House of David - House of Cards

My wife and I started watching the television series House of David. The producers show a disclaimer before each episode. It says that the writers attempted to remain true to the Bible record of David’s life although they admit to having taken literary license to enhance the drama. This is to be expected whenever we moderns turn the bare bones of the biblical record into a fuller portrayal of life in Bible times. This tactic was present in King of Kings, The Ten Commandments, The Passion of the Christ, The Chosen, and every popular Bible-based drama. These presentations and many more like them have their place in helping us see Bible characters as real people.

I mention King of Kings because it was that movie that made ten-year-old me realize that the Bible was about men and women who actually lived long ago, and they were not just paper cut-outs on a Sunday school flannelgraph. It wasn’t long after seeing that movie that I gave my life to Christ. Many years later, it was that same realization that motivated me to write a bible-based novel about Noah’s life. (Wings of Mentridar) There is very little in Scripture about Noah’s life, especially prior to God’s call to build the Ark. I researched ancient Mesopotamian culture and overlaid what we have in the Genesis record to imagine the daily life of Noah. Then I went way out on a limb and tried to imagine what it would have been like if God enlisted the aid of His angels to get the ark built and everyone safely on board. What I wrote was fantasy, but I tried to write only what I thought could be supported by biblical truth.

Presentations like House of David and The Chosen are doing something similar. A friend of mine once said he couldn’t watch shows like that because they weren’t “biblical.” I understand what he means. We certainly should not build any theology on the musings of Hollywood. The value of historical fiction, even when it verges into fantasy, is that it may help us get a grip on what it means to live for God in the real world. The imaginative portrayal of the struggles of David or Jesus’ disciples can encourage us to live like we really believe God exists.

I must say that some of the liberties taken by the writers of biblical fiction are troubling. In House of David, for example, the writers chose to portray David as an illegitimate child of Jesse. There is a hint in the biblical record that Jesse may have taken a second wife who brought two daughters from another man into his household. However, nowhere does Scripture suggest that David was not the biological son of Jesse. This is important to me because the prophets and the writers of the New Testament say that David was Jesse’s son and Jesus’ legal ancestor. I know there are some curious wiggles in the line of the Messiah (Rahab, Ruth, Perez), but I don’t see the point in inventing a cause to doubt David’s legitimacy.

I can put up with minor inconsistencies like that as long as they don’t contradict what we know from Scripture. The Christian faith is a propositional faith, meaning that there are facts, propositions, that form the basis of our belief. It is a fact that David is a historical character. It is a fact that Jesus descended from David’s line. It is also a fact that David was far from perfect; remember Bathsheba and all the trouble that followed. Watching dramatic presentations of historical figures should remind us of their humanity – their reality. Taken correctly, the stories of biblical people can bolster our faith.

House of David, like many similar productions, can build faith. This is valuable because too many Christians live in a fictional house of cards instead of a real house of faith. A.W. Tozer laments that, “It can hardly be denied that the average Christian thinks of God as being at a safe distance, looking the other way!”^[1] If we think like that, thinking God is “in Heaven,” and we are somewhere out of His sight, we are too likely to behave inappropriately. The truth is that God is not at a distance; He lives in us if we are in Christ. The Bible calls a believer’s body a tabernacle, a temple – the house of God. If a fictional drama can help me grasp that reality, I’m all for it.

  ^[1] A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Evenings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015), 70. 

Can You Lose Your Salvation?

Today, as I read John’s record of Jesus’ final words to His disciples before He was taken away, I was struck by how many times in chapters 14-17, He said keep My commandments (4 times) or keep My words (10 times) as an essential element of true belief. I ruffled some feathers a while back when I suggested that just as God gives the word to people, He also takes it away. This begs the long-debated question of whether someone can lose their salvation.

The writer of Hebrews describes people who have fallen away as having, “tasted the good word of God.” Some ask if tasting the Word is equivalent to becoming saved. If so, this verse seems to suggest one can forfeit salvation through apostasy. Perhaps the Hebrew readers would recall Old Testament prophets who were instructed to eat a scroll containing God’s word. I might be stretching the metaphor, but I see eating and tasting as significantly different.

