Posted on 03/02/2014 2:54:54 PM PST by Gamecock
A repurposed segment of last year’s History Channel miniseries “The Bible,” the film stars Diogo Morgado, a Portuguese actor billed as “the first Latin Jesus.” He makes for a sunny, can-do Portuguesus wandering the land with a miracles-on-demand service available to anyone who walks up to him. He seems oddly, disturbingly in love with himself as he dazzles the Israelites with his fluorescent, Brad Pitt smile.
It trivializes Christian thought to reduce the parables to one-liners and the miracles to magic tricks, but the film was made with the entirely unsurprising input of Joel Osteen, the charlatan self-help guru who has advised his followers that prayer can help you snag a good parking space.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Your argument isn’t with me, it’s with Scripture.
I have no argument with Scripture. AFAIK, I’m properly interpreting Scripture.
Speak for yourself regarding what you do and don’t allow your children to view. Mine don’t watch any of the trash that you speak of. And they certainly won’t be watching this movie.
A partial truth is still a lie. Brought to you by the father of all lies.
Open you eyes and open your heart to God. Don’t blaspheme his writings or condone others that do.
Of course I could be wrong, but I’m in line with Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and the Westminster Confession. You are in line with Rome and Joel Osteen.
Christians are to worship in “spirit and truth.” We also walk by faith, not by sight. We should ask ourselves why we need images. Are we not content to walk by faith? Can we not worship Him in spirit and truth?
Christ was fully man and fully God. All a likeness can possibly do is misrepresent his human form. It can’t possibly capture his divinity. To paraphrase the old Puritan Thomas Watson, images are at best a “half Christ.” So any image of Christ must be considered a misrepresentation. Another way to put it, any image of Christ is a lie.
Nice writing.
“I probably won’t watch it.”
Neither will we, I expect. The first clip I saw on a “Hannity” show was of the three wise men showing up at the manger, which is not accurate. Their journey would’ve taken approx. two years, Herod decreed that children two and under would be killed. The Bible said the wise men saw Jesus at a house, not the stable/manger. I figure that if that’s not accurate, best to beware of everything else.
Then there’s the Joel Osteen factor. Creepy. But it does appear that Downey and hubby have a strong faith and strong testimony. That’s never a bad thing, especially in Hollywood.
Sorry, just found it hilarious that you're conflating Catholicism with Mr. "Every Day a Friday".
For example, when Jesus said “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments," (Matthew 22:37-40), I took him at His word. I actually believe that doing that, alone, makes me a Christian. I believe everything else He taught - all of it - is secondary to that.
Why? Because Jesus said so, and very plainly.
So if some people find it helpful to gaze at a picture of Jesus, to help them focus their minds and souls on Him, to give them comfort during times of hardship, and to ease their hearts and help them pray, who are you to interfere with that? Who are you to reject that? Who are you to judge that? Who are you to pour in the filth of your your own imaginings of their imperfections? Who are you to come between Jesus and His children?
Jesus spoke of people like you, when He said, "“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven... Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." (Matthew 18:3,5-6)
You want to pursue your perfect way of serving Jesus, go right ahead. But beware - perfect Christians often develop a scorn and contempt, even to the level of presuming to damn, people who don't follow their egos. And the forget that jesus didn't come for those as strong and pure and noble and clean and perfect as them - no, those shining stars don't need him. In fact, there's no rom for him in the perfection of their lives.
No, Jesus came for everyone else. The imperfect, the frightened, the confused, the weak, the lonely, and the rejected. And I think, quite frankly, if He were around today and he saw you take a picture of HIm out of one of His children's hands, He'd knock your teeth in.
Told ya I'm not in line with anyone else.
Nah, only on that one issue. I don’t wish to hang Rome around Joel’s neck.
“After having to watch 30 minutes of trash in previews of coming attractions (those contained more damaging images than any so called violence in this movie),
That is so strange. My previews were Heaven is for real ( the little boy goes to heaven and see all these relatives). God is dead (a great film about a professor who does not believe in God and says it is a fantasy and a student who debates him about it in front of the class. and the cancer movie with the girl from Divergent and the kid who has cancer and they support each other. I am sorry that they put out crap for your previews.
The same problem I have grown to expect in most Biblical movies. Christ in film was best rendered by some of the early Biblical epics that did not show him full face. In BARABBAS with Anthony Quinn we see Jesus from the perspective of the pardoned criminal who fails to see him clearly. In BEN HUR Jesus is seen obliquely. In one powerful scene the audience does not see the face of Jesus but we see a strong reaction to the power of his countenance in the face of a Roman soldier.
Let me get this straight - you are saying that everything else in scripture is secondary to this passage? Really?
So, you are saying that the word used for hang in Matthew 22:40 means of primary importance? Are you "hanging" this interpretation on the word "hang"? If so, you might want to read some of the other 6 verses that the word for hang is found - Matthew 18:6; Luke 22:39; Acts 5:30, 10:39, 28:4' and Gal 3:13. If that is what you are saying, then you are saying that Christ hanging on the cross is secondary to the cross.
