Category: Articles and Devotionals

If there was one thing that I found troubling about Life of Pi that we’ve been using to launch our 40 days of asking “Why?” it’s that the movie often feels like a cinematic COEXIST bumper sticker.  A religious mumbo jumbo that makes all religions seem equally valid, effective, and here’s a word for you: salvific.

***

You might think it rests solely with movies.  Nope.  It’s being combatted at the Vatican too apparently.  I recently read a column entitled “In New Document, Vatican Proclaims Jesus As The ‘Only Savior’ of Humanity.”  Before all the Christians do a face-palm and utter a collective, “Duh…” it’s apparently not such a no-brainer elsewhere.  The article’s author elaborates,

“According to Catholic teaching, this does not mean that only Christians are saved or that all Christians are saved. What it does teach is that no one is saved without Christ.” 

A deep apology for my Catholic friends, but wow…this is such an unnecessary complication of matters…all in the name of not being offensive.  Oh, and it’s wrong. (ouch)

What is a Christian but an actual Christ-follower?  One who displays that best-attempt-at-following Christ Jesus in word and deed?  One who displays sorrow and repentance when one fails to live by God’s holiness standard?

John 10:25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”

What about that passage gives anyone freedom to say any sheep of Christ’s are not saved?  What gives anyone the right to say those who do not believe are also saved through Christ though they do not follow?

The article makes it clear that there’s a reason people complicate what is a very simple issue of following:

“This text received enormous pushback from secularists as well as from a number of Catholics, who claimed the Christian Church’s claim of uniqueness was offensive to followers of other religions.  Writing for the LA Times, Richard Boudreaux said that proclaiming Jesus as ‘the sole redeemer’ was ‘expected to stir unease in Asia and other places where Catholics are a tiny minority’ noting that such ‘exclusive language about salvation’ is offensive to Asia’s dominant religions—Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.”

The world.  Getting in the way of following God since Genesis 3.

Food for thought:

• What does it do to the claims of Christ if He can save only some of His true followers with God condemning the rest?
• What does it say about the love of God if only some of Christ’s followers win the salvation lottery?
• What does it say about the power of God if He can’t protect His followers all the way to the end?

We’ll explore this a bit tomorrow with “Why Does God Insist on Exclusivity?” 

==

For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page.  Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

===

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

1. Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
2.  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
3. Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
4. ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
5. Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.

***

Isaiah 44:3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. 4 They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams. 5 One will say, ‘I belong to the LORD’; another will call himself by the name of Jacob; still another will write on his hand, ‘The LORD’s,’ and will take the name Israel. 6 “This is what the LORD says– Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. 7 Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come– yes, let him foretell what will come. 8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.”

===

Devotionals for Lent 2018, Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One) continue tomorrow in which we’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” and discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page.  Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

===

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

• Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
• A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
• Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
• ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
• .Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.

How often have we heard it?

I’d believe if God gave me a sign or wrote something across the sky so I could know He exists.” 

We’re not all like Thomas who got a first-hand experience of the Risen Lord.  John 20:27 Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Okay, so we have a lot of signs that have been written in the Bible and we’re told they were written so we’d believe (John 20:30-31).  So, why do so many people still refuse to repent and believe?

Jesus tells a story of a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus (not the same Lazarus that rose from the dead).  In it, the rich man pleads with Abraham across the great chasm between hell and heaven to send Lazarus saying, “’I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’  Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’  “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’  “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (Luke 16:28-31)

God isn’t in the habit of performing tricks at our command. 

His request is a simple one: Follow Me, Jesus says.  Repent and believe. 

The signs are already there for someone willing to believe.

***

Food for thought:

1. Why do some people not want to believe? 
2. What purpose would a sign accomplish at this point?  For further insight, read 1 Corinthians 1:22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  
3. What does God think of our demands for a sign? Matthew 16:1 The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ 3 and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.

Join me on Monday for Why Can’t All Religions Lead to God? 

==

For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page.  Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

===

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

1. Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
2.  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
3. Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
4. ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
5. Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.

What does following have to do with faith?  Well, what is following but one person acting upon a decision to go in the same direction as the leader? A Christian, really, is nothing but a Christ follower in the great tradition of the earliest disciples.

Matthew 4:18 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 At once they left their nets and followed him. 

