In response to Josiah’s post

This whole blog is a response to a rebuttal that was a comment for my last blog.
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I think I have a bad habit of writing stuff that isn’t exactly what I want to say…and that last post was sort of that way.

First of all, I enjoyed your rebuttal Josiah and took some interesting things from it. I know my views are sort of radical but I think I have a basis for that.

I wasn’t out to say that all art forms like movies, TV and such are bad and from the devil.

A good sum up of what I meant and wanted to say is as follows:

As a Christian, our focus should be on Christ (Colossians 3:2 “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things), and I think that at least for myself (and its gotta be sort of true for everybody because we are human and all created similarly and struggle with the same things) a lot of times media can “choke” out my potential in Christ and relationship with Christ, as it (desires and pleasures of the world) says it can do in Luke 8.

If things of the world like media can hinder us in our call to 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' by fixing our eyes on earthly things, then I don’t think its good.

Our excitement and treasure should be in Christ.

I say a lot of this because I think at one time in my life I idolized movies and TV and such and it choked out my desire for God. Something that bothered me while being a PA and Small Group leader last year was seeing people spend literally all day in front of movie after movie, but “would not have enough time” for small group or chapel…cool priorities.

Another place I get some beliefs is from Ray Comforts book “Hollywood be Thy Name”, which talks about the twisted minds and anti-Christian/God agendas of many in Hollywood, which bring up to mind Psalm 1 again (Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners …).

Some good points Josiah made:
-the Holy Spirit can speak through some things other than the Bible (very true, but it can be harder to tell when it’s the Holy Spirit or just great cinematography, but still very true)
-Jesus talked in parables and they teach us (and they are awesome. My fave author uses a lot of ‘parable’ type stories to make points. Great point JoHat.)
-The fact that Paul used culture (he quoted some dude), he did it as a chance to share the gospel. That should be our motivation.

My response for “If we confine God to simply the Bible, we partly reject the Holy Spirit's ability to speak to us in other various forms”…

It is true that God can speak to us through anything. God can teach you through media (#1 because He is God and can do whatever He wants; memorable God-teaching me experiences come from Narnia, Evan Almighty, and Facing the Giants, all of which are sort of Christian…but whatever), he can teach you through whatever he wants and doesn’t necessarily mean that we should be seeking it out (ejemplo: God can teach us through our sin, but we definitely shouldn’t be seeking out sin). And since he can do anything, he can teach us what he would teach us through media by other means.

The Bible is a 100% chance to hear God and His Word. Its can be hard to “feel” God or “feel” Him speaking through His Word, but according to Isaiah 55 the Word is not gonna come back void, because it is like precipitation watering our souls (such good imagery, the Bible truly is also a great literary work along with the Truth).

I think that as long as we are learning from the Bible and “letting the Word of Christ dwell in us richly” (Colossians 3:16) we can let God guide us how to go.