Those who watch Fox News get a different slant on things from those who read the New York Times. Viewers of the Arab TV network, Al-Jazeera get yet another take on world events. During the Iraq war, Al-Jazeera focused more on dead and wounded Iraqi children and less on the statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled than did the American news media.
Where do you get the news? Where do you get your information on important events and what they mean?
Thirty years ago I read a sermon by David H. C. Read entitled, “News from Another Network.” I don’t remember much about the sermon other than the title, but the title says it all. We Christians are those who get our news from “another network”, or at least we should.
When one reads the Bible it is immediately clear that it contains a different sort of reporting. Many of its events would not be reported in modern media, except perhaps for the National Enquirer. It is certainly true too that the biblical writers had a different slant on world events than did the rest of the world. While the rest of the world focused on events in Rome and Jerusalem, the gospel writers focused on some small towns in Galilee like Bethlehem and Nazareth. While the rest of the world was talking about Caesar Augustus and Herod, the gospel writers were talking about the girl Mary and the carpenter Joseph. While the rest of the world was focused on the powerful and the popular and the rich and the famous, Jesus said the blessed of the earth were the poor, the meek, those who mourn, the persecuted, and those who hunger to see right prevail. There is definitely a different slant on things here, or as the Bible puts it: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.” (Isaiah 55:8)
Those of us who are “in the world” but not “of the world” should be listening to another network. Things are not always as they seem to worldly eyes.
©2003 C. David Hess