In recent weeks there have been several movies released with the Christian audience in mind. Rather than discussing each specific movie and its strengths or weaknesses, as followers of Christ we need to remember the Biblical principles and calling that God has placed on each of our lives. The Bible is clear we are not of this world, but we are in the world and we must practice Biblical wisdom and discernment if we are to avoid the prevalent traps of the world.
How should a Believer decide what movies to see or not to
see? What books to read? What music to listen too? The test should be the same
for everything we expose ourselves and our children too. I Thessalonians
5:21-22 instructs us to … test
everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of
evil. This is not always as obvious as it may seem. If a movie is marketed
as Biblically based or intended for a Christian audience does that mean
Christians should lower their guard and automatically hold fast to it?
Whether something is marketed as Christian or not we need to
ask ourselves several questions. First,
is what I am going to see, read, or hear glorifying to God? God’s desire is for
all His followers to glorify Him.[1]
The Bible tells us among the many ways we can glorify Him we should rely on
Him, praise Him, and do everything to His glory.[2]
He desires our obedience and love which should be the outflow of our hearts
desire for Him. Are we glorifying Him when we are being entertained by the
sinful actions of others whether real or imagined? Can He be glorified when we
are watching His Truth changed to glorify someone else? We must ask ourselves,
does what we are watching glorify God?
The majority of the people living in the world today do not
believe absolute truth exists. Yet, for Christians we are told to test and
discern what is true.[3]
We know absolute truth exists and God is the source of all Truth. Therefore we
must ask ourselves this question. What does the Bible tell us about the subject
and content of the media we are considering to view? We must be cautious since we know there are
false prophets and teachers who will try to take us captive.[4]
When we examine the previews of a movie or read a summary of a book we need to
avoid focusing on the accuracy between the media and the Bible. Rather we must
look for the inaccuracies whether large or small!
We must also ask ourselves why we desire to watch, read, or
listen to this specific media. Often
times we can convince ourselves the inaccuracies don’t really matter. We might
justify our choice by thinking it could open a dialogue about spiritual things,
even if much of the content is clearly inaccurate and falsely portrays the Truth.
There might only be a little bit of inappropriate language or gratuitous
violence, in our opinion. They might portray God, just a little, inconsistent
with the Scriptures or make Jesus a little inept and forgetful in certain
circumstances. They may share part of the gospel or use words from the Bible like
heaven and ark.
I have often told the families and children I minister to
the following story to illustrate this point. If I am baking brownies for the
church bake sale I always follow my mother’s recipe since it makes brownies
people talk about for years to come. I can’t give you the whole recipe because
there are some secret combinations of ingredients. However, what sets these
brownies apart is one ingredient. Each batch of the brownies must contain a
single tablespoon of fresh dog poop. Now there is less dog poop than any other
ingredient in the recipe. Really it is just a small percentage of the
ingredients, but it just makes the brownies unforgettable.
There are well made, Biblically solid movies, unfortunately
there numbers are few. The majority of the movies marketed to the Christian
audience today do much more harm than telling only part of the story of God’s
redemptive plan for man. Instead they take truths like the worldwide flood,
angels, and Heaven and distort them in ways that can only be described as heretical.
Believers today must be on guard so they are not led astray or taken prisoner
by the philosophies and empty deceit of this world.
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