Life Without TV
Dear Bro. Don,
There is a lot of controversy over whether having a TV is right or wrong. I know people who have TV’s and never watch more than the news, nature programs and their own home videos. Then there are others, like my husband and myself, who couldn’t just stick to that — the movies are too appealing.
I grew up without a TV. I remember whenever we went to homes with TV’s, all we wanted to do was sit and watch it. My little brother once said he would be happy to just watch commercials! I have heard a number of brothers and sisters say they decided to have a TV so that their kids wouldn’t be so fascinated by them as the novelty would wear off. They wanted to be able to teach their children how to control the TV. In my own experience, I’ve noticed that generally people who grow up with a TV at home have a TV when they set up their own homes. I admit, I couldn’t get enough of TV when I was growing up, but I soon realized the potential for harm. Now my husband and I are quite happy not to have one.
When first married
In our first year of married life, we were given an old black and white TV. We watched an awful lot of the black box in that first year. Even now there are times when we long for that cozy feeling of putting our feet up, forgetting all the pressing concerns of life and being entertained.
After a while, however, my conscience began to really bother me. We had, I confess to my shame, become regular viewers of “Knot’s Landing,” a Thursday night soap-opera. We became attached to the various characters and were caught up in their lives. I began to realize that not only were we being exposed to things Christ said we aren’t even to discuss, we were actually hoping these characters would commit sins! The story lines are so well put together, that here we were hoping so and so would have an affair! Not only that, but maybe the villain could get murdered by someone! Was this not participating in the act ourselves? Is this how our consciences become seared so that we no longer know the difference between right and wrong? We are cleverly led to believe these character’s lives become happier because of the sins they have committed!
TV removed
So we got rid of the TV. Now our lives are so incredibly busy that we often ask each other, How on earth could we have found time for TV? But we both know that we would, if we still had one. So what would lose out? Our work in the Truth? The readings? Time with the kids?
Once you have had a TV, I think there’s always a weakness for one. Those evenings when we are so tired and lethargic — if there was a TV around it would be turned on, we’d be too weak to resist. Instead, since that choice isn’t there, well — perhaps we can take extra time on the readings or read “Nazareth Revisited.”
Just recently the children and I were sick. The first thought that came into my head was how nice it would be to have a TV. We could put a movie on and take our minds off our misery. But there was no TV, so that was not an option. Instead, we put on Scripture Study Service Sunday School tapes and lay around catching up on true stories, ones God wants us to meditate on again and again. Sure, in the short term, my children would be fascinated by TV and take every opportunity to be entertained by it. But, God willing, if Christ should remain away, they will choose, as adults, to enjoy life without TV. Being without it now, their immature, developing consciences are not being desensitized to evil. Life without TV is great!!
A Mother from Ontario
Paul’s admonition is similar to the above, “Take heed, brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end” (Heb. 3:12-14).
Sin is deceitful and we are very susceptible to being hardened by it. There are a great many homes where our sister’s points should be very carefully considered. True, iniquity abounded millennia before TV was conceived, but there are very few cases in which it helps us win our warfare against sin.
(Material For Children)
Noting the shortage of Christadelphian material for children, Bro. Norm Fadelle supplies the following information on some currently available non-Christadelphian material:
Books
(ISBN number in parentheses.)
The Children’s Illustrated Bible (1-56233-106-X) Excellent photos and background, good story variety, very faithful to the text (ages 5-10).
The Beginner’s Devotional (0-945564-28-7) Very good – kids love the stories and they usually teach good lessons. Some have doctrinal errors (ages 3-10).
The Picture Bible (1-55513-863-3) Good – cartoon format, good story variety, takes liberty with the text (ages 6-12).
The Beginner’s Bible Excellent, kids love this basic Bible (ages 2-7).
Bible Animals (0-8423-1006-1) Very good – nice pictures, facts (ages 7-12).
Isn’t God Great (0-7814-0008-2) Good – very simple (ages 0-3).
ABSee How Jesus Loves Me (088070-277-X) Good – has one with the devil but nice scriptures and ideas for each letter (ages 2-5).
