Tag: Digging in Deeper

Digging in Deeper: Proverbs 10:18

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“Hatred stirs up conflicts, but love covers all offenses.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When Paul was offering the Thessalonian believers encouragement when they were struggling with what to think about believing loved ones who had died before Jesus could return, he opened his thoughts to them by saying this: “We do not want you to be uninformed brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.” His point, in a nutshell, is that he wanted these followers of Jesus to grieve like followers of Jesus and not as those who aren’t followers of Jesus. Grieving without hope is not a pretty experience. What’s more, people who grieve without hope know it isn’t pretty. But they don’t know what to do with it. As a result, they tell stories to make themselves feel better. Yet all of our stories are echoes of God’s great story, which means that the world’s stories about grieving often wind up coming close to the truth. In the latest Thor movie, Thor: Love and Thunder, Marvel offers us yet another example of the truth of this observation. I finally got to see it. Here are my thoughts…and by the way, if you haven’t seen it yet, I’m going to fill this with spoilers, so read at your own risk.

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Digging in Deeper: 1 Peter 4:14-17

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Thanks for coming back with me this week. We had a terrific time away and now I’m ready to hit the ground running.

“If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler. But if anyone suffers as a Chrisitan, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name. For the time has come for judgment to begin with God’s household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God?” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What would you do if you suddenly discovered that your parents are not really your parents? I think we can safely say at the very least that this would be a pretty major shock to your system. Let’s add one more layer to this, though: What if your discovery and shock were shared by your parents? A recent documentary film on Netflix pursues this very question in a true crime story that didn’t even have to be designed to shock and disturb. The story Our Father tells does those two things on its own. Yet the story itself isn’t the thing that most got my attention and sparked my writing this morning. That prize goes to the particular angle the director chose to take with the storytelling. It offers a good reminder of where the culture is when it comes to the church and why getting the life of Christ right is so important for followers of Jesus.

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Digging in Deeper: 1 Peter 2:12

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“Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are some actions for which there is a broad moral consensus regarding their rightness or wrongness. Everyone knows these things are wrong. With but a few exceptions, they’ve always known it. The trouble is, we want what we want, and we don’t much like people getting in the way of what we want. The reason this idea is trouble (beyond all of the obvious ones) is that sometimes what we want and things everyone knows are wrong come into conflict with each other. We don’t mean for these conflicts to happen. But they do. When they happen, we have a choice to make. We can change what we want. But we want what we want, so that’s probably not the first choice we’re going to make. The other option is to redefine this thing we know is wrong in such a way that we somehow excuse our doing it in order to get what we want. This option is often preferable to us in the moment (because it lets us have what we want), but it makes a whole lot of other things a whole lot more complicated because living in a fantasy world requires constant effort to keep the walls up. Well, 49 years ago, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Roe v Wade that effectively forced our entire nation down this second path and made things a whole lot more complicated. Then, last week, with the Dobbs decision, the same institution set us back on the right path. What do we do now?

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Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 6:4-8

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“For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away. This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt. For the ground that drinks the rain that often falls on it and that produces vegetation useful to those for whom it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and about to be cursed, and at the end will be burned.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There is a school in my district that is a choice school. What this means is that anyone can go to it in the whole district. It has an application process, and they don’t have to accept everyone who applies, but it technically has an open enrollment to any students whose parents are interested in their experiencing the unique educational approach it offers. This sounds great, but there’s a catch. If you choose to go to the school and then choose to leave the school, you can’t come back. If you have tasted what the school has to offer and choose to go back to your regularly-districted school, that’s it. You won’t be able to come back for a second round. In one of the most uncomfortable passages of Scripture in the entire New Testament, the author of Hebrews says the Christian faith is kind of like that. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: 2 Corinthians 7:8-10

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“For even if I grieved you with my letter, I don’t regret it. And if I regretted it – since I saw that the letter grieved you, yet only for a while – I now rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance. For you were grieved as God willed, so that you didn’t experience any loss from us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In a world without God, we are haunted by death. Let me be more specific: In a world without Christ, we are haunted by death. In his letter to the Thessalonian believers, the apostle Paul wrote encouraging them to grieve for their lost loved ones who died in Christ like the people of faith they were and not as those who had no hope. There is indeed a difference between the two. And if last year’s hit Disney+ series, Wandavision explored the process of grieving (something I wrote about here), this year’s latest Marvel movie, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, helps to highlight the difference. Absent time to go see it in the theaters, the film final released on Disney+ this week, I have watched it from start to finish, and am at last ready to offer up some thoughts. If you haven’t seen the movie, this review is going to be full of spoilers, so proceed with caution. If you’ve already seen it, here’s what I think.

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