Faith.  It’s as easy as following.

The movie Life of Pi which we’ve been using for Lent 2018 devotionals shifts today when instead of “Why?” Pi asks, “Why not?”  Pi’s father had challenged his mother about Pi’s religious sampling saying, “No Gita, [Pi’s brother] Ravi has a point, no? You cannot follow three different religions at the same time, Piscine.”  The young Pi asks, “Why not?” to which his father explains, 

Because believing in everything at the same time is the same as not believing in anything at all.” 

***

The action of following makes it abundantly clear:  We cannot come to a fork in the road and take it. There’s a point of decision, a choice.  To go forward or back, to the left or the right, up or down.  To follow one way or another.  No one can follow all directions simultaneously.  At some point we believe in nothing or all others must fall away, leave one.

Food for thought:

• In what ways do Christians try to follow the world’s ways and Christ’s way at the same time?  What causes them to do it? 
• Ponder ideas of syncretism and assimilation.  If three major monotheistic religions claim the only One True God, how does COEXIST fail every time?  Why does it fail?
• This idea of choosing which way to follow goes way back to the early days of the chosen people.  Deuteronomy 30:15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
• Joshua 24:15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
• Who and what do you follow? 

Join me next time for “Why Can’t God Give Us a Sign to Prove Himself?”

==

For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page.  Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

===

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

1. Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
2.  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
3. Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
4. ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
5. Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.

If there was a top 10 list of reasons why people reject Christianity, the idea of its being a “patriarchal religion” would make the top 10, probably even the top 5.  No one accuses Jesus of misogyny, but He’s been caricatured as not being a manly man anyway.  He gently holds lambs and no macho man carries lambs around.  The Apostle Paul, however, has that accusation chained to his ankle 24/7 since he picked up a stylus and located a parchment on which to write.  Where does this idea come from?  Earlier than the letters to the Corinthians.  I’d argue its root goes way back…to the Father/Son thing.

Why Did God Send His Son, Not a Daughter? 

For that matter, why Adam first and not Eve? 

Why does Christianity seem to disfavor women?  After all, there are very few heroines in the Bible or women we even know much about.  

None of the Twelve. 

None of the Books of the Bible were openly written by a woman.

I am a woman and I have no problem with God sending His Son because the world was not and is not a vacuum.  We cannot read 21st century ideas back into a first century document.  God surely knew what the first century would be like. 

Ah, but what came first, Barb-ol-pal?

(The chicken.  Genesis 1:20-21)

Anyway, in our present culture where “toxic masculinity” is derided as the singular source of the world’s problems, God’s answer was to send His Son Jesus, a biological male, the second Adam, to pay for what the first Adam had done.  There is some sense in which God is Father and His Son is a chip off the old block.  Only His Son could reveal who the Father is.  It’s representation in addition to having its root in both history and biology.  1 Corinthians 15:47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.

Think about it:

• Many American families have children living with the mother who are born from numerous fathers.  Do we ever see the converse, children of many mothers living with the father?  Why not?  How is fatherhood different than motherhood?
• As a strong woman, a leader, a thinker, and a believer in God’s Image stamped upon both male and female, I’m going to open a whole can of worms and ask “In what ways are cultural notions of things like toxic masculinity, women’s empowerment, sexual freedom and political feminism at variance with Scripture and how do they undermine Christianity?”
• Biologically speaking, how is born of a woman (Eve was the mother of the living), not the same as a matriarchal religion or a feminist revisionism?  Galatians 4: 4 “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.” 
• What does sonship have to do with inheritance in the early Bible times?  How does reading our culture back into the first century create a disconnect and chip away at Christianity’s foundation?

Join me tomorrow for Why Follow? 

==

For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page.  Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

===

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

1. Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
2.  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
3. Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
4. ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
5. Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.

Suffering.  It’s awfully hard to explain in life.  In the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker asked, 

Where was God when the mass shooting happened?” 

It’s as if God doesn’t exist, doesn’t care, or revels in mass murder.  Questions of that sort provide no comfort whatsoever to grieving parents.

Always standing in the dark shadows of every tragedy is that voice of the cruel skeptic, questioning the love of God.  The power of God. 

The goodness of God.  The awareness of God. 

