Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Should Christians Watch The Bachelor? | Questions You're Asking | Psalm 101.3

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're answering questions that you're asking. A lot of these are coming from our Facebook page. So if you follow 10-minute Bible Talks on Facebook, you can ask questions that you want us to answer or vote on questions that other people are asking. We've got a spicy question today. Should Christians watch The Bachelor?

Starting point is 00:00:35 Thanks for whoever sent this in on the 10-minute Bible Talk Facebook page. Feel free to go there and throw out questions of your own. Patrick doles out the questions, and I'm sure he gave me this one because he didn't want to touch it. Let's dive in and just think about it biblically, giving each of us the freedom to come up with our own answers. But hopefully as we hold our opinions up to the scripture, we will have answers that are not shaped by our intuition or the culture, but answers to this question and really all questions that we would ask that are shaped and formed by the Bible. One thing we know for sure is the Bachelor is incredibly popular. Millions of people tune in to watch either it or one of its many spinoffs. So the Bachelor,

Starting point is 00:01:20 along with Survivor, American Idol, these are the most successful reality TV shows of our day. Now, most of the time when people watch shows, they don't ask me or probably their pastor if it's okay for them to watch a particular show. But a lot of Christians do ask that question about this show, about The Bachelor. And I wonder if that reveals that Christians' consciences bother them about this show in a way that other shows don't bother them. I know this. There are lots of people with strong opinions about The Bachelor. Now, as the question came in on the Facebook page, it was should I watch The Bachelor? I'm going to change that to can I watch The Bachelor? Because should I watch it almost acts as if we ought to do it. And I mean, obviously I think the answer is that no,

Starting point is 00:02:12 there's no moral mandate to watch The Bachelor or any other television program. But when we say, can we watch The Bachelor? Can a responsible Jesus following Christian watch this show with a good conscience before God, well, I think what they're now saying is not should I, but can I, is this permissible for me to do? Is this okay? Or is this kind of out of bounds of what a good Christian should watch? So I'm not going to come down maybe as hard as you think I am on this question. I'm just going to ask you some questions, and then we'll look at a few Bible verses and see where we come out. So let me start with this. Would you want your son or daughter to participate on The Bachelor?

Starting point is 00:03:00 Would you want your son to sift through 30 women as the world watch their intimate personal conversations? Would you want your son to find a wife through competitive dating? Or would you want your daughter to compete with other women, flaunting her body and her sexuality before a television audience, hurrying through personal moments before it's the next contestant's turn? I've noticed that when people admit to watching The Bachelor, they often, not always, but they often quickly add that they just watch it to make fun of it. Is that a defense mechanism? Is that their way of saying, I realize I probably shouldn't be watching this show, but I'm trying to figure out how to justify my decision so that I can watch it anyway? I've heard some Christians say that the Bachelor promotes unchristian values, but they like to, watching it. You know, they say, I don't take it seriously. It's just entertainment. It's just something I do with

Starting point is 00:03:59 my friends. Okay, maybe. But I find that a lot of us are kind of naive in the sense that we think we are unaffected by the media that we consume. The Bible seems pretty clear that what we watch and what we think about and what we dwell on is pretty important. So in 2 Corinthians 10, Paul instructs us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. In Proverbs 1514, it says a wise person is hungry for knowledge while the fool feeds on trash. Psalm 101.3, I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. There's a voyeuristic element in our culture that I think Christians, well probably all people, but especially Christians, need to be careful of. Voyeurism is where we get pleasure in watching other people's intimate personal moments,

Starting point is 00:05:00 or somehow we get pleasure, we turn other people's pain and distress into our entertainment. We turn their problems, their intimate moments, into something that we watch as spectators and make sport of. Now, of course, voyeurism isn't singularly happening on the best. bachelor, but it does happen there. So back to my questions. Would you invite people into your home to participate in sexual immorality, say, in your living room? Well, of course not. I mean, that's ridiculous. It's weird. It's gross. Would you invite people into your home to gossip and run down other people's reputation and make petty superficial accusations? No. Would you sit with your teenagers and watch women come into your house and be treated in the most misogynistic superficial