Jesus, whom John proclaimed was the Word made flesh, once told people that they must eat His flesh if they truly wanted eternal life. Jesus’ explanation of that shocking statement made it clear that He was talking about His words. The point is obvious: licking nourishing food won’t give any sustenance; it must be eaten. In the same way, tasting God’s Word will not bring eternal life; it must be eaten – taken into the very soul of existence to do any good. Only those eat, who act on God’s Word are true believers, as Jesus implied by tying obedience to belief.

Rather than discuss what level of unbelief results in the loss of eternal life, I want to look at what proper belief looks like. Throughout Jesus’ last supper teaching, He emphasized the fact that love for Him involved obedience to Him (14 times). A.W. Tozer puts it like this: “Our Lord told His disciples that love and obedience were organically united, that the keeping of His sayings would prove that we love Him. This is the true test of love, and we will be wise to face up to it!”^[1] Our obedience to Christ’s Word is the proof of our love, but what does that look like?

When Jesus was explaining the parable of the sower, He described true receivers of the Word by saying, “these are the ones who, hearing the word, hold fast with a noble and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.” Jesus said after hearing the word, there are four characteristics that indicate true belief: holding fast, having a noble and good heart, bearing fruit, and demonstrating patient endurance. Each one of those things bears a closer look.

“Holding fast” is another way to describe obedience. Those who play fast and loose with God’s Word connive whatever ways they can to circumvent it. Strict obedience is the farthest thing from their mind. Those who hold fast make sure that all they do is in accordance with the Scripture. They run a tight course within the boundaries instead of looking for shortcuts that allow them to skirt their biblical responsibilities. They want to do what the Word says.

A person with a “noble and good heart” is just the type we would love to have for a friend. The biblical definition of noble is commendable and honest. To be good in the biblical sense is to be generous and kind. Each of these traits represents obedience to Jesus’ commands and find their center in the greatest one: to love God and to love one another. Essentially, Jesus said to truly love Him the love of others is required. Another way to say this is that our love must be heartfelt not duty bound.

It is no surprise that Jesus included “bearing fruit” in His description of a true believer. In John 15, He called Himself the vine from whom His disciples would draw the life that made it possible to bear fruit for the Gardener, His Father. Throughout the New Testament the nature of the fruit coming from the True Vine is described as righteousness otherwise known as doing good. This hits the same chord once again: hearing leads to doing if it is genuine.

“Patient endurance” can only be found in those who know and do God’s Word. In fact, patience is part of the fruit of the Spirit which characterizes all true believers. If I didn’t know Who the victor is in the struggle we call life, I would not be able to endure. My patience comes only because I know Whom I have believed, and I believe He is able to complete His good work in and through me. I don’t understand how people who are not caught up in love for God and His Word can get out of bed every day. However, I do understand the epidemic of emptiness and despair that characterizes worldly people.

My advice to anyone who is worried about losing salvation in Christ is to look for these qualities in their life: holding fast to the Word, having a noble and good heart, bearing fruit, and waiting patiently for God’s will to be accomplished. I’ll repeat Jesus’ words once more: “If you love Me, keep my commandments.” There is no salvation for someone who doesn’t love Jesus. There is no true love for Jesus without obedience to His commands. The question isn’t whether you can lose your salvation; the real question is whether you have gained it.

Related Posts: Necessary Obedience; Merely Christian

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^[1] A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Evenings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015), 345.

Recounting Christ’s Comings

To Bible believers, “The Second Coming” refers to the close of Jesus’ ministry to the church on earth. They consider Christ’s first coming to be the one that began in a Bethlehem stable and culminated with His death on the cross and ascension into Heaven. There is a large faction of the American church that believes the culmination is really a second, third, and fourth “coming” that will span 1007 years. I have written several articles explaining why I don’t subscribe to that eschatology; you can read them in the related posts below.

