The Book of _ _ _

I pictured myself ending the night updating my blog, but I wasn't expecting to update this one, oh well, there's that line again, "It's not about you..." I promise to keep the spoilers down to a minimum, but I also hope this blog entry and movie will inspire you to know more about Jesus whether you'll watch the movie or not. After all, this is the initial-G...C (God Cast...) By the time I'm actually finished this entry and posting it, hopefully you've already went and seen the movie so there isn't too many spoilers for you, but some good old fashioned commentary instead.

Speaking of lines, in the spirit of my reputation of being good at movie quotes, hehe, I will quote a line from someone close to someone dear to me you may not have heard ;)

"The life of Jesus is the life of interruptions...."

But there's something else I learned from the life of Jesus as I have been going through the spiritual exercises I need to for my Spiritual Formation course is that the life of Jesus is also one heavily dependent on God, let's dig into the text a little:

"Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes."

[The Book of Eli, Matthew 14:19]

Another thing Jesus tends to exemplify in His life I've noticed is that sometimes he has to make people uncomfortable in order to see God.

34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’[a] 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it." [The Book of Eli, Matthew 10:34-49]

This happened on a more global context in the book of Eli. My first impression upon just watching the movie having only previously seeing the trailer was that this was a "post-apocalyptic" movie. Seems to be a theme of quite a number of movies lately, perhaps no surprise that I tell you a lot of theologians have been predicting the end of the world sometime in this century. The other day when Prophet Nathan and I witnessed the vision of the "orange moon" and I was reminded of the punch line from the movie knowing when Nathan also brought it that it signified the end of the world and I was

Speaking of concepts like one I coined recently from an inspiration from my Old Testament class: Two-Fold Theological meanings. I promise to keep spoilers like this to a minimum, HA reminds me of how upset people were in Wednesday when I brought a friend to small group and people were complaining about spoilers when others were also using movie analogies to prove/express their theological passions. They ought to NEVER read my blog perhaps, haha....

Anyhow, back to "two-fold theological meanings". There is one particular context in the movie of the woman with the shopping cart who uses herself as bait to lure in victims for the bandits "in hiding". To avoid "giving it all away", let's just say that we clearly know (if you've seen it) this woman hasn't completely lost her sense of compassion. But at the same time, she reminds me of the prostitute brought up by one of the Urbana 2009 speakers, who was struggling with becoming a Christian. The story there was that she also had to raise money to support her child and did not believe she could do that if she were to become a Christian and give up "selling her body".

Likewise, the "shopping cart-bait-woman" also felt lost and trapped when she was no longer able to continue working for her original bunch of bandits. Or perhaps she has had multiple groups of employers who also treated her as property the way a "pimp" would prior to that, but it is uncertain. This reminds me of a point my Systematic Theology professor made we should never pass judgment (Matthew 7) on someone solely based on the AMOUNT they give/tithe. Because often we don't know the whole story, for example, there are many people even here in North America who either illegally employed or at least have some degree of ethical concern(s) with their jobs at one point or the other. And there are many things you would be surprised OHIP or other government issued health-coverages don't cover, take for example you may not know, that the last time I had to send for an ambulance, the government charged me $40, and that was then, fortunately at the time, the student medical insurance I was under was able to reimburse this amount. The bottom line is, only God truly has the right to judge anyone, we don't even have the right to judge ourselves.

One point that was also brought up at my last Spiritual Formation class was that sometimes God can speak through coincidences, but He doesn't always and that isn't the only way God can speak.

I'm going to paraphrase a quote from PF:

"Some people are too busy looking at their coincidences, that they don't see God..."

At the same time, I would like to believe God has been gracious enough to me to match what a Christian friend once pointed out, my gift of observation with also the key I brought up recently also: "discernment". Turns out the passage I was thinking about from "James"... as LF might say: what the hey...

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. [The Book of Eli, James 1:5]

Take for example, the other day where I stumbled across some pretty disturbing accusations on both a website that claims to be from a church/minister of some sort and also on YouTube that implicates "Lt. Swift" sings for Satan... I, NOT being the person who jumps to conclusions, even in the face of "coincidences" was initially planning to do a "research project" on this prior to the start of the school year, but unfortunately was not able to get to the *seminary* library that particular Thursday for the original intended purpose. My point here is you may not know the whole story, there is a lot more depth to my spiritual discernment than just looking at coincidences, even though at times I find spiritual "joy" in seeing God work through coincidences too... But as I mentioned in my other entries, God is boundless, so like a RHCBC theme once said: "...expect the extraordinary..." do prepare and know that coincidences are NOT THE ONLY way God can work in people's lives. Ever heard about modern day resurrection stories? I HAVE... In fact, I even read about one in an article by an anonymous writer at *seminary* the other day. Previously in the pulpit, never experienced or know anyone personally, but I accept it "on faith" which is another "cool" thing you'll see if you watch the movie, but my "spoiler-sense" is tingling. My point here is similar to how the bible describes itself as being "living and active" and more than just words on a page (Hebrews 4:12). The true power from the word comes from it being a part of our lived experiences, it is not just an item of worship in itself like the way the Pharisees in Jesus' time handled the word and there is one character in the movie who eventually became a worshiper of just the word as well. The main character, _ _ _ had to figure this out for himself as well in the movie in a real and personal way.