Read Aloud Bible Stories Vol. I, II, III (0-8024-7163-3) Very Good – little kids love these. Large pictures, good words. Vol. I has doctrinal error (ages 0-4).
Teach Me About the Bible (088070-385-7) Very good – good thoughts, pictures (ages 2-5).
My Bible Story Library (0-84076864-8)) Very good – 8 stories, small books, well written (ages 2-10).
Psalms in Song – Series 1 (Book & tape, Phone (800)545-6552) Excellent – textual songs, good music, others in series not so good (ages 2-5).
What is God Like? Excellent book – compares God’s attributes to everyday things (ages 4-10).
Videos
Family Entertainment Network
(Ph. (800)447-5958) Excellent – trueto-text cartoon style series of Old & New Testaments. Most are very thought provoking, expensive (ages 2 and up).
McGee and Me Series Very good – good lessons, kids love these (2-8).
“Bible Heroes” – Golden Book Very good – kids like them (ages 2-6).
Audio Cassettes
Adventures In Odessy Bad – lots of serious doctrinal errors.
Adventures of Woof Screen carefully – well told stories but they talk about Jesus being God and make a point of it.
( Stray Cats)
Dear Bro. Don,
I just thought you’d like to know that Bro. Guy Scullion’s article on “Stray Cats” (Feb. ’95) really hit the spot down here recently. He is exactly right: sometimes we get such a feast of the things of the Lord that, like Israel with the quails, we lose our appetite for spiritual things.
The February Tidings leads with an editorial entitled, “Attend the Bible Class.” It arrived (by slow boat, I guess) on the very day that our meeting had the worst Bible Class turnout in living memory. There may be all sorts of reasons for this, I suppose, but when measured against the arguments in the editorial, we were left with a suspicion that maybe we’re becoming, like Guy’s cat, Holstein, just a bit too well fed. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll usually conclude that reasons are really just excuses.
So the editorial and “Stray Cats” were featured in the following Sunday morning’s exhortation, together with Bro. Bob Lloyd’s “Minute Meditation” from the same issue (“To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish”). Taken together, the articles make a powerful challenge to us all to “consider our ways.” Bible Class attendance picked up greatly. We hope it continues that way - we’re following some of your suggestions and are making a few changes. The down-side to being a well-fed “ex-stray” is that we really cannot remember what it was like to starve. Bro. Guy’s article helped us to appreciate again the real value of the Lord’s love and care for us. Thank you. Maurice Beale, Wanganui, New Zealand
On a recent visit to New Zealand we were regularly asked how ecclesias handle various classes and issues in our home area. The brethren showed a keen desire to borrow any ideas that might improve their own ecclesial and spiritual life. By the same token, they had implemented some programs which we felt may be very helpful.
We came home with an excellent course for teaching first principles to those having English as their second language. They find the lessons of great assistance in teaching recent immigrants from Taiwan, the south sea islands and countries throughout Southeast Asia. We were also introduced to a “Direct Projector” which projects to a screen in full color whatever is placed on its image board. While more expensive than an overhead projector and requiring a darker setting, it is quick and convenient when teaching interested friends making it possible to readily use any resource in one’s library to illustrate a point.
In addition, we have been promised a copy of an eight-week follow-up seminar that looks like it would be an excellent follow on to the initial six-week seminar series many ecclesias are using.
Carnivores
Dear Bro. Don,
I enjoyed Bro. Alan Hayward’s article entitled “Carnivores” (July ’95 pg. 286) in which he makes an interesting case for the creation and existence of carnivores prior to the flood. I hope Bro. Alan will not be offended if I disagree with some of his comments (he did invite response!).
My view is that Genesis 1:29-30; 3:17-19 and 9:3 collectively prove that man and the animals were created herbivorous and that there was essentially no change in man’s eating habits, and possibly those of the animals, until after the flood. Bro. Alan’s contention that Genesis 1:30 (“I have given every green herb for meat”) is a basic definition of the animal food chain and that carnivores are just a higher order of herbivores, pushes the scriptural record, I think, too far.