The seed that got me thinking about this subject again was planted by my wife when she came across something in her daily Bible reading that she had forgotten. She was reminded that a common phrase we have used in our fifty-some years of sailing the Great Lakes was spoken by Jesus. Our modern version is “Red sky at night – sailor’s delight; red sky at morning – sailor’s take warning.” At first, I went to what some refer to as Jesus’ end times discourses near the close of the Gospel of Matthew. Failing to find it there, I did what any modern Bible scholar would do: I Googled it.

Turns out, it is not in the longer section of Jesus’ discussion of the topic, but much earlier in His ministry. The Jews had demanded a sign to validate His claims and authenticate His teaching. He chided them by citing their belief in the folksy sailor’s rhyme while missing the signs that He was indeed the promised Messiah. He followed that with one of His very politically incorrect pronouncements that they were evil and adulterous. The evil part became clear when the morally bankrupt, power-hungry leadership murdered an innocent man. The adulterous part makes me want to look back at their history with God.

Throughout much of the poetry of the Old Testament, God was pictured as the loving husband of the repeatedly unfaithful wife, Israel. In this metaphor, their consistent dalliance with other “gods” was adultery. The beautiful part of this sad story is that God always took them back. True, they often had to pay for their transgression with some significant punishment, but there was always a remnant that came back to the loving Husband. God is also poetically referred to as the heavenly vineyard owner, the gardener, and rarely as the Father.

It may be Jesus’ reference to God as His Father that irked the Jewish leadership the most. They believed He was illegitimate both literally and theologically, so His assertion that God was His father and the attendant claim to be Son of Man (another OT usage) made them livid. When the High Priest asked at His trial if He claimed to be the Son of God, He replied, “It is as you say.” Though He never used the title Himself (although a voice from Heaven did), He accepted the High Priest’s application as valid. The Jews knew that when Messiah came, He would be the Son of God, so the question had an ulterior motive: get the Man to condemn Himself. He did.

This made me think about how many times Jesus had made Himself known before His “first coming.” Jesus coming in the manger of Bethlehem is called the incarnation because in that instance, God took on flesh in human form. John says plainly, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” However, just prior to that John had said that the Word was present at the creation of the world. In fact, it is the Apostle’s declaration that everything that was made was made by Him. So, Jesus’ first coming was in Genesis chapter one, “In the beginning.”

Here is the startling fact about that understanding: the Old Testament (and the New) says plainly that God created all things. No question. The name that is most often cited as the divine Creator is the Hebrew word “Yahweh.” In almost every English translation of the Scripture, the Hebrew word is substituted with the word “lord” spelled “LORD.” This practice was instituted to mimic the Jews’ reverence for the name of God. They believed it was sacrilege to pronounce it out loud. Whenever the Hebrew word represented by the consonants “YHWH” appeared, they substituted “LORD.” We don’t know exactly how to pronounce God’s name because the vowels are omitted, but most modern scholars agree that Yahweh is a good guess. Some older translations use Jehovah, but that is not thought to be as close to the original Hebrew as Yahweh.

I said it was startling; here is why. After God revealed His name, Yahweh, to Moses, the Bible writers repeatedly asserted that Yahweh created the Earth. John says Jesus created the Earth. Wait! What? Either John is mistaken (NOT!) or else Yahweh is Jesus in His preincarnate form. If that is true, as I believe it is, then Jesus had appeared to His people dozens of times throughout their history, most notably to Abraham and Moses, but to others as well. He also made numerous predictions about how He was going to appear one day in a unique form, often referred to as the Servant, to bring His program with the Children of Israel to completion. It is clear to us on this side of the Cross how those prophecies came to be. The evil and adulterous minds of the Jewish leaders in the first century refused to see it. They wanted a different Messiah, one who rode a warhorse and defeated the Romans.

