STARTLING! LARRY BOOKER'S Latest Message!!!(wait til you see this!!!)

[shellyboo]

Originally Posted by NotforSale

I think most, if not all of what we find on TV is in the Bible. Murder, Sex, Abuse, War, Genocide, Lying, and so on. Many feel the Song of Solomon is too graphic for immature readers. I've watched many good movies that had graphic detail, and were rated for mature audiences.

Sometimes over sheltering our perspective in life by avoiding the Arts that display the grim realities on Earth can lead to a very shallow understanding about our Planet by not uncoverving the darkness of Religion, Government, and past Rulers of evil.

One excellent movie my wife and I watched recently was "Bordertown". This was not only an eye opener of what takes place in Mexico, I realized Americans are very naive when shopping for those good prices. Rape, murder, and deep corruption are what bring many things into our homes, via the great deal.

Another movie we saw that is a heart breaker is, Tears of the Sun. This film takes you right into the heart of Africa where guerilla warfare has cancered the jungle where innocent people are slaughtered. I never knew that these men with a "Cause" would go into a village and kill everyone, cutting the breasts off of women with child, which makes the statement of stopping the future generation from surviving.

Our "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" numbness in this Culture is more damaging than trying to abstain from Truth's we can't stomach. We think we do ourselves a favor by closing our eyes to things that may be hard to bear, but knowing what really goes on can change our hearts for the better.

On the other hand, just like anything, the tool of a good program or movie can become nothing but an escape. IMO, Video Games and Internet Pornography are far worse than TV.

I so agree with this post. My son urged me the other night to watch the movie "Precious". He said he normally would of never watched this movie, but a good christian friend of his told him it was really touching. It was full of cussing, drugs, sex and physical abuse (all that this precious young girl named Precious had to face day in and day out). It broke my heart, I told my son that some of us church people are so isolated in our wonderful church services and perfect, blessed lives that we can easily forget about what so many face everyday. Maybe it wouldn't hurt any of us to make ourselves watch some of the realities other have to endure all the time. Maybe then we could get our priority right and stop worrying about meaningless things and start reaching a lost world. I want to do better.

[oletime]

Originally Posted by shellyboo

I so agree with this post. My son urged me the other night to watch the movie "Precious". He said he normally would of never watched this movie, but a good christian friend of his told him it was really touching. It was full of cussing, drugs, sex and physical abuse (all that this precious young girl named Precious had to face day in and day out). It broke my heart, I told my son that some of us church people are so isolated in our wonderful church services and perfect, blessed lives that we can easily forget about what so many face everyday. Maybe it wouldn't hurt any of us to make ourselves watch some of the realities other have to endure all the time. Maybe then we could get our priority right and stop worrying about meaningless things and start reaching a lost world. I want to do better.

kinda you gotta experience to know it ? sooo ! as one famous baseball announcer said "do i have to die before i can write an obituary?".

[*AQuietPlace*]

Originally Posted by oletime

kinda you gotta experience to know it ? sooo ! as one famous baseball announcer said "do i have to die before i can write an obituary?".

You have to be aware of it to know it.

We can live such sterilized, comfortable lives that we are completely unaware of the horrible suffering that is going on all around us.

That doesn't mean that we immerse ourselves in filth. Or watch things that glorify filth. But some of these shows can open our eyes to a lot of pain.... pain that Jesus came to heal.

[NotforSale]

Originally Posted by oletime

kinda you gotta experience to know it ? sooo ! as one famous baseball announcer said "do i have to die before i can write an obituary?".

Without experience what does a person have? Nothing.

Take away experience and the World we be one big void of Nothing.

Imagine a person with no experience in the good and the bad. No way to compare or gauge life. No failures, no wins, no trials, no repentance, no sins, no tears, no laughter, no confusion, no learning.

We live in a World where our children walk out the door with pads on every joint, proving to ourselves we worry about this thing called, Experience. We corral them into private schools, trying to shelter them from the storms of Experience.

As far as the dead are concerned, I'll never forget this one Funeral I performed. We had the casket at the Church, open for all to see the deceased. After the service and viewing, we went to the grave where this woman was to be buried.

