What Television Says about Us May 12, 2008
Posted by Dave Mallinak in : Culture , add a comment
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Shhhhhh. Your television is talking. Just listen. Quiet now, everybody. Can you hear it? No, no, don’t turn it on yet. Even when it is off, it still has plenty to say.
You probably know what I mean. It speaks to you at night, when you sit down with a plate of Oreos and a mug of milk. It calls your name. It begs. It promises you a good time. “Just pick up the remote… go ahead! It won’t hurt anything. Just for a little bit. Won’t you please?”
Of course, your television talks to you when have it turned on, too. And I’m not just talking about the images on the screen, either. They talk to you, of course. But not just them. Your television talks, too. You listen, sometimes. Your television reminds you that there are other options than the one you are watching. It reminds you to check and see. You could check the TV guide. But why ask someone else? Your television is right there, promising an answer. “Go ahead, answer your curiosities. Forget what that newspaper says, I’m the expert about myself. I’ll tell you whether there is anything else worth watching. Just use your remote, and explore me for a while.” You oblige. The TV keeps its promise. And doesn’t.
Your television doesn’t just talk to you. It talks about you. We already saw that. It tells us about your priorities, about your life, about your relationship(s). It has a lot to say. More than you know. But that is not all it says. Your television talks to you, talks about you, and talks about us. It not only tells your story, but it also tells our story. The story of our culture, of the so-called “Age of Information” is projected in its glow. Listen carefully. Your television has something to say.
Driver or Passenger?
First, I would point out the fact that television really does speak about us. In a culture that talks incessantly about television, we should note this. Television actually has more to say about us than we have to say about it (as hard as that
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Television: My Story May 7, 2008
Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : Culture , 5 comments Print This Post
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Hi. My name is Kent.
I want to tell you the true story of me and television. The names will not be changed to protect the innocent. I’m not innocent. Is anyone? We could add a chapter to James and say that he is a perfect man who can control the television. A television can no man tame. But I digress.
Before I really get into this story, I want to give you a few preliminaries. First, for the last 20 out of 21 years, which is my married life, we have owned a television, but had no antennae or cable hook-up, which in California means that we don’t receive any actual television to view. We do own a combination DVD/CD player and a VCR. Second, I think television can be as dangerous as anything to us. But so can guns.
The Early Shows
OK, I grew up watching television. I watched Armstrong make his one giant leap for mankind on our black and white tube television, peering through the porch window where my brother and I slept on a very warm July late evening before my dad left for graveyard shift at the factory. Did you notice that I remembered all that and television was a positive part of it? Yes. Gilligan’s Island, Hogan’s Heroes, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, The Andy Griffith Show, Get Smart, Gomer Pyle, Petticoat Junction, Leave It to Beaver, and The Waltons strand my cultural fiber. I remember the talking heads of the Watergate hearing. I first witnessed the amazing growth of homosexual political power in San Francisco on a news program on the same black and white. I’d never go to San Francisco after witnessing that. Ooops. Many days
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What Your Television Says About You May 3, 2008
Posted by Dave Mallinak in : Culture , 7 comments Print This Post
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At the founding of our nation, if someone had told America’s forefathers that in the future, a significant part of an American’s day would be spent staring at a box in the living room, I feel fairly certain that he would have been dismissed out of hand. Somehow, it is hard to imagine that men like Franklin, Madison, Adams, or Washington would have the ability to fathom such a cultural phenomenon. Let alone imagine the possibility of it.
And no, I am not simply referring to the invention of miniature projectors of animated images. Certainly, there are many inventions of the modern era (e.g., automobiles, telephones, i-pods, and tennis shoes) that would have baffled them. I am referring, not to the invention, but to the activity of television viewing. Considering the amount of time spent on this activity, we would have had one confounded Founding Father.
Yet here we are, right smack-dab at the start of the Twenty-first century, where Television has replaced baseball as America’s favorite pastime. To borrow a line from Neal Postman’s delightful little book, we twenty-first century Americans are consumed with amusing ourselves to death.
One might say that this new pastime of ours has had an impact on our culture. That would be irrefutable. And yet, one gets the vague feeling that such a statement somehow gets off the train a few stops short of reality. Television has had more than a mere impact on culture. Television has become our
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Now This… May 2, 2008
Posted by Jack Hammer in : Children, Culture, Jack Hammer, Standards, Worldliness , 3 comments Print This Post
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Television, Smell-a-vision, Aitch-e-double-hockey-stick-A-Vision.
We can’t live with it. We can’t live without it. Some do, but most won’t. We need our nightly news-fix. We love our commercials. Quality time with the remote — Priceless. Channel surfing is the new sport. It is our babysitter, our nightly pacifier, our family unifier. Touch my couch, and you are welcome. Touch my coffee table, and you are forgiven. Touch my piano, and you are sophisticated. Touch my television, and you are ignorant, presumptious, meddling.
American culture is television. We live it. We imitate it. It imitates us. It pushes us. We push it. We follow it. It follows us. We teach with it. It teaches us. We need it. It needs us. It is us.
Should we have a television? Should we watch television? Why should we watch television? How should we watch television? What does television say about us? What does it teach us? How does it affect us.
May is televison month on JackHammer. Hard to watch while your hammering, but it makes a nice sparky arch when it explodes. Fireworks! And we aren’t even to July yet.
Stay tuned!
The New Testament Teaches Tithing pt. 4 April 29, 2008
Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : money , 13 comments Print This Post
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I’m going to write a fourth one in this series and it will be posted here in the future, or over at my blog. It is an important one, but I don’t have time to write it while I’m at a conference.
