Lead Me Not Into Temptation

I saw this printed on a hand towel. I do not know the source of this riff on The Twenty-Third Psalm.

"Lead me not into temptation ... oh, who am I kidding ... follow me, I know a shortcut."

We all know many shortcuts. Every human is tempted numerous times each day.  Even Jesus was tempted. The Bible records one major temptation episode that Satan launched against Jesus but surely there were many more.  Two are very obvious.

Jesus surely was tempted to heal his good friend Lazarus before the man died but he intentionally delayed his arrival. Lazarus' sister was angry and disappointed with their friend, but Jesus had a reason for his delay. Read the story at John 11: 1-44. "Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?"

Jesus clearly dreaded what was to come for him on the cross and he was probably tempted to do exactly the thing which he said he could do (Matthew 26:53). He did not do it because it would have meant that Satan had won. "But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way?"

Jesus is the only person who has ever live a life totally free of sin. Here is the hard part. He was tempted just like we are. Hebrews 4:15

Bible Printer's Errors: The Pilate's Tile Bible

These Bible Printers Errors are all in the English language.  They are from printed editions of the King James Version of the Bible created during the time when the printed text had to be hand set using individual letter keys. There are probably just as many variant printed texts in other languages created during the same time period.  Proofreading is very important.  Sometimes one word, or even one letter, changes the entire meaning of a passage.  The following is an example to prove the point.

WHAT IT SHOULD HAVE SAID:  

“And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.”

WHAT IT SAID:

“And Pilate wrote a tile, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS."

This is from the 1612 “Pilate’s tile” Bible. The text is from John 19:19.

Film Comment: Kike Like Me

The title of this film is a play on the  name of John Griffin’s 1964 book, Black Like Me.  Griffin darkened his skin so he could convincingly live for a time as a black man and then wrote of his experiences.

“Kike” is an ethnic slur word used to insult Jews. There are several possible explanations for the origin of the word, but one of the most likely is offered by Leo Rosten in his 1968 book, The Joys of Yiddish. 

Rosten says that many of the Jews entering the United States at the immigration center at Ellis Island in New York were illiterate. A common practice at the time was for the recording clerk to write the persons name and then for the illiterate person to place “his mark,” an X, between the personal name and the surname. 

Many Jews thought the X looked like a cross and refused to use it. Instead they wrote an O, a circle, which in Yiddish is “kikel” or “keikl.”

Kike Like Me (2007) is narrated by Jamie Kastner who presents the film as an examination of what it means to be Jewish in the modern world. Kastner travels to Jerusalem, Berlin, Poland, Paris, and the Auschwitz death camp. He becomes increasingly shocked and sarcastic as he sees more. He is disgusted to find that Auschwitz has a tourist souvenir shop.

Christians often forget that all of the first Christians were Jewish and that it is impossible to understand Christianity without understanding its Jewish origins. What does it mean to be perceived as Jewish? Watch this film if you dare.

Family Crosses

This last Sunday was Easter day. At the church which my son and his family attend, the families participated in a wonderful ceremony. The parents and their children built small crosses and wrapped them in burlap. Nails were placed in the cross at the points where the hands and feet of Jesus were positioned. The parents read a text explaining the meaning of the cross and the nails and said a family prayer.

Then the parents explained the Resurrection and the children and parents placed flowers and plant branches into the burlap to represent the beauty of life. The parents explained to the children that Jesus was really dead and then rose, defeating death forever.

Afterwards, the families carried the crosses home. There were as many different crosses as there were families. The crosses were all different. The crosses were all the same. The crosses were all beautiful. Just like us.

Christianity in Herculaneum

On 24 August 79 AD/CE Mount Vesuvius in Italy began to erupt, spewing out large rocks and streams of molten lava.  The Roman communities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Oplontis were destroyed as well as several nearby villas.  The port of Herculaneum was smaller than the port of Pompeii and existed as a resort town for the wealthy.  The towns were covered by 13 to 20 feet of volcanic ash and pumice.

