KILLING TIME: HOW YOU ARE HURTING YOUR CHURCH

How Netflix is everything to everyone

DISCLAIMER: Technology is a blessing from God. I could go on and on about how technology has been spiritually beneficial to me, but that would have to be a separate post. This post is about God’s gifts and their stewardship. 

Our use of time falls under the Christian teaching of stewardship. According to the Bible, a steward is someone who manages something that has been entrusted to their care. It is the role of the steward to not only care for what has been entrusted but to invest it that he may return it “with interest” (Matt 25:27). Perhaps you’ve heard it said that we are living on borrowed time. That is sort of the idea. Therefore, the Bible tells us to “mak[e] the best use of the time” (Col 4:5). Our use of time ought to be spent to the end that it glorifies God, even in the most basic, but necessary of tasks; “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor 10:31). Our earthly lives aren’t forever; “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

It is my opinion that time as a matter of stewardship is among the most neglected areas of teaching in the church. It is a matter of little conviction among many Christians. We are just not accustomed to thinking how our use of time is actually an ethical issue before God. I was particularly thinking about how our poor use of time affects the health of the local church.

Concerning the health and proper function of the local church, the Bible says that “the whole body [i.e. the church is], joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part [church member] is working properly” (Eph. 4:16). The whole church can only be healthy and function properly when the individual members do their parts. This should not be a foreign concept. The principle is true in many other areas of life. Consider sports. When an individual player or players fail to exercise self-discipline and stay healthy, the whole team suffers as a result; “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Cor 12:26)

So how do we hurt our churches? The answer should be obvious.

When we fail to personally grow spiritually through the personal disciplines such as reading God’s word, praying and “walk[ing] with the wise [in order to] becomes wise,” (Prov 13:20) we remain “unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child” (Hebrews 5:13). The consequence of being “unskilled” is that we cannot contribute to the whole as a mature and able adult since we are mere children, “infants in Christ” (1 Cor 3:1). The Bible tells us that we must “no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph 4:14). Children are theologically unstable because they are not “rooted and grounded” (v. 17). Consequently, they are seldom in a position to be a rock to anyone, they are of little spiritual help.   

In place of giving ourselves to the things of God, we are instead wasting an exorbitant amount of time on things such as Netflix and it is hurting ourselves and others. Some call it “binging,” but it is just plain and old-fashioned lack of self-control, “indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:23).

Of course, I have used Netflix as just one example out of so many other things that we can abuse and thus waste so much time on, but the result is the same, spiritual atrophy. We should be ashamed.