The Means of Communication and Sound Doctrine
We know that the Lord's church is founded on the doctrine of the apostles
(And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine..., Acts of the Apostles 2:42), and the enemy of our souls desires that such teachings cease to be practiced. And for this he deploys various artifices. Contemporary means of communication have played an important role for this purpose.
These media have great importance for the formation of opinion, concepts and attitudes. Proof of this is that after catastrophes such as major floods, prolonged droughts, earthquakes, or even aid to war refugees, these means are used for a request for help, even international. Help arrives because the people were mobilized to do good. But, unfortunately, not always the action of the Media is requested to promote what is good.
There are several books, outside the evangelical environment, that question the role of mass communication media. Among many I will cite the writer Teixeira Coelho, who in the book “What is the Cultural Industry?” Brasiliense Publisher, shows that the media is capable of making culture an object of consumption. Often, its action makes people alienated, anesthetized, causing social conformism. It ends up interfering increasingly in the life of the individual, to the point that in some matters as important as ethics and citizenship are despised, and leave listeners without reaction or without critical reflection.
Daily we are bombarded with ideas about infidelities, love for interest, sex before marriage and extramarital, with advertisements that are an invitation to vanity, to lust. In them women dressed in clothing without shame and without any modesty (In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety..., 1 Timothy 2:9), exhibit their wonderful hair swaying in slow motion and men “falling at their feet”, thus transmitting pure fiction, a world of “make-believe” and this has been undermining the doctrines instituted by God to his church, which come to be seen as outdated.
We must obey the will of God and never cursed precepts of men without His Grace. When Moses was about to enter the Promised Land, he gathered the people and gave his final recommendations, reminding them that if they were faithful to the Lord and His teachings, the consequence is that they would be very happy and prosperous in the new land. However, if the people strayed from the will of God, giving ear to the wrong concepts of the peoples who would be their neighbors, the consequence is that they would not live long in that place. Therefore, Moses made it very clear that any decision would have its consequences. Deuteronomy 30:15-20.
In view of this, we young people in Restoration, who have the mind of Christ (For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16) must be concerned with what we have become accustomed to seeing (I will set no wicked thing before my eyes... Psalms 101:3), what we have fed our souls. With what we have formed our opinion, instructed our manner of living (But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, 1 Peter 1:15), our vision of the world. Whether it is by the teachings of the holy scriptures or by alienating and diabolical advertisements.
Jesse Caleb A. Sanches
jessecalebsanches@yahoo.com.br