There is one somewhat mandatory spoiler here that I need to mention within the context of this movie, all of the world's bibles have been burned. The remnant is not sure "why", but turns out they may have at least partially blamed Christianity/Religion for the war in the first place. Shouldn't come as a big surprise... People have been killing each other since the dawn of humanity and people have tried to do it under the pretense of doing it in God's name millennia before Christ came down to Earth.

But isn't that how things turn out sometimes? We don't realize the value of something at times till it's gone. I know at least a few Christians right now who don't even read the bible on a regular basis. On the other hand, I read the bible on a daily basis and often read this blog as well. So this kind of is where the connection is, the Word of God is "living and active" (Hebrews 4:12)... it's not just something written in a book. Of course I think the author of the story line of the movie wanted to perhaps indicate that it was more than the bibles that were burned, but also the message and values behind it. Pretty sad to see they blamed the bible somehow perhaps for their devastated world. Even though it was a post-apocalyptic society, the people lived as though they started their society before the laws of the bible even came into place.

"God's Word is consequently not the Bible in and by itself but the correlation of Scripture and Spirit (Barth)." [Donald G. Bloesch, Essentials of Evangelical Theology, pg. 53]

"Do not seek the Spirit through solitude or through prayer, but read Scripture. When a man feels that what he is reading is pleasing to him, let him give thanks; for these are the first fruits of the Spirit." [Martin Luther, Luther's Works, vol.29, pg. 83]

One of the admirable things about _ _ _ is even though _ _ _ was faced with a lot of difficulty he still "stay(ed) the course" on where God wanted him to go. Sometimes we hit that snag on the wall ourselves at times, we get into situations where we often are asking ourselves, God why me? Perhaps we've been in a "Christian comfort zone" for too long that we begin to think that God only loves us when he "blesses" us or we expect that he will "bless" us because he loves us. Due to our sinful outlook on things (John 9), we often as my systematic theology professor would put it have the wrong conception of what is a blessing and a curse. The example he gave was a church who said that God blessed them with three hundred thousand dollars and then they came up with three hundred thousand different ideas on what to do with that money. This is something the disciples of Jesus inevitably had to learn the hard way. The followed Jesus at first while witnessing Jesus do all these miracles and healing people only to eventually end up watching their savior be tried and then hung on a cross which caused them to initially scatter (Matthew 26:33-35, Luke 22:31-33, Matthew 26:56). Or maybe you have been preached a gospel where you were told God wants to give you blessings, that God will give your hearts' desire (Psalms 37:4). But what if God doesn't? Where will you turn to then? Just like Paul who prayed God would take away the "thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan" (2 Cor 12:7-9). Sometimes as another Pastor put it, God needs us to "suffer well" in order to truly develop the character he wants us to have.

Our lives are
not always filled with
joy, happiness and
strength.

We know brokenness and pain, alienation and confusion, doubt and the absence of God. When we feel God has abandoned us we easily identity with the words of Jesus as he was dying on the cross "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps.22:2). This is the Prayer of Lament!

[David Sherbino, re: connect. Spiritual Exercises to Develop Intimacy with God, pg. 61]

I now move on to as the speaker in Urbana 2009 put it, a "more personal application" of the movie. I finished writing the other entry here in January before this one and I am starting to see now God still has his blessing in the things I had to be called to endure. It is a sad thing that too many people, including some Christians actually have it wrong and either don't believe in God or cease to love and believe in Him when things take a turn for the worse. But I thank God that He is counting me among the faithful and there are things He is allowing me to endure:

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.
Now I pray to God that you do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified.
[The Book of _ _ _ ]

After watching it, I've also realized that there are no limits to how God may choose to use one's gifts in fulfilling his purposes. There may be many things you currently have in your life that you don't feel are gifts, but you never know when God may call on you to use them in the future. That is one of the highlights of this story. So whatever it is you are talented at or you feel you are not so talented at, remember that just like _ _ _, you may eventually develop gifts that you never know how our Almighty will choose to use you in His divine plan :)