“We have lost our ability to see and savor the complexities of truth and the depths of simplicity. Douglas Groothuis explains the connection between this weakness and television.” 

“The triumph of the televised image over the word contributes to the depthlessness of postmodern sensibilities. … One cannot muse over a television program the way one ponders a character in William Shakespeare or C.S. Lewis, or a Blaise Pascal parable, or a line from a T.S. Eliot poem, such as ‘But our lot crawls between dry ribs / to keep its metaphisics warm.’ No one on television could utter such a line seriously. It would be “bad televison” - too abstract, too poetic, too deep, just not entertaining. … (Not only that) but the images appear and disappear and reappear without a proper rational context. An attempt at a sobering news story about slavery in the Sudan is followed by a lively advertisement for Disneyland, follwed by an appeal to purchase panty hose that will make any woman irrestible, etc., ad nauseum.”

“Therefore the man who stands before God with his weel-kept avoidance ethic and his protest that he did not spend too much time at the office but came home and watched TV with his family will probably not escape the indictment that he wasted his life. Jesus rebuked his disciples with words that easily apply to this man: “Even sinners work hard, avoid gross sin, watch TV at night, and do stuff on the weekend. What more are you doing than the others?” (see Luke 6:32-34; Matthew 5:47)”

John Piper / Don’t waste your life.