Hope-Filled Christian
Hope-Filled Christian
Gospel Truths vs Media Influence: Cultivating Godly Worldviews in Modern Times
Do you ever stop to consider the impact of what you see, what you expose your eyes and mind to, on a daily basis? Could the influx of violent media, gore, and aggression seeping into our lives distort our perception of the world, and more concerning, the world view of our children? This episode delves into the profound teachings from Matthew 6:22-23, exploring its relevance to our modern world, particularly in the realm of media consumption. We discuss the potentially harmful effects of violent content on children, touching on concerns about desensitisation and warped perception of reality.
When it comes to what we consume visually, mindless scrolling just won't cut it. It's time to take a mindful approach to our 'media diet' and that of our children. We delve into ways to actively monitor and guide children's media exposure and to foster a passive filter within them through the Word of God. We believe that fostering a diet of positive, uplifting content can not only build faith but also significantly shape our perception of the world according to the truths of God. Join us on this enlightening journey, learn how to establish a buffer against harmful content, and nurture a wholesome worldview in line with faith and God's truths.
Hi and welcome back to HFC. Sorry, if you may have noticed, this one is growing up late. Normally I try to have it by Wednesday morning. I was just really tired yesterday so I pushed it to today. Anyway, I'm just going to jump into this one really quickly.
Speaker 1:I think it's a really powerful verse and I feel like it's not really thought of or meditated on frequently enough. The verse is Matthew 6, verse 22 through 23. It says the eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?
Speaker 1:I've always heard you know, be careful with the eyes, what you see, but I've never specifically heard this verse, and I feel like too often it's skipped over, not even just like in a spiritual spiritual, I guess point of view, but also like in a worldly point of view. Even just people who aren't Christians have difficulty with this, and I think part of what this speaks to is not only being careful what we're seeing, but being careful what your children are seeing, or people who you're supposed to be watching out for. So one thing that I always try to tell people and it's something that's like huge on my heart is that you really need to be aware and, as I know, a lot of people like to watch these shows you really need to be aware of the effects of rated R movies, slash crime movies, where they show violence or where they show like blood and gore. It could be something as simple as, like NCIS or I don't know, castle or criminal minds or anything like that, where it's showing too much blood, too much violence. It's just it's showing things that are confusing to someone who is at a young age.
Speaker 1:When children are exposed to these kinds of videos and content, whether you're there or not, it can create issues in them mentally and emotionally, whether not explicitly saying they're confused, but to them they're experiencing this. And for a lot of little kids especially like, even if you're just like, oh, it's just in the background, they're on their you know, what's you, what's your my call, it's like they're busy doing something else, like even if they just glanced at it, they can be exposed to it, and it's been proven scientifically. So not just in the Bible where it says you know, be careful with your eye-sync right there in that verse. But scientifically it's been proven that children who are frequently exposed to it doesn't even say for long amounts of time frequently exposed to violent material, which can be anything as far as, like you know, gunshots, anything violent, bloody murder. All that kind of stuff, like all those crime, shows that people love to watch any violent material.
Speaker 1:Whether someone's being hyper-aggressive or hyper-abusive or hyper, you know, physically, emotionally, mentally, verbally, abusive, any kind of content like that can desensitize children to this kind of material. Not only can it cause social-emotional issues, it can cause psychological issues, it can cause especially if it's younger, cause mild cases of sociopathy, I don't know how to say it. But a lot of this kind of material is being seen by children because parents are like, well, I'm gonna watch the video and they're doing their own thing till it's fine and it's truly, it's not okay, it's never okay. That kind of material has an adverse effect on these children. It can create bouts of anxiety, it can cause trauma, it can scare them, it can terrify them and they have no understanding of why it's terrifying them. And I just really think it's important to be watching, or to be aware of what your kids are watching or what your students are watching or what these children are watching, and I don't think it's really taken seriously enough in their shows, whether or not it's like you know, oh well, it's a parent joke. They snuck it in, they're not really gonna get it.
Speaker 1:Some of those kids do get it, or some of those kids even hear it and then they repeat it or they mimic it and they don't understand what's wrong, because they're like well, I saw it on TV. If they didn't know, on TV they're human. A lot of these kids, especially like younger than 15 or so 15, 16, they're seeing people like them or they're seeing other human beings and for them that's educational. They're taking it as a okay, I saw it on TV, so that was okay. Especially the more younger they are, the less able they are to kind of make that difference between what is reality and what isn't. Whether or not they want to like, their brain is taking it and saying, oh, look, a human being, they're doing that, so it's, that's a possibility and that's okay for me to do. That's something that I, you know, and even if their brain doesn't tell them, oh yeah, I can do that.
