I don't know how to make this post light-hearted, so here it is. This past week I read a novel, "Outlander", that was well praised by a friend. It was a slightly-better-than trashy romance novel. Written better than most, but still ridiculous and unreal when compared with the celestial marriage that is my goal. I realized this partway through, and still wasted time reading it to the end.
Over dishes tonight I could not get this phrase out of my head, "Silly women laden with sins." If you don't recognize it, it's from 2 Timothy 3 and was written by Paul to describe the apostasy of the last days.
"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, [etc.], lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: FROM SUCH TURN AWAY. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
The italicized quote speaks to my last post about parenting. How many of us are guilty of letting ourselves be led away from the truth by others who are lovers of themselves? This sounds a lot like reality television, to be truthful.
I'm not going to choose silliness over the truth of God. I hope this doesn't come off as judgmental; please know that we all have our own struggles and I'm hoping this will be a helpful post and not harmful. I love everyone who reads here as a dear friend, or a potential dear friend.
interesting. I haven't read outlander, though I've heard about it. If it's the one I'm thinking of, I heard it was supposed to be violent, with a rape scene or something? Anyway I have a really hard time with really violent themes. I struggled with Ender's Game and Kite Runner for that reason, even though they were powerful stories. It's so hard to know which books will be uplifting or emboldening, and which will pull my soul into dark places. And then there's the "silly" factor that you mentioned. It's a fine line sometimes.
ReplyDeleteooh, good good point. I just read a book "Typical American" since I revel in immigrant stories and stories where I feel I'm actually learning something about another culture/place at the same time, but I shut the book on this poor Chinese man's family after 2 affairs, and while most the details were left out, still hands unbuttoning shirts was written well enough to provoke sensuality, and I finally threw it away. But then tonight as Jared cracked open his library book to read, I just sat wondering what actually happened in the end, and can't wait to go get the next book on hold at the library. Thanks for making me feel better about chucking the thing when I did, and for the reminder about being silly. And now we have no cable, because we're not in student housing anymore (we moved this weekend) so we'd actually have to pay for all that trashy TV, and we don't have the mula for it, so here we must read to entertain (and unpack of course, because isn't that like Christmas?) On a similar note, just watched "Hotel Rawanda" and bawled through most of it, horrified at all the atrocities in the world that happen unbeknownst to me, and I feel so ignorant to so many things and then feel ashamed of my own country/history upbringing for some reason. Anyways, while horrific, I wonder at what point one can know of world atrocities/be well informed (and to what end) and how one can stay emotionally well? Yikes! It make me want to check into Amnesty international or some foreign adoption group to see if there were kids out there who needed a good home. Oh man oh man.
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