“Abstain from all appearance of evil.” (I Thessalonians 5:22)
When my father was a young man, before he had answered God’s call to preach the Gospel, he was a Sunday school teacher of teenage boys.
He, like many farmers, would go into town on Saturday afternoons. On these Saturday afternoons he would go into a local billiard hall, better known as a pool room. They served beer there but my father never drank. He just watched the pool games and talked with the other men.
On one Saturday afternoon, as he was leaving the pool room, he was greeted by a long time friend, an elderly gentleman who was a deacon and a much respected Christian in the community. His first words of greeting were, “William, I know you don’t drink and I know you don’t gamble on these games or use foul language as some men in there do. But these teen age boys you are teaching on Sunday don’t know that. And it would be easy for one of them to think you go in there to drink beer and he might think because you do it that it is alright for him also. I can’t tell you what to do but the Bible tells us to avoid every appearance of evil.”
Years later my dad told me that he never went back into that or any other pool room. He considered his testimony to be too valuable to be destroyed by a careless activity, even though he never participated.
How much do you and I value our testimony, our witness and our good name? Do your children see you watching questionable movies and TV shows?
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