I have to admit at this point that Jesus is distinct from Yahweh in some ways. Paul told the Philippians that Jesus “emptied Himself” when He became a human being. He left some of His eternal divine attributes behind when He came into the manger. He was no longer omnipresent; He was restricted in location to where His physical body was. His omnipotence (power) was there to a degree as evidenced by healing the sick, calming the storm, raising the dead, and so on. It is unclear from Scripture what level of omniscience He retained; the Gospels do say He knew what was in man, and He demonstrated that by revealing what the Pharisees were thinking. Much of the remainder of the divine character was still there, as He told Phillip that if they had really seen Him, they had seen the Father. In other words, all our finite minds can fathom about God, we can see in the human Jesus. Phillip didn’t see it at first; the Jewish leaders never did.

That had to be both frustrating and heartbreaking to Jesus. So, He told the Jews the sign they were seeking would be the sign of Jonah: three days out of sight then ta-da “I’m back!” Most of them didn’t even get that. So, Yahweh/Jesus did what He had foretold: He came in judgment on His adulterous people and used Rome to destroy their idolatrous temple and end their mockery of worship. (That’s the Book of Revelation.) Yahweh/Jesus introduced an entirely new way of worship: worship in spirit and truth. The old paradigm of select priests at a designated temple was done away. Peter said it: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s possession.”

Our God is Yahweh. Our God is Jesus, and He is coming again. We are used to calling that the Second Coming, but I think a more Scriptural understanding is that He always has been and always will be here. His special “coming” to Bethlehem and victory on the Cross are wonderful beyond imagining. His current place as the Son of God at the right hand of the Father is also unfathomable to our finite minds. How He brings it all to a conclusion when He creates the New Heaven and the New Earth is still a mystery. I want to see that! I say with John, “Amen; come [again] Lord Jesus!”

Related posts: Taking the Bible Literally, Part 2; Heaven Can Wait; Binding Satan

Understanding the Bible as Literature

Some of my friends will be “offended” at what I am about to say. What I mean is they won’t like it; they will disagree vehemently. I know this because I expressed the thought one Sunday morning, and a dear friend misunderstood, and our relationship was never the same. If you are willing, please read to the end before you form an opinion.

I finished reading the book of Jonah this morning, and I was reminded by a commentary I had open that some people think the book is an extended metaphor or perhaps a parable. I asked myself what difference it would make if the events recorded in the book were fictional. I wondered if that would have any effect on the truth of the message. I think not, but I know the arguments against that opinion.

The most serious argument against the events in the book of Jonah being fictional is that is diminishes the truth of all Scripture. Those who hold this opinion usually also express the idea that the Bible must be taken “literally” in every instance. I say we cannot take the Bible literally in every instance. This is the point at which my friend lost his cool. The problem is with the definition of “literally.” My friend thought I was challenging the truth of Scripture. I am not.

A dictionary definition of literal follows: “taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.” This explains why we cannot take the Bible literally all the time. Scripture is full of metaphor, allegory, parable, symbolism, imagery and apocalyptic literature. So, for example, if we take Isaiah 11:1 literally, the then-coming Messiah would be a vegetable of some kind: “a shoot… from the stump of Jesse.” That implies Jesse was a tree or something too.

We understand that Isaiah was employing a metaphor to teach that the Messiah would be born in the line of Jesse, hence a descendant of David which was necessary to fulfill many promises God made to David in particular and Israel in general. The same is true of Scriptures that speak of God’s judgment shaking mountains or an enemy’s advance being like locust or rivers of water flowing from a believer’s belly. We do not take these passages literally, but we do not doubt the truth they teach using metaphor or symbolism.

A second good reason some people think we must believe Jonah’s circumstances represent physical reality (they really happened) is that the New Testament, Jesus particularly, uses the lesson of Jonah. It is held that if Jesus referenced Jonah, then the story must be true, historical fact. This sounds convincing at first, but it is not logical. Jesus told numerous parables that teach truth but do not find their truthfulness in the fact that they actually happened. I doubt there was a Samaritan man who helped a poor traveler who had been robbed and beaten. I doubt there was an actual person who sold everything he had to buy a field in which he had discovered treasure. And so on; you get the point.