Speaker 1:If someone doesn't, you know, have exposure to that kind of material, they wouldn't think of doing it. It's kind of like if you don't put the weapon in the room, the child cannot use the weapon, because they don't know how to use the weapon. They don't even know that it's a weapon. If they're unable to perceive it as scary, they're unaware that it should be scary.
Speaker 1:There's lots of things like this on child development, on the fact that children you know when they're scared, most of the times they tend or when they're like, freak out about something, most of the times they take reactions from their parents. So you like the kid drops or something, and if the parents like oh my God, oh, they freak out, it's like the child begins to freak out because they're worried. Obviously that doesn't pertain to things where it's like pain, pain is involved, that's just not but like there's certain things where kids look to parents to see how they should be reacting to something. In similar ways, we see this in videos, especially like YouTube and stuff and TikTok, where you see the kid and they're reacting a certain way, where they're like it's cute and they're like, oh, wow, my kid said this today and they like you know they calm me down or they said that that's because they've been taught to react that way and so, in a case, they're taking all this information. It's really hard to discern what kind of information they're taking from it. Some kids may be more affected by it than others. Other kids may, you know, be able to discern that it's really a matter of just being careful and not watching it at all. I mean, that's just worldly.
Speaker 1:We take it into the Bible. The Bible literally says the eye is the lamp of the body. It provides the light for your body. It is what keeps you in the light. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, meaning you're receiving too. And this isn't even pertaining to just children anymore. At this point we're talking about adults, we're talking about anybody who can see. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. And if then, the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? So we need to be careful what we're previewing. And I just happen to say children, because a lot of times, let's just be honest we're adults. We're more aware of what we can and shouldn't want. We are more experienced, or at least we should be. We have a more experience with these things.
Speaker 1:A lot of times kids are just watching stuff and not understanding what's happening and not understanding what's going on Like, for example. I was really concerned because I don't even remember when this was. I remember there was this video going around and a lot of kids were wanting to watch it because they kept hearing about it and it was this video of like someone literally getting in. You might want to see if you have kids listening. Someone was literally decapitated while this like fun song was playing. That was, it was Funky Town and it was like like Funky Town just playing in the background. So there was a point in time where people were looking up the song. They were seeing this person being decapitated. Now, someone who is, you know, very strict about what their kids are watching and previewing wouldn't have their child watch that.
Speaker 1:But let's say, a kid just happens to like the song or something, or they're listening to music, or it just pops up because it's popular, because we know that Twitter and all those social media things will pull up things like that what's popular today, and they happen to see it, or they happen to see something that mentions it, and then the curiosity comes into their mind. They're like, oh, let me go see what that is, let me go Google it. And then they end up watching that kind of video and the effect that it has on them, whether or not they're aware of it. It's desensitizing them, it's changing how they feel and it's changing subconsciously how they perceive things. And there was just so much danger in allowing kids to see all these things and allowing ourselves to see all these things with no filter, without saying you know what? This isn't something that I should be watching, and I know I'm talking mainly about kids. That's because I'm a teacher and I think it's really important to watch what the kids are watching. I mean, hearing and stuff is also important. I'm careful to use my language, but seeing we always we've heard that phrase a picture is worth a thousand words. Seeing is is is so impactful. We have to be careful what these children are seeing.
Speaker 1:On the opposite side, we can look at this in a positive way and say we should be, you know, promoting children to see more beautiful things, more amazing things, letting the kids see us interact with each other in ways, letting other people see us interacting in each other ways. That is why, you know faith isn't by works alone, but works does help someone to build faith. You're not going to get into heaven through works, but your works might help someone to understand what godly love is, because so many times a lot of us have been there where we're like struggling and we don't know who God is and someone's kind to us for no reason. It makes zero sense and we're like we begin to wonder is this the God that we're talking about? Is this why this person is different? And that starts to open up things? And while faith isn't just works, faith can't be anything without the works.