I am sure you don't relieve believe that. Instead, the other commandments of scripture describe HOW we are to love God with all our heart and soul and might; and our neighbor as ourselves. Looking at the 10 commandments makes that pretty clear. So does the whole of God's Word. (Which became flesh). Take a ride through some of the profits if you think it is ok to worship God however one wants and what "works for them." That didn't work out so well.
Taking one or a select handful of verses as more important than any other verses of scripture always leads down a bad path.
Of course I agree with you. From the opening chapters of Genesis, the Bible makes it clear that God cares greatly about how he is worshipped. That almost no one is bothered by depictions of Christ reveals much about the devolution of theology. Earlier generations of American Christians would have immediately identified the 2nd Commandment as an issue here.
We have an ongoing winter storm and my elderly parents are without heat, so I must meet the heating and air man in a few minutes and don’t have time to write more. However, I was able to find an excellent series from Dr. Al Mohler I remember reading some years ago. In it he deals with the recovery of authentic worship. Here is a snippet:
“Hughes is right. Our confused worship corrupts our theology and our weak theology corrupts our worship. Are these voices alarmist? They do mean to sound an alarm. But there are others who are saying, “Don’t worry–be happy–go worship.” One recent church growth author has written, “Worship is like a car to get us from where we are to where God wants us to be. Transportation and communication are imperative; the mode or vehicle is not imperative. Some worship God in cathedrals with the rich traditional organ tomes of Bach and Faure from the classics of Europe. They travel in a Mercedes Benz. Some worship God in simple wooden churches with a steeple pointing heavenward. They sing the gospel songs of Charles Wesley or Fanny Cosby. They travel in a Ford or Chevy. Some worship God with the contemporary sounds of praise music with a gentle beat. They travel in a convertible sports coupe. Some worship God to the whine of a guitar and the amplifiers to the max. They travel on a motorcycle, without a muffler.”
“But surely there is more to worship than the spectrum of taste from a Mercedes Benz to a motorcycle. There must be something weightier here. “Worship is like a car to get us from where we are to where God wants us to be.” Can that be said with a straight face as we listen to the Scripture speak of worship? We know from the onset that there are many different Christian opinions concerning worship. This does not come to us as news. But the real issue for us this morning is whether or not God Himself has an opinion on this issue. Does God care how He is worshiped? Or is He some kind of laissez-faire deity who cares not how His people worship Him, but is resting in the hopes that some people in some place will in some way worship him?
“Scripture reveals that God does care. Leviticus 10:1-3 serves as a witness to this point. “Now Nadad and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “It is what the Lord spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.’”
“These were Aaron’s sons. But they did what God had not commanded them to do in worship. They brought strange fire to the altar and they were consumed. Clearly, God does have an opinion about worship. He is the God whom we have come to know in Jesus Christ, the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. He is a jealous God–a God who loves us and is calling out a people but a God who instructs and commands His people that we should worship Him rightly.
“In one sense, I think you can say looking throughout the Bible that there has been worship warfare even in the Scripture itself. As a matter of fact, I think you can look back to the very first murder and see that it had to do with worship as well. What is an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord? Cain and Abel saw this issue differently.”
The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory: The Recovery of Authentic Worship, Part One
Links to the rest of the series are below the first installment.
First, let me say this. None of the Gospels that chronicle Jesus' life were witnessed by the authors. Mark--written between 65-70 AD. Matthew--written between 70-100 AD. Luke--written between 80-100 AD. John--written between 90-100 AD. And, the four Gospels differ depending on the emphasis the writer intended.
The stories of Christ were first handed down verbally. That means that the writers had to rely on word of mouth depictions of events and words.
So, even the writers of the time can be accused of putting words into Jesus' mouth that he didn't say.
This is in no way to refute any of the Bible, nor anything else. This is just reality. Try recounting a conversation, word for word, five minutes after with another it is over. Most people can't do it.
God claims he superintended the writing of Scripture so that it is without error and worthy of our full trust. The verbal argument can be used to justify weaseling anything into any any ones mouth or history for their own purposes.
sr4402 replied (with which I totally agree): God claims he superintended the writing of Scripture so that it is without error and worthy of our full trust. The verbal argument can be used to justify weaseling anything into any any ones mouth or history for their own purposes.
To which I add: It isn't so much about recording all the words that Jesus said or the things that He did. John said in John 21:25 that the world could not contain all the books that would be written. But John also said in his gospel in chapter 20 that the things that were written were written "so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name."
The gospels, along with all of the rest of scripture are written to teach us WHO God is (the triune God) and who we are (sinners) so that we come to repentance knowing that we are sinners and that we need a Savior - Jesus Christ the Lord.
It isn't about refuting the Bible, for the Bible is the Word, and that Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. If one tries to refute the Word, or take away from it, or add from it, then they are trying to change WHO God is. And that is what this movie does. Period. And that will not bode well with those who made it. Something about a millstone around their neck??? =:o
Amen! And you can find that message repeated in most books, if not all, of the bible.
I pray all went well with your parents.
I don't see this at all. Question, then: What is the difference between what you observe here and the revising of the Bible under King James and leaving out several books because the writers of that time did not consider those books to be canonical?
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