Fireproof

The missus and I saw the movie Fireproof last fall during our anniversary. If you are not familiar with the movie, it is the story of how a couple was on the brink of divorce, and how a challenge of self sacrifice from the husband's father led to the husband's conversion to Christianity and the eventual winning back of his wife.

I thought that it was a well done movie. It might not sound like it from the above description, but I thought that the movie was convincing in the way it portrayed the reality of the relationships involved.  There were no magic answers, and the characters were believeably selfish, short-sighted and resistant to change.  The solution wasn't as easy as saying "Now I shall be self-sacrificing" - there was real struggle involved.  I found the movie very, well, moving.  I'm pretty easily affected by any movie or TV show where the characters actually show humility and say "I'm sorry," and so I cried several times during the movie.

The wife loved it so much that she preordered the DVD, and is organizing a private party of friends and our kids to watch the movie together. I heard her on the phone asking people to this showing, and apparently she thought that it would be a great selling point to relate how I had to fight "openingly sobbing" during the movie.  Now, come on, I know that a man being able to express and embrace his emotions is a good thing. But does anybody, guy or not, want to be known to all his or her friends as the one who couldn't keep it together during a movie, whether true or not?  I finally asked her to stop selling the movie that way.  Sheesh.

Now I need to face all these people when we watch this movie together.  Will I cry a lot?  Will they be watching me to see if I cry?  Will I embarrass myself?  Maybe I should go on the offensive before the movie starts.  "Where are the Kleenexes?  Watch out, I'm going to start bawling like a baby during the previews!"

Anyway, it is a good movie. I do recommend it to anyone who wants to see what sacrificial love can do.

Oh, and just so you know: I love my darling wife. If anything you read here seems to imply that I don't completely respect her or that I think ill of her, then you read it wrong.

Obey him

At my Sunday Bible Study, we worked over these two verses, which speak of Jesus:

Hebrews 5:8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

Obviously, verse eight is a bit of a puzzle (how can Jesus, the perfect image of God, be deficient in any way, such that he needs to learn obedience?), but I want to focus on verse nine.  Most of my contemporaries either grew up in or are familiar with Protestant theology, with its focus on salvation through faith. Having grown up Lutheran, I am very familiar with the idea of Sola fide - that salvation is through faith alone. These verses are often used for justification of this position:

Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Yet here, in Hebrews 5:9, it says that Jesus is the source of salvation for all who obey him. (Incidentally, this verse is to me evidence that the writer of Hebrews was not Paul.) Though not a necessary interpretation, one possible interpretation of this verse is that obeying Jesus is a prerequisite for salvation.

If so, what obedience is needed for salvation?  Is it the Law? Is it the Greatest Commandment? Well, I immediately thought about what Jesus said in John 15:

John 15:10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. [...] 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

So, to put it together, Jesus is our source of salvation if we obey his command to love one another.  Note that he is speaking to believers, so I think that it is reasonable to say that his command is to especially, if not exclusively, love other believers.

If this is so, think of how critical it is that we love each other.  It is the foundation of our relationship with God. Our very salvation depends upon it!  And yet, how often do we sacrifice love to other things, like moral standards, perfect theology, or even our own comfort.  Don't we judge and hold ourselves apart from those who have publickly sinned or whose theology we find flawed?  Think of how many times you have heard or read vitriolic criticism of a prominent or famous person from someone not personally acquainted with that person.  Do a Google or YouTube search of Benny Hinn, or Rick Warren, or other prominent Christians, and you will find pages dedicated to their faults and failings.  Is this loving? Is this how we should treat other believers? Is this how we want to be treated? Jesus gives very specific instructions on how to deal with other Christians who have sinned:

Matthew 18:15 "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. 16 "But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 17 "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (NAS)

If we think someone has sinned, Jesus wants us to try and settle it quietly between us first.  To do otherwise isn't obeying Jesus guidelines for how we are to treat each other, and so I think that this means that our actions are unloving.

Are we putting our salvation in jeopardy if we don't follow this model for dealing with the sins of other believers?

How important is it to love other believers - is it necessary for salvation?

Titanium Baby

In an earlier post, I wrote about how I was focused on the fragility of a newborn baby and how this demonstrates the humility of God.

I've been thinking about this idea, though, and I wonder how fragile Jesus really was. A cursory web search brought up the statistics that during Roman times that 5-10 percent of all births ended in the death of the mother, and infant mortality rate was about 20%. I don't know if things were significantly different for practicing Jews, but I doubt that it was much different. Obviously, both Jesus and Mary survived his birth, despite this statistic and despite what may have been extremely unsanitary and otherwise unfavorable conditions.

Later, God derailed Herod's plan to kill Jesus by warning Joseph in a dream, so that the family could escape. During his ministry, Jesus avoided stoning and other physical harm several times, seeming to be able to slip through angry mobs at will (see John 10:39, Luke 4:29-30). In addition, there is a scripture (Psalms 91:11-12) that says that angels will protect the Messiah against him striking his foot on a stone; this Scripture is quoted to Jesus by Satan during the temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:5-6).

All this to ask: could Jesus be hurt before his trial? Does it make sense that God would allow the possibility of harm coming to him? And even if he could technically be hurt (say, by soldiers killing all of the children in a town) and yet avoided that fate through supernatural means, wasn't it the same, practically, as if he couldn't be hurt? Instead of fragile and weak Jesus, was he, instead, invincible?

Was Jesus the Titanium Baby? I think that it is an interesting philosophical question. However, even if Jesus was incapable of being harmed, I still think that his birth as a human baby continues to show the humility of God.