2 Peter | Paula Wiseman

We recently observed a TV-Free Week. I'm not sure when the official, national observance is, but we've always done it the week after the basketball tournament. (It's a good choice. The sports shows are full of golf news during that week anyway.) And I say "always" because it's been eight or ten years now. The kids are used to it. It's no big trauma for them to give up television (and movies, Hulu, YouTube and the Wii) for a week.

Every year we are reminded of a few things during TV Free Week.

We watch out of habit. The TV is always on. We turn the thing on first thing in the morning and it stays on until we turn out the lights. Most evenings, we fall asleep to it, and it turns itself off.

It is pervasive. I am amazed at how many conversations are about what we watch, even if we haven't watched anything in days.

We are careful about what we watch and what we let our children see, but I'm not completely anti-television. However, TV Free Week reminds me how we passively allow it to fill up all the white space in our lives.

So what's the spiritual application? I don't think God wants us to be passive in anything, but I also believe it's our nature. The opposite of being passive is being active or diligent. Proverbs is full of encouragement to be diligent as well as admonitions against laziness. In 2 Peter 3:14, the apostle writes, "Therefore beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless." The "these things" are the coming day of the Lord and meeting Christ face-to-face.

Every television has an off button. There's nothing wrong with choosing to use it.

Could you give up television for a week? What else do people use to fill up their 'white spaces'?

Study tip: Seek God

The ultimate purpose of Bible study is to deepen our relationship with the God who reveals Himself in its pages. He promises us ‘you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.’ (Jeremiah 29:13) It will increase our wonder and our worship of our God ‘who called you out of darkness into His glorious light’. (1 Peter 2:9)

So with each passage, each you study, ask yourself what it reveals about God or His ways. In the two quick examples I cited, we find out that God encourages us to seek Him and promises to honor every sincere search. He wants us to know Him. Ponder that for a moment or two. God… wants me to know Him… challenges me to… How could I refuse an invitation like that? How could I slack off on Bible study when God is effectively asking me to sit down with Him?

That phrase from 2 Peter gives us the gospel. God called us. He didn’t move us Himself. He called and we had to respond, but when we did, everything changed as much as it could possibly change. From darkness into light, and not just any light, His glorious light! God wants us to join Him in that light, so He calls us. How could you not love a God like that?

One more example- This one is a little more obscure. I was reading in 2 Kings this morning and hit this verse in chapter 17. “And it was so, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they did not fear the Lord; therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them.” The context is that Assyria has taken the northern kingdom into captivity and repopulated the land with people from all over their empire. These folks brought their religion with them, and when they practiced it in the Promised Land, lions came and attacked them. What does that tell you about God? Mess up church and you’ll get eaten? Maybe. I think the Old Testament consistently reveals God’s character. In this odd verse, we see that He takes assaults on His holiness very seriously. The people failed to revere Him alone, and He brought swift judgment. Thankfully for us, His grace often delays that judgment, but He has that right.

Of course, it’s always a good idea to makes notes about all these observations in your notebook.