Even His existence.

The antagonist’s and skeptic’s voices are different from the voice of Pi in the movie Life of Pi which we’ve been using to launch our 2018 Lent Devotional series of Why questions and answers.  There is an innocence in his voice which asks, “Why would a god do that? Why would he send his own son to suffer for the sins of ordinary people? …That made no sense. Sacrificing the innocent to atone for the sins of the guilty? What kind of love is that?” 

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

***

Why was it God’s Will for His Son to suffer and die?  It’s a good question with a good answer: suffering’s benefit is everlasting. 

“When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly …But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”  (Romans 5:6, 8-9)

What makes it even more profound is that suffering and death are not God’s ultimate will for you and me.  They are his means of drawing us close because His will is that we should seek Him and live (Amos 5:4).

Food for thought:

• When tragedy strikes, do you blame God? 
• I choose to believe that in any person’s moment just before death, Jesus makes one final appeal in their spirit.  Death happens when their spirit is ripped from their body.  In the final moments before death, the two criminals on the crosses beside Jesus’ offer a picture of the choice God lays before us: do we suffer in order to believe and live…or do we suffer and die in rebellion?  I choose to believe that each person at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School acknowledged Jesus’ appeal in their hearts and only God knows their answer.  What do you think? 

Next time, Why Did God Send His Son Not a Daughter? 

==

For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page.  Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

===

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

1. Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
2.  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
3. Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
4. ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
5. Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.

If people have a sensitive queasy-factor, parts of the Bible can be a tough read.  All the blood makes their stomachs turn.  Most of us don’t like blood a whole lot.  We’re glad we have it pumping through a working heart to operate a functioning brain and entire pulmonary and vascular system.  We get a cut and start bleeding and our first response is to stop the bleeding.  Many of us don’t like to see blood at all, even when it’s going into a tube for a blood test.

Why, then, does so much of the Bible talk about blood?  It’s a turn-off.  It’s gross. 

***

It’s even scary.  So much so, that most children’s Bibles really don’t give the graphic descriptions that their parents’ Bibles have.  Even movies involving the Crucifixion, prior to Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ,” downplayed the bloodiness of the event…even though Hollywood doesn’t care that much about lots of bloodshed if depicting it in non-Crucifixion ways.  Indeed, it revels in it as a box-office draw so long as no one mentions sin.

But that’s why blood is important.  As early as the days of Cain and Abel, the blood of Abel, his life cried out (Genesis 4:10) and God connects blood to life. Genesis 9:4 “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 “And surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.”

If we correctly and fully understand the Image of God and how important our Image-bearing is, then atrocities like the mass murder at Stoneman Douglas become even more heart-wrenching.  Every single fatality was a person with a soul and lifeblood and bearing the Image of God.

Food for thought:

• In the days of the Old Testament with all the bloody sacrifices, in what way was it driven home that sin leads to death?  In what way was there a reminder of the importance of life? 
• In the Life of Pi which we’ve been using for Lent 2018, the father demands his boys watch as the tiger Richard Parker grabs a live goat, kills it, and drags it off to devour it.  The mother didn’t want them to see it.  The father insisted that there was an important lesson there. 
• By sanitizing our lives free from blood, are we deluding ourselves into believing that sin isn’t really a problem, it isn’t costly, or a matter of life and death?  Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
• If sin’s consequences came with an annual reminder by having to kill an animal, would we think sin was all that fun, pleasurable, glamorous, or humorous?  Would we be as inclined to make truth relative? 
• How did Jesus’ perfect sacrifice do away with the sacrificial system? Hebrews 9:14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

Join me tomorrow for “Why Is Suffering God’s Will?”

==

For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page.  Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

===

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

1. Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
2.  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
3. Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
4. ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
5. Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.

In the Life of Pi (the movie we’ve been using for our 40 days of hard questions “Why?”), the young boy Pi asks the priest, “Why would a god do that? Why would he send his own son to suffer for the sins of ordinary people?”

For an evangelist or a pastor, this is the dream opportunity: someone asking for the Gospel dump truck to be unloaded in one major download! 