Excavations at Herculaneum and the other towns yielded multitudes of intact buildings after the ash was removed.  Since a 1939 excavation at Herculaneum found only the bodies of a few women and children, it was thought that the town was successfully evacuated during the cataclysm.  It was not until 1981 that over 300 skeletons were found huddled together in cluster of buildings.

During the 1939 excavation of Herculaneum it was proven that Christianity had made inroads in the area when a wooden cross was found nailed to a wall in one of the houses.

What They Think of Us: Jesus Parodies

Apparently They Think This is Funny

Jesus Walks on Water Prank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgGmedc-AEM&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Jesus Turns Water into Wine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgrSyokK6H0

Jesus Levitation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4q6Zx5n9Jw

Jesus Carries the Cross

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40mPaWqffSc

White Shoe Polish on a Rear Windshield

If you live in the United States you have probably seen an automobile where the owner has taken a white shoe polish dispenser and written a slogan on the glass of the rear window.  Usually the message is something like “Just married,” or a phrase encouraging the local high school football team to win that week’s game.

Yesterday, I saw a car like that, with a slogan in large white block letters, “I love Jesus! XOXO ☮.”  Although I was pleased that someone was not afraid or ashamed to acknowledge Jesus, this disturbed me.

I know that the two teenaged boys in the car were probably sincere and were just expressing the vibrant enthusiasm of young new believers.  My objection was that they were doing it in a shallow way which opened them and the faith up to ridicule.  We must always be careful not to send unintended messages to unbelievers.

The XOXO is a modern cell phone texting abbreviation for “hugs and kisses.”  Yes, the Church is the Bride of Christ, but XOXO is not exactly what is meant by that.  Romance is fine, even silly romance, but the marriage of the Church and Christ the Bridegroom is not all bunny rabbits, bubbles, and flowers.

The Peace Symbol ☮ was popularized among the 1960’s counter-culture which was opposed to United States involvement in the Vietnam War.  Regardless of their feelings about the war, many Christians were highly offended by the symbol.

The Peace Symbol, the symbol for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, appears to be an inverted cross with the cross-arms broken and drooping downward ☮.  The symbol was soon adopted as a generic anti-war logo. The anti-war activists always insisted that the symbol was not intended as an insult to Christianity though many Christians were not so sure.  The 1960’s counter-culture was also associated with the concept of “free love” (interpretation: promiscuous sexuality) and advocated the unrestricted use of illegal psychotropic drugs.

What Do You Leave Behind?

In 1607, the French explorer, Samuel de Champlain (baptized 1874, France -d. 1635) found "an old cross, all covered with moss, and almost wholly rotted away" at the site of what is now Advocate, Nova Scotia, Canada.  he interpreted this as confirmation of reports that the Portuguese explorer, Joao Alvares Fagundes (b. ca 1460, Portugal -d 1522), had visited the area about 1520.

Just as Fagundes left a cross, we leave traces in people's lives.  Do you leave a cross wherever you go?

I Am His Favorite

I saw a woman wearing a Tee-shirt emblazoned with the logo, “Jesus Loves You … But I’m His Favorite!”  I had to think about that one and then I realized that it was true.  She is His favorite.  You are His favorite.  I am His favorite.

Would Jesus have endured the Cross to save only the woman? Yes.

Would Jesus have endured the Cross to save only you? Yes.

Would Jesus have endured the Cross to save only me? Yes.

Saint Augustine of Hippo said, "God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love."

“Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” Luke 15:10

Wearing a Cross As Jewelry

“It would have been unthinkable in Jesus’ day to wear a cross as a piece of jewelry.  It would have been like wearing a miniature electric chair or lynching rope.” John Piper

The cross was used for only one purpose: execution.

Jesus called for us to take up our own cross and follow Him.   What is being executed?  Our self-centeredness, our insistence that we are in control, our self-justification that we are not “that bad.”