Starting point is 00:05:55 ways? Absolutely not. Unless, unless it's called The Bachelor. And then sexual immorality and slander and petty fights and superficiality, well, that's just fun entertainment. Somehow, because it's a television show, it doesn't really have any impact on me. Yeah, right. So let's step back again and ask how the relationships produced by the Bachelor are doing. Those who end the program together, they write off into the sunset and live happily ever after, right? There's a lot of people who believe that all they have to do is meet the right person and then they will be set. There's a lot of Christians out there who are looking to meet their soulmate and they hope that if they meet the right person, they will have the kind of marriage that really satisfies them. The only thing they think standing between them and wedded

Starting point is 00:06:54 bliss is finding Mr. or Mrs. Wright. And so enter the Bachelor, where one dude gets to sift through 30 attractive women, all who are vying for his attention and affection, all he has to do is pick the one he wants to be with. In one sense, it's a lot better than dating apps, right? I mean, On dating apps, people can lie. People can post doctored photos. And of course, this isn't just men sifting through women. It's also the bachelorette and a woman sifting through men who are vying for her attention and affection. So how do all these relationships turn out? In some sense, the bachelor is what we would like life to be like. We would like to be able to sort through men or women and find the one person that we want to be with. And if we could find that one,

Starting point is 00:07:47 well, then we'd be set. Well, I'm sure you know that the success rate of lasting relationships, much less lasting, healthy marriages that come from this show, is pretty dismal. Not many make it. Not as many as you would expect. So what's the point? Well, I think the point's this. The Bachelor gives all of us, married or unmarried, men or women, all of us, an unrealistic and just to be honest and unhelpful view of what real relationships look like. It feeds this powerful narrative that we so desperately want to believe that there is a Mr. or Mrs. Wright. There is a soulmate out there waiting for us and all we have to do is find the right person. I think the bachelor and the spinoffs are emotional pornography. I mean, think about it.

Starting point is 00:08:44 Traditional pornography is extremely dangerous to our souls and our relationships. Without thinking about it any more than necessary, it's clear that normal, average, ordinary people can't live up to the expectations created by some supermodel who is then Photoshopped and appears in a magazine ad. But those same people who rightly criticize traditional pornography are evidently okay with emotional porn. We don't want people paying to stare at other people's bodies, but we're okay paying to stare at other people's emotional meltdowns. We think it's dangerous to compare your spouse physically to another man or another woman, but evidently we think it's okay to compare them emotionally or romantically.

Starting point is 00:09:34 We rightly comment that the centerfold's body is unrealistic and often touched up, but we don't readily admit that the dating life portrayed on The Bachelor is unrealistic. What normal person has access to all the fun things, all the romantic locations, all the fine meals that they do on that show? So just thinking traditionally for a moment, a wife can't compare to the image of a supermodel, and a husband can't compare to the Bachelor. Real life isn't nearly as romantic as a television show.

Starting point is 00:10:10 In real life, you have to pay bills. You have to put kids to bed. You have to mow the yard. You have to work through conflict. None of that shows up in The Bachelor, not in a real life way. It's no secret that young women make up the biggest demographic who watches the Bachelor. But regardless of the gender, regardless of the age, Does it make any sense for Christians to watch the show?

Starting point is 00:10:36 Does it make any sense for parents, Christian parents, to watch that show with their kids? I don't see how it does. In Romans 12, 2, Paul tells us to renew our mind, to renew our mind on truth. And in Philippians 4.8, Paul says, finally, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Look, I don't want to tell you that you can't watch this show. Maybe you can watch it and you have a different reaction to it. I'm skeptical,

Starting point is 00:11:21 but look, I don't know all things. Maybe this is a case where I'm wrong and you're right. But if you take what Paul says in Philippians 4-8 seriously, what you have to ask yourself is, is the Bachelor true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise? Because Paul says those are the things that we should think about. If you're able to watch The Bachelor and before God say, yeah, I think that show meets this criteria in my life, then fair enough, I'm not here to judge you. I've got enough of my own issues to work on without needing to worry about the issues that you need to work on. But if asked the question, can Christians watch The Bachelor? I think I would say, I know this,

Starting point is 00:12:12 I wouldn't be able to watch it and have a clean conscience before God. But that ultimately is up to you, and you get to decide what you think is best. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Should Christians Watch The Bachelor? | Questions You're Asking | Psalm 101.3

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