Speaker 1:If you have faith but you're not putting that faith into action, then you're not going to build your faith, and so we should be doing things that are allowing children to see the ways that we should be acting, allowing other people to see how we should be acting. If seeing these evil, perverse things are going to make our eye bad and creating us a darkness, and it says if, then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? One could argue that it would be correct the opposite way as well, that if the eye is the lamp of the body and our eye is healthy and is full of light because all we're doing is providing good material to it, like reading the Bible, showing kids how to praise and worship, showing other people how to praise and worship, then we are filling them indirectly. We are filling them with this light, with this idea of what it means to be a Christian, with this idea of what it means to be moving in faith and what worship is and what praise is, and you're inputting stuff in them and you're helping them to see and you're creating within people this light just by doing worship and praise, by praying, by going out of your way to love and speak to people kindly and just showing them the correct things, providing material, you know, sharing TikTok, videos that are about God and that kind of stuff that are verses or things like that. I just think it's really important to not only be aware of what we're watching, but to be aware of children and it's mainly geared towards children, because I work with kids and I am shocked by how many things that they are watching, and not only that, like some of the other kids will tell them to go watch this stuff because they've seen it, and so you really have to be on top of.
Speaker 1:What are your kids watching? What are your kids googling? What are your kids looking up? We kind of had this conversation in my classroom the other day and we were talking about communication. I mean, like there's so many cool things about communication, like the fact that you know we're able to access so much more information, but at the same time, it's so much easier to be overwhelmed by information, to have access to the wrong information, to have access to perverse information. There are no filters on the internet built in for us, so we have to be the active filter.
Speaker 1:We have to also instill within our kids that active filter, the passive filter, which is reading the Bible, which is experiencing that, the passive filter. That is, you know, us reading our Bible, where we have that passive filter, where there's no active filter to stop us from looking up pornography or these violent acts, or watching these violent shows, or watching these shows that are promoting things that aren't good, like drugs, sex, money, like anything that's against what the Word is saying, and allowing the Word to be like, yeah, no, that's not good. The Spirit in us to be fed by the Word and say, yeah, no, that's not good, let's not watch that or let's not observe that, let's not put ourselves in a position to see that, that we should be doing two things. We should be actively, you know, like watching and being aware of what your kids are inputting, being aware of what your kids are doing, being aware of what your kids are seeing, but also building that passive filter, which I don't mean to say that God's passive, I just mean to say like I'm not actively doing something. But I can actively share the word with these kids and make them aware of what kind of things they shouldn't be seeing, being aware of what's going on in the world and talking to them about why that isn't right, why that doesn't go along with you know what it means to be a Christian, why doesn't go along with what God has in store for us. And having those conversations and building that passive filter so that even when you're not there, there's that verse like if you teach your children in the way they should go and the ways of the Lord, they will never, when they grow old, they will not depart from it. When you build in them that passive filter, building them what they should and should not be seeing, they begin to change and they begin to kind of pull themselves away from those things and even if they're not pulling themselves away, they internally will have that spirit that has been fed by the word that is talking to them, saying you know, this isn't appropriate, this isn't what I should be doing, and they begin to feel led to kind of do something else or seek you out or something like that. I just it's something that's so heavy on my heart Just working with these kids and hearing so many things about what they're seeing and what they're not seeing and I'm not just saying for kids, but it just happens to me what's on my head right now.
Speaker 1:This applies to any human being, supplies, to any person. We should be careful of what we're, you know, receiving, should be careful about what we're inputting, what we're allowing our eyes and our brain to process, because that's a lot of processing for our brain. Not only do we take it in through our optic nerve, we're also flipping it, and then our brain is making sense of everything that we're seeing. And if we're watching too much of the wrong things, that begins to affect how we perceive the world and how we perceive what is right and what is wrong. And if that's the only kind of input that certain people have, then that's giving them this idea that the world is corrupted, the world is this or the world is that. And I'm not saying that you should teach kids, oh yeah, everything's going to be happy, so lucky, and all this stuff. But at the same time, we should give them an experience that is in line with the truths that we know about God and the truths that we know about how the word God's word in us changes us and can changes in showing them part of the community that they can be a part of, and in giving them access and promoting access to and there's always have to be biblical, but something that's appropriate for their age and appropriate for who they are.
Speaker 1:Anyway, as always, let's go ahead and end this with prayer. Dear God, I know that this was a very heavy topic, lord, so I pray that you help us to gain wisdom from this and to allow this to change our lives. Help us to be receptive to it, to plant seeds and maybe we don't understand it in this moment, but help us to begin to see what it means as our week goes on, as our lives go on, as the months go on, you know just as time goes on helping us to build our understanding of this, giving us the wisdom that is in there that maybe we're not ready to access yet, or maybe we're not able to access yet. Lord, I pray that you forgive us of our sins. Lead us not into temptation. In the name of Jesus, amen. I hope you enjoyed this episode of VHFC. Once again, I'm really sorry for posting late, but I hope you enjoyed listening. Have a God Best Week and see you next week. Bye, stay safe. You.