When we choose to follow Jesus and take up the cross, it can mean much more.  The world did not like Jesus and it will not like us, regardless of what it may say.  We may, in some countries, be guaranteed freedom of religious choice.  That will not prevent us from being considered odd or peculiar when we insist on choices other than those of the larger culture.  Social disapproval can be quite uncomfortable. (Hebrews 13:12-13)

AND, there is always the possibility, even in the most “enlightened” cultures, that we may be forced into a situation where we must choose between betraying the Lord or facing death.  At such a time, we are called to be witnesses.  Witness, μάρτυρας in Greek, from which we derive our English word “martyr.”

St. Thomas in India

Thomas, the Doubting Disciple, evangelized India before being martyred in Mylapore.  He is believed to have landed (ca. 51-52 AD/CE) near the coastal village of Cranganore (Kodungallur, Kerala State, India) on the southern tip of the Indian land mass.  This settlement is located 29 km northwest  of Kochi and 38 km southwest of Thrissur.

Thomas established churches at Kodungallour, Kollam, Niranam, Nilackal, Kokkamangalam, Kottakkayal, Palayoor, and Thiruvithancode Arapally.  At the Palayoor church, Thomas raised the first cross in India.

Ash Wednesday On the Street

Today is Ash Wednesday, observed mainly by the Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran denominations.  A smudged cross of black ashes is drawn on the forehead of the believer as a sign of repentance at the beginning of Lent.

Since 2007, many Episcopalians have participated in a practice begun by Reverend Teresa Danieley in St. Louis, Missouri.   Rev. Danieley decided to offer the ashes to people on the street.  Now over 70 Episcopal parishes in 18 USA states offer ashes to anyone who asks at train stations, street corners, coffee shops, libraries, parks, and other public places.  They say that they view it as an act of evangelism.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the taking of the ashes is a solemn event which should happen within a church, during a religious service with Scripture, prayer, and calls for repentance.  

Film Comment: Forbidden Games

The 1952 French film, Forbidden Games (Les jeux interdits) , won numerous best film awards including a 1952 special foreign film Academy Award and a Golden Lion best actress award for the five-year old Brigitte Fossey .  Some of the published comments describe the film as "childhood innocence corrupted," "the horrors of war through the eyes of children," "children using their powers of fantasy and denial to deal with death in wartime."  It is a film which is both funny, creepy, horrifying, and incredibly sad.  The children are real children, not little adults.

Paulette (Brigitte Fossey) really is the center of the film.  Film critic Roger Ebert says of her, "Fossey's face becomes a mirror that refuses to reflect what she must see and feel."  And it is her eyes that house the mirror.

The plot of the film: a young girl is orphaned in a Nazi air attack on civilians fleeing from Paris and is taken in by a ten-year old boy and his family.  The boy helps Paulette secretly bury her dog, which died along with her parents in the air raid.  Worried that the dog is alone in the ground, the children begin to bury other dead animals and they create a secret cemetery, stealing crosses to place on each grave.  They build an elaborate fantasy world around the cemetery.  The fantasy world will, of course, eventually come crashing down.

In this film, as with most others I view, I appreciate and understand the artistry and intentions of the filmmakers.  I also see things which may or may not have originally been intended; specifically, I see things through a Christian lens.

The main thing which I see in this film is how all the adults failed the children.  The Nazis callously killed adults and children alike with their air raids.  The adults who pulled Paulette onto their wagon were so intent on their escape that they failed to restrain or go after Paulette when she jumped off the wagon to retrieve her dead dog.  The kindly and basically well-meaning peasant family who took Paulette in were so wrapped up in their sometimes silly adult dealings that they basically ignored the children because they were "just" children.  The priest is more interested in catechisms and confessions and correct ritual than in understanding the children.  The government officials who come for Paulette want to make sure their papers are properly completed.  The kind nun at the train station tells Paulette to quietly sit on a bench and then leaves her alone.  None of the adults, except for the Nazis, are "bad people."  They just fail to actually see the children.   Sometimes you have to take a crayon, get down on the floor, and color with a child.

Film Comment: Zardoz

Zardoz (1973) is a film set in the extremely  distant future, so far in the future that no attempt is made to tell the audience when it occurs.  Over the untold centuries, Earth’s population has split into three distinct cultures: the Eternals, who used science to become telekinetic and immortal and have long since become bored with everything, even science; the Brutals, who live muddy lives of primitive mind-numbing poverty and ignorance; and the Exterminators, who gleefully hunt and kill the Brutals for their bloodthirsty god, Zardoz, a giant flying stone head.

