What should Christians think about?

I always thought that Philippians 4:8 (Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.) meant that Christians shouldn't think about any "bad stuff".

Of course 10 seconds actual thinking about this would have demonstrated to me that that was a very silly way to interpret the verse! Nevertheless after labouring under an interpretive delusion for the last 17 years I have been brought to my senses by Steve Turner in his fascinating book "Imagine". He suggests, and he would know better than me about this, that Phil 4:8 has been used to deter many Christians from getting involved in the arts; because what if a Christian actor was acked to portray a scene of violence or adultery? Or a Christian painter required to spend days poring over a canvas depicting death?

As Turner points out if Christians were actually only supposed to think about "good " things then we would be prevented from reading much of the Scriptures themselves which portray horrific wars, injustices, suffering, rape, incest, cynicism, mnanipulation, idolatry and more!

So what should Christians think about? Well, and I know this counts as stating the blooming obvious, we can think about anything as long as we think about it rightly! So it's fine for Christians to think about murder as long as we think about it as a terrible thing that we shouldn't do. Christians can reflect on adultery as long as we judge it to be a wicked and destructive thing that undermines communities and devastates familes.

We live in a wicked and fallen world and we are wicked and fallen people. Thinking about that world and those people is fine, and a good job too because it's inevitable! What Paul wanted fromt he Philippians, and what God wants from us, is to think in a way that doesn't glorify that which is bad and, just as importantly, that doesn't make dull that which is good and joyful.