Regarding Jesus’ use of Jonah, it is not necessary for the events to have occurred for the meaning to be true. Consider this: when we say someone has the strength of Hercules or Superman, it does not require that our listeners believe Hercules or Superman actually exist. We understand the reference to unnatural strength to be the point. Angelo Siciliano changed his name to Charles Atlas because Atlas is a mythical figure who had the strength and fortitude to hold the entire world on his shoulders. I don’t think Angelo believed Atlas ever existed. That doesn’t take away from the reference.

So it is with Jonah: Jesus could refer to a parable from the Old Testament with just as much effect as if it were an historical event. The meat is in the reference, not the referent. I know I am on shaky ground here; some would say a slippery slope. I am not suggesting that there is no historical basis for anything in the Old Testament (or the New, for that matter). I am simply saying that whether Jonah was really swallowed by a huge fish or not, Jesus point about “the sign of Jonah” being parallel to His three days in the tomb still rings true.

In other words, I believe the Bible is all truly the Word of God. I believe everything in it was put there by the supernatural methods God chose to make His revelation. Sometimes God orchestrated human events so that, as Paul says, they could be an example for us to learn from. Sometimes God used symbolism, imagery, metaphor and any other literary device He chose to make His point. The literal parts and the not-literal parts are equally God’s Word.

The key to proper interpretation of Scripture vis a vis this literal conundrum is to recognize that the Bible is made up of many genres of literature. Each genre or type of literature must be read according to the logical rules of interpretation. When Jesus used hyperbole, we don’t take it literally; we are not supposed to poke out our eyes if they lead us to sin. When Jesus recommended believers take up a sword to advance the kingdom, He was not advocating jihad.

A slavish, literal interpretation of all Scripture leads to gross misinterpretation. At one point in church history, people were put to death because they suggested the earth revolved around the sun. The church leaders thought this contradicted the clear teaching of the Bible that the sun rose and set (revolved) around the earth. Again, the Bible frequently uses the idea of the earth having “foundations” because the cosmology of the day pictured the earth as a table with legs or foundations.

The inspired Word of God uses the understanding of the original readers to make its point. The Old Testament, particularly the wisdom literature and the prophets, is full of metaphor, imagery and symbolism. The original readers were accustomed to literature that was not meant literally. While it is true that some people in church history have taught that the entire Bible is allegorical, their overreach should not cause us to swing the pendulum too far the other way and assume the Bible is all to be taken literally.

It should go without saying that the Holy Spirit is the final arbiter to determine how a passage of Scripture is to be interpreted. I suspect that He, after all, is the agent through whom the words were originally inspired and written. This fact, however, does not absolve us of the need to use our God-given faculties of reason and logic to reach an understanding of the meaning of Scripture. To paraphrase a popular aphorism, read Scripture like it all depends on the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning, and think like it all depends on you to figure it out. That should give the necessary balance to reading the Bible as literature.

Later posts: Take the Bible Literally; Taking the Bible Literally Part 2

Why The Shack is Dangerous

“And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light." (2 Corinthians 11:14)

Google The Shack and you will see what a heresy in the making looks like. Amazon says it is the Pilgrim’s Progress for this generation. Wikipedia calls The Shack a Christian novel. On his own web site, William Paul Young, the author of The Shack, describes himself as a theologian and recommends another book he wrote, Lies We Believe About God, as a more systematic exposition of his theology. There is no question that Young believes The Shack reveals the truth about God. Sadly, Young is telling an old lie: God loves everybody too much to punish them for their sin.

One expects to find God misrepresented in secular writing and in texts from other religions. In Star Wars, George Lucas, for example, presents the Force as having a dark side/light side, Yin/Yang character as in Eastern mysticism. Lucas confuses the omnipresence of the true God with the pantheism of most Eastern religions. He depersonalizes the God of the Bible making Him an impersonal force. The Lucas movies are fun to watch, and one may even come to understand the biblical view of God better by doing a little comparison and contrast study.