One of the Exterminators, Zed (Sean Connery) is smarter than the others and wants to know the answer to one question, “Why?”  Committing an act the other Exterminators would see as stupidly blasphemy,  Zed jumps into the open toothy mouth of the enormous giant head, Zardoz.  When the head begins to move, Zed stays inside and is carried away to his destiny.

Standing in the mouth of the idol, Zed sees sights he’s never seen before; forests and a settlement with buildings.   Zardoz, which is obviously a mechanism, carries him to the Vortex, a force-field surrounded paradise in which the Eternals live.

The presence of a barbarian stirs up long-dead emotions in the Etertnals, especially in one woman (Charlotte Rampling).  The Eternals allow Zed to link his mind into their computer which controls the tedious day to day functions of maintaining their environment.  Zed is suddenly no longer an illiterate barbarian Exterminator; he is now a hyper-genius barbarian Exterminator.

Along with all the Eternal’s accumulated historical and scientific knowledge, Zed has also learned their secret: “It was all a joke.”  Zardoz is a machine, his name is stolen from the book, The Wizard of Oz, and he was created to find the perfect Exterminator.  The Eternals have groomed Zed to be their executioner, to do for them for what they could not do for themselves.

Some people find this film to be excruciatingly slow, and it is.  I think the speed of this film is intentional.  It moves slowly to highlight the deadly boredom of the Eternals.  They have done everything, seen everything, discussed everything, learned everything, and have absolutely no challenges to which to respond.  Perfect health, limitless wealth, and eternal life have become their prison.  Zed, the ruthless killer, is exciting because he is dangerous, because he can end it.

Many Christians have a deficient understanding of eternity.  I doubt that many actually believe the Hollywood idea of the dead becoming angels and sitting on clouds playing harps for eternity.  Besides being totally confused about who the angels are, this future would become a Hell just like the one faced by Zardoz’s bored Eternals, because it would never end or change.

More likely, many Christians probably never give it a thought.  Thinking about death and eternity are unsettling to most people.  To the Christian, though, they shouldn’t be.  Jesus has defeated death.   We have absolutely nothing to fear.

The biblical understanding of eternal life is expressed in the Greek words, ζωὴ αἰώνιος, “life aeon-long.”  An aeon (αἰώνιος) is the longest period of time the human mind can conceive, endless time.  Jesus has said (John 8:58), “Before Abraham was born, I AM,” an existence of NOW in which the past, present, and future are all one thing.  There is no beginning and no ending, everything is now.

In this eternal now we will not just float around on clouds, playing harps.  We will be “kings and priests” (1Peter 2:9, Revelation 1:6, 5:10) and we will judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:3).  And here is a secret: our eternal life has already begun.  It started when Jesus said, “It is finished!” 

The Offense of the Cross

Read missionary Josef Urban's statement on The Offense of the Cross.
http://www.puregospeltruth.com/the-offense-of-the-cross---a-rebuke-to-the-modern-gospel-of-watered-down-half-truths.html

More About the End of the World Group

It intrigued me that Harold Camping could so easily ignore what is plainly stated in Matthew 24:36, "But of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." Περὶ δὲ τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης καὶ ὥρας οὐδεὶς οἶδεν, οὐδὲ οἱ ἄγγελοι τῶν οὐρανῶν οὐδὲ ὁ υἱός, εἰ μὴ ὁ πατὴρ μόνος. He ignores it because he identifies the Son (υἱός in the original Greek) with the devil, "the son of perdition."  He does this because, as he says, "To say "Christ does not know all things" is to say Christ did not have the Spirit of God in Him.  This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit."  Is that so?