That’s when the priest in the movie comes up short and only answers with that Sunday school answer “All you need to know is that He loves you”.  In real life, Catholic priests do better than that.  But the movie portrays a golden opportunity frustratingly answered with half-reply which explains why I prefer to get my theology from the Good Book…and not from the silver screen.

Where is all the evidence for why we need a Savior? 

• Well, start with the holiness of God. 
• Then there’s the sinfulness and rebellion of mankind (but often glorified as freedom and pleasure in movies and TV). 
• God’s justified wrath against sin (obviously not something Hollywood wants to recall in all the carnage it likes to display). 
• And then there’s the outcome of life left to our own devices: De-Vices are what keep us apart from heaven and God’s presence and result in that separation called Hell (something Hollywood also doesn’t like to talk about much).

Even in the wake of the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, there is an object lesson–a vivid reminder of 17 young lives lost because we have a culture of sin and death nurtured daily in our media, an evil culture that bore fruit in the life of the killer.  Romans 5:8 reminds us of life and death and our need for a Savior, no matter what our age is.  

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Too much to dream that the Catholic priest in the Life of Pi would state his view as clearly as the Apostle Paul: Romans 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

For further thought:

• Read Romans 1:16-25 and identify the ways Hollywood—teaching by way of entertainment—is at odds with Paul’s proclamation.
• Read Romans 5 which answers Pi’s question clearly and without sugar-coating. 
• Will any amount of saying “I’m sorry” restore the 17 lives lost in Parkland, FL?  In what ways does Jesus’ sacrifice make hope possible–that even though those 17 cannot be brought back to life upon this earth, there is hope they live eternally?

Join me tomorrow for one of those topics that pastors don’t talk about often: ”Why Does God Like Blood So Much? It’s a Turn-off.”

==

For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page.  Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

===

Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

1. Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
2.  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
3. Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
4. ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
5. Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.

Take words with you and return to the LORD. Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.” (Hosea 14:2)

Hosea 14:4 “I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them. 5 I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots; 6 his young shoots will grow. His splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon. 7 Men will dwell again in his shade. He will flourish like the grain. He will blossom like a vine, and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon… 9 Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them.”

Couldn’t Jesus have come just as a spiritual being or a vision and been everywhere, all at once? 

In the movie, Life of Pi, that we have been using as our launch pad for 40 hard questions of Why for Lent 2018 devotionals, the priest elaborates on his Sunday school answer: “Because He loves us. God made Himself approachable to us-human-so we could understand Him. We can’t understand God in all His perfection, but we can understand God’s Son and His suffering as we would a brother’s.” 

That’s a bit more pastoral than the Sunday school answer, an explanation beyond the cliché.

When you stop to think about it, a vision or a spirit might have been more efficient or impressive for show, but a whole lot less relatable to us.  A vision could blow our minds.  A spirit could intrigue us.  But only a human is truly understandable.  So finite.  So limited.  So … normal.

And yet even in His body, Jesus was remarkable because of what He revealed to us about the Father.  Oh, and the remarkable things He’d do!  Jesus answered Thomas’ and Philip’s inquiry in the most surprising way John 14:7 “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.”

If the pre-crucifixion Jesus was still unrecognizable to Thomas and Philip after ministering among them for his 3-year ministry, just imagine how unrecognizable He would have been had He been Spirit or vision instead of the “Word made flesh” (John 1:14).

Think about it:

• Showing up as a Spirit has many advantages.  The Holy Spirit’s coming at Pentecost proves that point.  What are some of the advantages of an indwelling Spirit compared to an external human teacher?  What are some of the disadvantages?
• What did the sufferings of Christ do and how did His suffering make Him approachable and understandable?  What happened on the Cross?  What happened at the tomb and on Easter morning? For insight, read “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16)  
• Could a spirit or a vision alone accomplish this? 

Join me tomorrow for “Why Do We Need a Savior?”

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For Lent 2018, we’ll explore the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We’ll ask and answer the question “Why?” as we discover the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  Join me for the 40 days of Lent which began February 14, 2018 by liking Seminary Gal on Facebook or having these devotionals sent to your email box which you can do via the sign-up on my Home page.  Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to study together the Word of God.

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Acknowledging that former years’ devotional series remain popular:

1. Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
2.  A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God  which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014. 
3. Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations.  We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17. 
4. ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
5. Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ.  It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.