After saying a few words, I realized these folks weren't finished. With everyone standing there they lowered the casket into the cold earth and began the actual burial. Men with shovels threw dirt into this hole as people began to wail and mourn. I was in tears until the last bit of the hole was filled. I walked away a changed man. I thought to myself, this should be done at every Funeral.

Instead, we cremate people and put them in urns. All we might see is a picture instead of an actual dead person. God forbid we’d watch the burial! Little do we know it, that we are running from Experience. We hide, dodge, and cover the pain with the fantasy of Religion, reading the Bible like a fairytale. The death of Jesus is portrayed as some beautiful thing, like a dream, not an actual Crucifixion.

[TheLegalist]

Originally Posted by shellyboo

I so agree with this post. My son urged me the other night to watch the movie "Precious". He said he normally would of never watched this movie, but a good christian friend of his told him it was really touching. It was full of cussing, drugs, sex and physical abuse (all that this precious young girl named Precious had to face day in and day out). It broke my heart, I told my son that some of us church people are so isolated in our wonderful church services and perfect, blessed lives that we can easily forget about what so many face everyday. Maybe it wouldn't hurt any of us to make ourselves watch some of the realities other have to endure all the time. Maybe then we could get our priority right and stop worrying about meaningless things and start reaching a lost world. I want to do better.

Not saying "media" does not help teach lessons but the stuff in the mainline world of entertainment? No thanks! Our kids should learn the reality of life by oursides, helping others in need. They should see how to deal with the realities of life through our own love toward others. If we need a daily TV to show the horrors of life then we are failing in our daily work to show the love of God to those who need him and our children witnessing it and it transforming there minds and hearts.

[Jeffrey]

Originally Posted by TheLegalist

Not saying "media" does not help teach lessons but the stuff in the mainline world of entertainment? No thanks! Our kids should learn the reality of life by oursides, helping others in need. They should see how to deal with the realities of life through our own love toward others. If we need a daily TV to show the horrors of life then we are failing in our daily work to show the love of God to those who need him and our children witnessing it and it transforming there minds and hearts.

Agree. That's a lame excuse to be entertained by a good story on TV. If that's someones "justifying" excuse for their legalistic culture, so they feel better about watching TV... well, that's pretty lame.

I don't watch TV to "show me the horrors of life" or so that I may "connect with the world around me better." I watch it for a good escape. A laugh. A chuckle. A tear. A scream. We all like stories.

[Jeffrey]

Originally Posted by shellyboo

I so agree with this post. My son urged me the other night to watch the movie "Precious". He said he normally would of never watched this movie, but a good christian friend of his told him it was really touching. It was full of cussing, drugs, sex and physical abuse (all that this precious young girl named Precious had to face day in and day out). It broke my heart, I told my son that some of us church people are so isolated in our wonderful church services and perfect, blessed lives that we can easily forget about what so many face everyday. Maybe it wouldn't hurt any of us to make ourselves watch some of the realities other have to endure all the time. Maybe then we could get our priority right and stop worrying about meaningless things and start reaching a lost world. I want to do better.

Language and plots help shape stories. Our house rule: if the movie/tv show is about something worthy, and it contains off-colors things as part of the story, then we discuss and consider watching. If it is only to glorify those debase things, which are no longer props to a story, but the entire point of the story, then we have better things to throw our minds in. There's plenty of entertainment that doesn't glory in sex, drugs and scandal. That doesn't mean a good movie won't have sex, drugs and scandal. Like NFS said, the Bible uses the same themes. Of course, the Biblical writers didn't just include those things for the sake of those things, but we're telling a story that pointed to an idea that was larger.

Good Will Hunting, for example. GREAT, GREAT MOVIE. However, it's full of curse words and the young man even fornicates. But that's not what the movie is about. The movie is about a young man overcoming the limitations of his environment (an environment that was accurately depicted through language and plots). The end result is a beautiful, riveting story that inspires us.

[NotforSale]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey

Language and plots help shape stories. Our house rule: if the movie/tv show is about something worthy, and it contains off-colors things as part of the story, then we discuss and consider watching. If it is only to glorify those debase things, which are no longer props to a story, but the entire point of the story, then we have better things to throw our minds in. There's plenty of entertainment that doesn't glory in sex, drugs and scandal. That doesn't mean a good movie won't have sex, drugs and scandal. Like NFS said, the Bible uses the same themes. Of course, the Biblical writers didn't just include those things for the sake of those things, but we're telling a story that pointed to an idea that was larger.