Harmony in the garden and on the ark
Everything was harmonious in the garden of Eden when Adam lived there, consistent with a herbivorous animal population but not at all consistent with the later, violent, law of the jungle dominated by carnivores. For that matter, the animals all seem to have been similarly peaceful when they entered the ark, implying that they were still herbivores at that time.
Even after the flood, if a change occurred then, the smallness of their numbers (one pair each of “unclean” beasts) suggests that the very survival of the carnivorous species depended on a vegetarian diet, for at least a few generations, until the balance of nature could assert itself.
Pre-flood vegetarians
There are other scriptural indications that man, at least, was vegetarian right up to the flood. While quick to learn violence and bloodshed against other humans, he seems to have been content to till the unproductive ground for food (Gen. 4:12). There is no reference to “mighty hunters,” such as Nimrod (who lived after the flood [Gen. 10:9]), and there was not yet the “dread” of mankind within the animal kingdom (Gen. 9:2).
Major post-flood changes
Man’s change from herbivorous to carnivorous/herbivorous (Gen. 9:3) obviously required a change in his digestive process. Why not the animals, even if their change was more fundamental and anatomical? Bro. Alan finds this concept difficult to accept, but it is surely no more difficult or miraculous than, say, the introduction of “color” to the human race.
A distinction between the animals was made at creation when God divided them into “cattle,” “beasts of the earth” and “creeping things.” It seems likely that the carnivores were contained within the latter two groups. While the anatomies and instincts of these animals might not yet have been fully adapted to flesh-eating and killing, it is possible that their structural capacity for change was already in place.
When this transformation occurred is surely the real issue. If Tyrannosaurs Rex, a known carnivore, died in the flood, as Bro. Alan asserts, then the change must have occurred before then. Some contend that it occurred at the fall, which makes sense in view of man’s physical and moral corruption and other environmental changes resulting from his sin. But how are we to explain antediluvian man’s apparent peaceful, or tolerant, coexistence with the beasts of the earth? Did man still have dominion over the animals? Did the carnivores migrate to areas of the world uninhabitable by man, such as swamps and jungles?
It should be noted that there are other explanations for the existence of fossilized creatures, such as dinosaurs. One explanation is a pre-Adamic creation.
Implications for the kingdom age
In the kingdom, the reverse transformation among the animals, from carnivorous to herbivorous, seems reasonable to me unless, as Bro. Alan asserts, Isaiah 11:6-8 is to be taken figuratively. But why should it be, except to answer anatomical questions?
The lion eating straw like the ox is one of the more pleasing pictures of the kingdom. This change, like its predecessor, need not occur universally overnight. At the beginning of the millennium, marvelous environmental changes will surely occur relatively quickly in Israel, since the restored land is synonymous with God’s glory. But, for the rest of the world, change will come more slowly. It will be contingent, in large part, on man’s adherence to God’s law.
Hence, there may well be carnivorous lions existing at the same time as herbivorous lions, just not in the same locale. This would explain the “torn” animals of Ezekiel 44:32. Change will not be complete until the end of the millennium.
While I can see no compelling reason not to take Isaiah 11 literally, there is no reason why it cannot be taken both literally and figuratively. The harmony within the animal kingdom is consistent with the millennial rest that God has prepared for His people. The end of carnivorous aggression fits well with the subjugation of man’s sinfulness.
That immortal man, with his new spiritual body, should make meat part of his regular diet seems unlikely, although it is certainly not impossible (as demonstrated by Jesus and the angels). The Edenic model seems probable, however, with the “tree of life…and twelve manner of fruits” (Rev. 22:2) providing an infinitely satisfying source of divine nourishment.
The Levitical priesthood will be able to eat of the temple offerings (Ezk. 44:29) because they, and the rest of mortal mankind, will still be carnivorous/herbivorous. It may be expected, however, that as the human race changes from its competitive, self-centered disposition to a peaceful, God-centered society, there will be a corresponding change in their eating habits also.
Strong’s Concordance