, Bill and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars. My brother and I were deeply impressed by John Wayne in particular.

The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind, but sometimes Mom would quietly get up-- while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places-- go to her room, read her Bible and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave.

You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions. But this stranger never felt obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house-- not from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four letter words that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home - not even for cooking. But the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often.

He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (probably too much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man-woman relationship were influenced by the stranger.

As I look back, I believe it was the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave.

More than thirty years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. He is not nearly so intriguing to my Dad as he was in those early years. But if I were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name? We always just called him TV.

As Told by Keith Currie


I hope this encourages those in favour of "no tv" to keep "guard", and I hope it helps those in favour of the TV to help to understand where the otherside is coming from.

Love Brother Ashley

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Bill

Are you guys that are against "TV" against the box that you can hook a DVD player up and watch sermons or cable/satellite?

The TV is not much different than the monitor you are looking at, you just have to control what you allow to come through it.

I don't have cable, or satalite here. I get about 3 fuzzy channels that really don't even come in. Maybe that is why I don't have a problem with the TV.

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Josh Parsley

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Mike Balog

I say get that vile thing out! How can a believer heed the words of God spoken through the prophet Isaiah and still watch the t.v.? "The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding bribes, (This is were it gets good!) that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil; He shall dwell on high..." (Isaiah 33:14-16).

What more can be said brethren?

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Bill

Like far too many things it seems it's greatly missing the point, the attempt from the outward in rather than the inside out. Just as well the only solution is turn everything into two camps ... "For\against"

Sigh ... What did our Lord speak to these matters over and over again? Not the TV, but the heart?

That is the [i]vile thing that needs to be thrown out[/i].

Hard to leave that hanging out there without making the obvious comment that if the thing has got you ... both of them need to go.

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Mike Balog