Good Will Hunting, for example. GREAT, GREAT MOVIE. However, it's full of curse words and the young man even fornicates. But that's not what the movie is about. The movie is about a young man overcoming the limitations of his environment (an environment that was accurately depicted through language and plots). The end result is a beautiful, riveting story that inspires us.

Good post. So many excellent films today that "Take you there". A couple more very strong, powerful films are "The Pianist" and "A Beautiful Mind". Both of these leave lasting impressions of stunning realities that we may otherwise have ignored.

I think one area many Americans don't understand is the concept of deep suffering. I've become more compassionate in my ministry and personal life because I am more aware of the hardships others have faced, breaking away from past boxed ideas that came from living in my world.

BTW, Good Will Hunting is a great movie.

[Jeffrey]

Even To Kill A Mockingbird, with it's sometimes base language, and vivid crimes, was a Pullitzer prize winner that was read by teenagers all over the country.

Through the eyes of Scout Finch, we accurately see a portrayal of his world as well as a classic story about rape and racial inequality.

Likewise, in Judges, they chop the victims body up into pieces and send to the tribes of Israel. But Judges is a vivid book about the realities of deposing Jesus as LORD in place of ourselves... and how far that road takes us.

[TomSlage]

This forum post AMAZES me. Let me first preface my comments by saying I read only a couple pages of this 101 page post, so if I'm missing some inside joke, PLEASE forgive and enlighten me.

I am new here. I'm a 24 year-old independent Apostolic that attended a UPC church for several years and has since departed company (amiably, my dad started a daughter work church). I accepted my call to preach at 17. And while I have heard stories of people making statements such as Jeffrey's, I've never actually seen it for myself:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey

Language and plots help shape stories. Our house rule: if the movie/tv show is about something worthy, and it contains off-colors things as part of the story, then we discuss and consider watching. If it is only to glorify those debase things, which are no longer props to a story, but the entire point of the story, then we have better things to throw our minds in. There's plenty of entertainment that doesn't glory in sex, drugs and scandal. That doesn't mean a good movie won't have sex, drugs and scandal. Like NFS said, the Bible uses the same themes. Of course, the Biblical writers didn't just include those things for the sake of those things, but we're telling a story that pointed to an idea that was larger.

Good Will Hunting, for example. GREAT, GREAT MOVIE. However, it's full of curse words and the young man even fornicates. But that's not what the movie is about. The movie is about a young man overcoming the limitations of his environment (an environment that was accurately depicted through language and plots). The end result is a beautiful, riveting story that inspires us.

Wake up my dear Apostolic friends. How can you not see that this logic leads to the same grave error in doctrine that has plagued our movement's weakest leaders for centuries: "Well, the principles are good.."?

???

The biblical recollections of actual historical events that include the basest natures of man is meant for OUR LEARNING. In other words, DON'T have anything to do with these things. And these stories, may I remind you have NOTHING to do fictional entertainment. May I quote the scripture in Romans 1:32:

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

"WOW, that movie featuring murder, adultery and hot makeout scenes was AWESOME."

???

And whatever happened to Phillipians 4:8:

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.

My God. While we ARE in a world where sin and depravity surround us and which we (through the weakness of flesh) occasionally ingest into our spiritual bodies, SHOULD WE THEN EXCUSE IT, and even seek it out? Should we then say that illicit sex, or drug use, or any other vile work of the flesh is an effective conveyor of wholesome principles? Dear God is heaven, NO, and a thousand times NO.

This thread was started back in 2007. It's now 2010. Has so much water flowed under the bridge that there are no believers that WANT the old paths? Television is a very effective outlet of fleshly indulgence, period. It's strokes the carnal nature within us that wants NOTHING of holiness, NOTHING of purity, NOTHING of the fear of God.

Is there no room for fiction then? Can there be no entertainment in the Church? Of course we can have entertainment, it's not spoken against in the Bible. But entertainment that uses ANY form of the sin as a means of accomplishing it's purpose is WRONG. I'm not going to put on my judge's robe and determine the eternal destiny of a person that watches television, but believe you me, I KNOW that person has welcomed a mortal enemy to their salvation right into their living room.

I hope I have skipped over many pages of people mirroring what I have said here.