His Burden is Light

     Wonder Woman (2017) has been highly regarded as an excellent example of the superhero movie. Updated international box office receipts totaled $821.74 million (US), making it the highest-grossing superhero origin film ever made. Indeed, I found it to be an enjoyable movie. It has a certain subtlety when it comes to its themes, most notably feminism, and because of this subtlety it was easy to accept, and at times, tempting to agree. Men were not always cardboard-cutouts suited to a feminist narrative and Wonder Woman was occasionally depicted as feminine, even traditionally so. I laughed along with the humorous sections and I appreciated the action sequences. The only troubling aspect that I perceived on my first time watching the film is the reason I chose to review it for this blog: it puts Wonder Woman in the place of Jesus Christ! Frequently, the film maps itself onto the Gospel account by applying key elements of the life of Christ to the character of Wonder Wom...

 The "Romans Road" to salvation: 1) The human problem "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:"  Rom 3:10 " For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;"  Rom 3:23 "For the wages of sin is death;"  Rom 6:23a 2) Humanity's hope in Christ " But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Rom 5:8 3) The Sinner's Response "If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved."  Rom 10:9-10 " For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."  Rom 10:13 4) The Result of Salvation "Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done f...

" This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."  Psalm 118:24 This is a particularly well-known verse, and it is usually taken to refer to the present day. That is, it is taken to mean, Whatever day it is, let us rejoice and be glad in it. If the day is especially pleasant and sunny then the congregation is more enthusiastic about reading this verse together! But is this really what it means? That whatever the day is like, God has made it and given us life in it, so we should show our thanks by rejoicing and being glad? There is truth to this interpretation, but if we look closer at the verse and its context we can see that God is really telling us something much, much more profound. Let us notice first that this verse follows immediately upon the passage about the stone the builders rejected. Jesus, after telling the parable of the tenants of the vineyard, in which they kill the lord's son in order to take the vineyard for thems...

One might add to the title Reptilians, Ghosts, Vampires, and every kind of "Mystery of the Unknown" such as the Pyramids, the Bermuda Triangle, Reincarnation, and so on. These tales have excited the imaginations of people for hundreds if not thousands of years, and the same power to fascinate continues today. These speculations can lead to a rabbit hole of obsession. But as Christians, should we allow ourselves to become investigators into these things? If we find ourselves interested in the stories of the Loch Ness Monster, for example, should we search out the lore and try to get to the bottom of the mystery? As Christians our first love should be for the truth so one could argue that in pursuing the lore concerning these stories one is only seeking the truth. We want to know what is really "out there". But that begs the question, where is the truth to be found? Out there? The prophets, apostles, the angel Gabriel, and even Jesus Christ Himself said that Go...