33. Entertainment and Leisure
“Do not love the world or anything in
the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For
everything in the world — the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes
and the boasting of what he has and does — comes not from the Father but
from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the
will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15-17).
“You adulterous people, don’t you
know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to
be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James
4:4).
“Do not be yoked together with
unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what
fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ
and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What
agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of
the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among
them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’ Therefore come
out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will
receive you” (2 Cor. 6:14-17).
How we behave in the home, how we act at work,
how we serve in the ecclesia, and how we relax in leisure are all related to the
master principles of the faith. The man who worships on Sunday may be in very
different circumstances on Monday, but he is the same man essentially. He
discovers that what is easy in the temple is not so easy in the marketplace.
This is obvious, but it must still be stressed: sometimes people are tempted to
change their manner of life when they change their location or their clothes. It
has happened that saints in the ecclesia are rather unsaintly in the home. The
fact is that in the home people have no need to put on a performance. As they
are, so they behave. It is an old saying that you have to live with people to
know them. Where people live the restraint is eased, and the outward show is
relaxed. The solemn truth is that when we are not “on show” the
truth about us is shown more surely.
If discipleship fails at home it is not likely to
be at its best anywhere else. Of all the tests, perhaps the home is the most
severe. But it works both ways — it may be severe but it has wonderful
possibilities for right development. There was the case of a young man who came
into the Truth from an unbelieving family. One day his mother said to him:
“I do not know much about your new religion, but I know this: you are much
easier to live with now.”
The home is a nursery for divine service in the
ecclesia. “Let them learn first to show godliness at home” is the
instruction of the great apostle (1 Tim. 5:4). So the exercise of true
discipleship in the home will seek for good manners, loving patience, admonition
without provocation, and strength without bitterness and anger. Home is a place
of safety and security, of joy and fellowship.
It cannot be expected that every form of
enjoyment will make us better spiritually, but it should not make us worse. It
cannot be said that every kind of play will deepen our reverence for God’s
Word, but what can be said is that it should never diminish it. The Bible has
nothing to say directly about the rightness or wrongness of various leisure-time
activities. But it does tell us about purity and fidelity and integrity, and
with these things a disciple should be concerned every day. Finally, no leisure
is right if it prevents us from being where God wants us to be, or if it leads
us where God does not want us to go.