But no one thinks Lucas intended to reveal truth about the God of the Bible. This is precisely what Young thinks he is doing in The Shack; he says so on his web site. The very reason the book was supposedly written makes this clear: he wanted to explain God to his child. This is why The Shack qualifies as heresy, while Star Wars is simply secular fiction. There are a few Christians who have attempted to find a picture of God in Star Wars, but you won’t find it in many church libraries. In contrast, Young’s book probably is on the shelf of whatever church Rob Bell has landed at. Its message would go well with the Schulerism at the Crystal Cathedral. It sells the seeker-friendly message that warm, fuzzy theology peddles.

The people who defend Young’s incorrect theology claim he is simply emphasizing one aspect of God’s character. They claim that God does not love us because we follow His rules, nor does He reject us when we don’t. This is partly true, and it is the “partly” that makes it heretical. God does love us in spite of our sin; that part is true. The whole truth is that our relationship with God is not based on what we have done (or not done) but on Whom we have believed. What The Shack fails to say is that we enter a saving relationship with God through the narrow door of the Cross. Absent the Cross, there is no gospel. Absent the biblical Cross, there is no possible relationship with God.

Young’s treatment of the Cross comes from what is known as universalism. This means that everyone was “saved” when Christ paid the price for sin on the cross. The god figure in The Shack says that there is no need to punish people for their sin; sin itself is its own punishment. Again, this is partly true: “the wages of sin is death,” (Romans 3:23) and sometimes the “death” begins to take its toll in life. Where Young’s theology goes wrong is in denying the need for faith and obedience. Sin does not simply make life on earth a little more difficult, it makes life in heaven impossible. And those who do not go the Cross and surrender everything in faith are doomed to an eternity in hell. That is what the Bible teaches.

If you want to know what good Christian fantasy looks like, read C.S. Lewis’ The Narnia Chronicles.Lewis took great pains to write an allegorical fiction that perfectly mirrors the truth presented in the Scripture. There may be others as good as Lewis, but I am not aware of them. It is the duty of a believer to read anything with a discerning mind to see if it aligns with Scripture, the only infallible guide to truth. When something pretends to be about the God of the Bible, but is not true to Scripture, it is heresy. It is dangerous heresy when it gets as widely circulated as The Shack, and doubly dangerous when it is so close to the truth that even sincere Christians can be fooled. But as I said, the enemy of our souls has eons of practice deceiving God’s elect. Don’t be fooled: The Shack is dangerous.

The New Downey Version

I joined 9.5 million viewers watching A.D. The Bible Continues last week and again last night. Producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett have crafted a passable story line that draws on Scripture, but it has a few features that bother me slightly. It is not surprising that the story would be juiced up a bit, given Burnett’s filmography. The creator of such big reality shows as Survivor and Apprentice can’t be expected to simply stage what really happened according to the Bible. No one believes his other shows are not somewhat inventive when it comes to the “reality” part of reality TV.

In principle I have no quarrel with adding imaginative features to a Bible record to make it come alive. I did exactly that in my novel, Wings of Mentridar (out of print but available digitally on Amazon). The difference between my inventions and Burnett’s may be minor, but I find them significant. I took what little we know about the biblical account of Noah and added details that seemed plausible without contradicting the Scriptural facts. Even though I invented an entire angelic universe to go along with Noah, I strove to keep it aligned with what we know from Scripture.

Downey and Burnett have taken a half a step away from that position, in my opinion. There are three features of A.D. that bother me. First is making Pilate and Caiaphas central to the story. I did not put a stopwatch on it, but I would estimate that the political interplay of those two leaders filled far more screen time than the acts of the Apostles. I understand the need to fill a back story, but if screen time is money, too much was spent on fictional background and too much left out of the true story. Some vitally important biblical facts were omitted: for example, one would assume that Jesus only appeared after his resurrection twice briefly to the Apostles in the upper room. No mention is made of his dozens of appearances to a total of hundreds of people.