Envelope Budgeting April 27, 2008
Posted by Jeff Voegtlin in : money , add a comment Print This Post
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Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. (Proverbs 27:23
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This proverb tells us how to take care of our money. Of course, paper money is not mentioned here, but the current trading commodities are. In the Bible a man’s wealth was often measured by the number of his flocks. Think of Job right here. So, if we are going to obey this proverb, we will know the state of our money and we will watch where it goes.
There is no better way to obey this Scripture than to use an old-fashioned paper envelope system. I grew up watching my father move money around his envelopes and when I established my own home, I thought that I would not have to do that. I had a mathematical mind and was technologically “savvy.”
I learned the HARD way — my way.
Strength and Money April 25, 2008
Posted by Dave Mallinak in : money , add a comment Print This Post
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A gracious woman retaineth honour: and strong men retain riches. Proverbs 11:16
In the realm of money, a key word is “stewardship.” Stewardship is inescapable. Every person is a steward of his money. He either stewards his money faithfully, or he stewards unfaithfully. A man is either a good steward or a bad one. Retaining riches requires good stewardship, and strength.
The verse above describes two realms of stewardship - stewardship of reputation and stewardship of wealth. And since the two are juxtaposed in the text, we see that there is on some level a connection being made between honor and riches. Essentially, the Proverb teaches that our stewardship extends to every area of labor — to property, to wealth, to spouse and children, to employment, to work ethic, to reputation, to spiritual life and service, even to relationships. All of these areas can be considered wealth, and all can be considered “honor.”
A steward’s work is to maintain these. The steward functions first as a servant. He serves his Lord and Master, Jesus Christ in this way. He serves his family, his church, his employer, his country. He serves by taking good care of all that he has been entrusted with. This should be the character of every believer.
But a steward is more than a mere servant. The steward is the chief servant. He is in charge of the servants. Think of reputation as a servant. Many have, to their own undoing, made reputation a master, but reputation in its rightful place is a servant. And we are stewards of that servant. According to the verse above, only a gracious woman has the power to command reputation and
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The New Testament Teaches Tithing pt. 3 April 23, 2008
Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : money , 39 comments Print This Post
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Not every tithing advocate does the best or even an adequate job in making a Scriptural case. However, I cringe quite a bit at what is said against those who believe Scripture teaches tithing. What do you think of these?
- It is the “other side of the story” when 97% of the pulpits have pro-tithing sermons and discipline those who try to question them or ask for open discussions.
- You are playing games with statistics. Preachers have been trying to push tithing onto their congregations. . . . When are you going to learn, stop it, and go back to preaching grace-giving. . . . You are teaching by your actions that Law out-gives Grace
- Be sure and ignore my many pages of reasons to refute this argument. . . . Your principle allows YOU to be the judge of what applies and what does not. I contend that NOTHING in God’s Word about tithing from Abraham or Jacob is followed by your church or any other church today.
- Why do you give this story? It has nothing to do with tithing. Do you want to kill everybody who disagrees with you?
- Is that what you teach in your church? Do you teach your members to lay everything they own at your feet and then distribute them to every church member evenly so you can all live in a commune?
- It would work well if we could get the government involved, to make sure everyone gave his/her due. I have been conversing with officials on this matter and they recognize the work I have put into this matter. They have appointed me as a receiver to collect from all the Christians in this area.
The tone you hear is quite common in the anti-tithe people. Since I’ve been a pastor, I have found money and children to be the two most controversial
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Attitude and Money April 17, 2008
Posted by Dave Mallinak in : money , 2 comments Print This Post
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The rich man’s wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty. Proverbs 10:15
Money is important. If you don’t think so, try living without it. Jesus Christ once met a very rich young man who, according to him, had kept the law perfectly from his youth. Christ loved the young man, and challenged him to go sell whatever he had, give the money to the poor, take up his cross, and follow Christ. Judging by the young man’s response, it was easier to observe the entire law than to give up his wealth.
God’s Word has much to say about money, though not necessarily what we might think. For example, ‘conventional’ wisdom says that God blesses the poor and condemns the rich. Class warfare is one of Satan’s favorite tricks. The rich despise the poor, and the poor equally (if not greater) despise the rich. Some rich men think that the poor deserve to be poor, in part because
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The New Testament Teaches Tithing pt. 2 April 16, 2008
Posted by Kent Brandenburg in : money , 65 comments Print This Post
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The anti-tithing contingency argues like tithing is some extra-scriptural innovation to pad church accounts. Russell Kelly exalts: “Preachers have been trying to push tithing onto their congregations only since the 1870s and only since 1895 in the Southern Baptist Convention and they have failed miserably!” Here’s what Matthew Henry (1662-1714, several years before 1870) wrote in his section on the last part of Leviticus 27:
A law concerning tithes, which were paid for the service of God before the law, as appears by Abraham’s payment of them, (Genesis 14:20
I ask you to notice all the New Testament passages he cross-references. This isn’t new teaching, brethren. These posts are about what the New Testament teaches, but observe what John Gill writes about the “fifth part more” that was paid by someone for the ransom of the tithe there in Leviticus 27:31:
[B]esides giving the value for what part of his tithes he redeemed, he gave a fifth part of that sum over and above; as, supposing the tithe was worth fifty shillings, then he gave that, and ten shillings more, and so in proportion. The use of this redemption, as Jarchi suggests, was, that he might have liberty of eating it in any place: for he understands it of the second tithe, as before observed, and which was to be eaten at Jerusalem.
Gill says that he redeemed his tithe with money. Money was interchangeable
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