Well, actually not.  It is an odd reading of the text to insist that Jesus was not referring to Himself as the Son; he clearly did so in other places.  Also, to insist that Jesus did know the day of the end of the world when He said He did not not comes dangerously close to saying He was not really human, a sort of quasi-Docetism.  Orthodox Christianity insists that Jesus was fully Human and fully Divine.  As a man He could not know more than we can know; "But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:" ἀλλὰ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών, ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος· καὶ σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος.  The Greek says he "emptied" (ἐκένωσεν) Himself. Philippians 2:7


This is important because if Jesus was not really a human, not really a man, then he could not have died in our place for our sins.

Book Comment: If the Church Were Christian, Chapter 2, Part 3

If you are joining this book review series mid-stream , you can read the comment from the beginning by going to the LABELS section following the last post on this page and clicking on PHILIP GULLEY

Gulley, Philip, If the Church were Christian.  Rediscovering the Values of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010)

CHAPTER 2: Affirming Our Potential Would be More Important Than Condemning Our Brokenness

God sees His people as perfect.  When He sees us, indwelled by the Holy Spirit, He sees Jesus.  We are covered by the Blood of Jesus (Ephesians 1:7), the Lamb of God, just as the Jews were covered by a lamb’s blood on their doors when the Angel of Death passed over Egypt (Exodus 12:12-13).

Washed by the Blood of Jesus, we become white as snow; God doesn’t even remember our sin.  Our forgiveness is total and complete.  We don’t suddenly quit sinning but it does happen over time (1 Corinthians 6:11). 

We are not saved by faith and then saved by our own efforts for subsequent sins.  On the Cross, Jesus said, “It is finished.”  There is nothing we can possibly do to add to that.  We are forgiven.

Those in the Church can and do occasionally sin, but it is not in their new nature to sin habitually or continually.  We are not to live in a perpetual state of guilt.

Philip Gulley says that we shouldn’t leave church feeling spiritually bruised.  I couldn’t agree more.  A church which sends its members out into the world feeling beaten and full of guilt has completely missed the point of the Gospel.  They fail to understand how God views His Christians.  Don’t they know that the angels rejoice over one sinner who repents? (Luke 15:10)

The world is broken, dirty, bruised, confused, hateful, arrogant, spiteful … all those things.  We, who are members of the household of God, are charged with helping the world to see that there is a better way, even if the world doesn’t want to see it.

This is part of a continuing chapter-by- chapter response to this book.  More to come. 

Jesus Didn't Come To ...

"...when Jesus died on the cross he didn't do so because he wanted to "shift my paradigm." He didn't come to help me "realize my full potential" and "unpack my baggage." Or "overcome my hang-ups." Or "recalenderize my Q1."
Jonathan Acuff in Stuff Christians Like, p.60.

Crucifix vs Cross

When Protestants wear the Cross as jewelry or use it as a symbol in their churches, it is almost exclusively an empty cross. When Roman Catholics present the Cross, it is almost exclusively as the Crucifix, with Jesus nailed upon it. Both groups revere the Cross, but they view it differently. Protestants favor the empty Cross because of their strong theological emphasis on the Resurrection, while Roman Catholics stress Jesus' death as a substitutionary sacrificial atonement.

"...put me on a cross ..."

Kristen Stewart, the star of the Twillight series of films is quoted about her fans in US Weekly for 28 June 2010 on page 14.

"I ... hope that I don't run off at the mouth and say something stupid they'd put me on a cross for."

Ms. Stewart meant no disrespect to Christianity. That was probably never in her mind. What her statement does reflect is the casual way in which our modern culture views religion and the sacred. There is little or no understanding of the holy.

In contrast, to the ancient Jews, the very name of God was too holy to even pronounce. When they came upon it in the uninterrupted strings of consonants in which their scriptures were written, they said "Lord" instead. When, later, vowel marks were devised and added to the texts, the vowels for adonai ("Lord") were added to the consonants HWHJ (Hebrew is read right to left, so we would see this as JHWH, the Tetragrammaton, commonly pronounced today as "Jahweh"). This combination of consonants and vowels was unpronounceable in Hebrew and was spoken as "Lord."

Centuries later, German translators misunderstood and transliterated the name as "Jehovah."