The second feature of the film with which I take issue is the prominent place given to women in every relationship. Outside of the biblical record, history teaches that women were not regularly involved in the political and religious decisions of the day, Cleopatra and a few others excepted. Pilate and Caiaphas are both badgered by intrusive wives. Given either Jewish or Roman culture of the day, this seems unlikely. Even Peter is strongly influenced by an imagined daughter, his wife having died, according to the script of A.D. There is nothing wrong with thinking women were players in a patriarchal society on some level, but the prominence given by Downey/Burnett smacks of feminist revisionism.

Another interesting bit of possible revisioning is making the Apostle John a black man. It is not impossible that Jesus could have found dark skinned men in Palestine to form part of his original twelve. There are specific instances of black men mentioned in Acts, most notably in 13:1 where a disciple named Simeon was “called Niger” which is Latin slang for black man. Also, the regions from which people gathered for the Passover as listed in Acts 2 include areas that could well have had blacks among the population. My difficulty with a black Apostle is only that I believe for theological reasons Jesus would have specifically called sons of Abraham and not sons of Ishmael (assume if you like that Hagar was a black woman). There is really no need to “color” the players in the Bible; truth be told, they would all be people of color by today’s standards, Jesus included.

There are those who will say I am picking at nits. They may be right. If Downey and Burnett were not cutting out so much we know is true and replacing it with things that are pure speculation, I would be less uncomfortable. The teller of any story presumes to share only that which supports the theme; the Bible itself is like that. The apostle John admits that endless books could have been written about Jesus; he made editorial choices to limit his tome. My beef with A.D. is that it left too much meat on the bone and served up too much fluff.

A Flood of Questions

I haven't seen the movie Noah, and I doubt I will see it for quite a while. I gave up first run movies in theaters in protest of the price long ago. You can judge how long by the fact that I think I paid the princely sum of $5.00 for the last ticket. My children, who did not inherit the frugality gene, tell me it now costs north of $10.00 for the ticket and the typical drink and popcorn adds another ten-spot. No thanks. As much as I would like to see the flick, it's not worth $40.00 to take my wife and I when it will be $2.00 at Family Video soon, and free later on Netflix if it isn't too big at the box office.

But I do feel compelled to write about Noah, if only because I am hurt that it means I have probably lost my chance to write a screenplay for the novel I have been waiting to have discovered. You may not be aware that I have been peddling my own historical fiction, fantasy adventure romance novel about the life and times of Noah and his angelic helpers. The Kindle version is still available on Amazon, but I think it can be considered "out of print" as my on-demand publisher, Xulon Press, has not received my annual &*@#$24.99 maintenance fee for several years now. (That seems like a scam to me; can it really cost twenty-five bucks per year to keep a digital file available?) Maybe if enough people try to order it, they will "find" the file in some archive. Who knows?

Back to the movie. I did read some reviews. Sophia Lee of World Magazine calls Noah "a dark psychological thriller wrapped up in a horror film."  She remarks that, "Noah makes serious attempts at grappling with deep theological questions.... But Christians shouldn't be surprised that a secular production would miss the most important and critical element of this Genesis story—the gospel of Christ." Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian says the film is "a big muscular movie" that is "bombastic and redundant and subtly disappointing." Bradshaw also says that writer/director Darren Aronofsky has pretty well expunged God from the story line. What a surprise: Hollywood ignores the elementary role of God in a biblical story. Who would have guessed that?

I will wait to see the movie for my final judgment, but I have to give Aronofsky credit for seeing what I saw in the story of the biblical Noah (Great minds...). My motivation for writing a Bible-based fiction/fantasy was the realization that all the characters in the Bible were real human beings with real human foibles and they struggled with real human (and demonic) enemies. Even though Aronofsky is an avowed atheist, he does invest what he calls "personal passion" in the Genesis story (according to Lee). He also claims to have done 10 years of research, which may explain how he ended up with a story idea so similar to mine.

Maybe the best thing about all the fuss over Noah, the movie is the fuss itself. As a wise woman in my Sunday School class said, it opens the door to spiritual conversations. Anything that turns that knob is at least partly a good thing. Maybe I should stop sulking and take advantage of the moment. Maybe I just did.