A Contentious Faith?

Christianity Today has an article called Jesus in the Hunger Games, where the author finds all sorts of Christian themes and symbols in the movie.  Why do Christians insist on doing such a thing?

The Hunger Games is a well written book which attempts to highlight the perversion of our culture surrounding reality TV by taking it to an extreme and drawing out the similarities to the Roman Gladiator days.  This is reportedly the authors purpose of the book after wondering about reality TV's influence on our culture.  Reading the book it seems this is indeed the purpose.  There are clear depictions of what is evil and good, compassion and violence, selfishness and selflessness, and other contrasts.  But nowhere in the book is there any indication of any philosophy or moral authority let alone any reference to a god or to the Living Almighty God.

So please, don't attempt to impose Christian themes and symbols on a purely secular book! Let the message of the book stand on its own, it is one we all need to consider in our daily lives as to what we will watch and read, but it is not Biblically based.  

For more in depth thoughts of mine on this, see this article.

The article on Salvation, Security, Works & the Believer is finished.  At least for now.  It is His perogative to teach me and show me the mistakes I made and need to correct.  I only want to honor Him and glorify His Word.

When the Bible talks about salvation is it always in reference to eternal life and freedom from the penalty of sin?

It appears the Bible talks a lot about being saved (delivered) from certain circumstances, whether persecution, our own bad choices, or situations we have no control over.  This implies many things for the believer, what might that be for you?

The page 'Salvation, Security, Works & The Believer' has been updated to include a brief discussion of this.

In every label there is truth and lie.  The truth is in trying to describe something in as few words as possible.  You could describe me as being a fan of Chuck Missler's teaching, and that would be correct and accurate.  But each label also contains a lie, just because I am a Chuch Missler fan does not mean I only listen to his teachings, I listen to many others as well and read the Bible for myself letting the Holy Spirit teach.  Do you see how this one label is both truth in what it tells you but also a lie because of what it leaves out?

So what about doctrinal and denominational labels?  Don't they do much the same thing?  

I have posted some material on how our view of certain doctrinal issues affects our view of suffering and discipline. This is a work in progress as I tackle several questions.  As each question is complete I will update the page, hopefully there is not a large gap of time between updates.

I have been doing some reading on the differences between Armenianism, Calvinism and Free Grace; when are we going to stop trying to put God's Holy Word into a neat little definition or box?  Each time I have read an article each of these seems to be defined differently with many variations of each and while I fully appreciate and encourage the personal study and conclusions which come from such study we really mess up Christian Fellowship by putting labels on ourselves, others and our doctrinal position.  I am at the point of refusing to label myself by a denomination or doctrinal position because these are so easily misunderstood and perverted.

I would like to post some information on what the Bible says about grace salvation, lordship living and God's purpose for the believer because these issues flavor how we view His discipline in our lives but I fear using any label will derail the whole conversation. 

Can we agree to let the Bible and the Holy Spirit speak to and teach us?  We may just find that each of these doctrinal positions are right and wrong at the same time, but God is always right if we will lay aside our prejudices and let Him teach.

I have updated the page on personal deliverance during divine discipline.  The main point is to be clear about the affects of sin on your fellowship with God, not that this sin destroys your relationship with God.  Sin for the believer creates a temporary block between you and God which is removed by confessing your sin as 1 John 1:9 indicates.  Don't let your theology get in the way of reading God's Word and letting it teach you.

I am working on a comparison of different theologies (Armenianism and Calvinism) which should help clear this up.

Why does everything Tim Tebow do seem to be contentious?  It is not because he is trying to be, he is praising God and being thankful, but people just get upset and start choosing sides and arguing over the guy and his choices.  Whether or not he wins another playoff game this season or even plays next year at all doesn't seem to matter to him, just look at the results from the Broncos victory over the Steelers.

Check this one from Yahoo to see how scripture takes a prominent role in the article or this one from CBS Sports or this one from the local CBS affiliate, the last two both quote John 3:16 in the story. Who is glorified here?  Not Tim Tebow, ultimately God is glorified as His Word is held up and read by millions, many of whom would never have bothered with the verse otherwise.  

I have just added content on the topic of Church discipline and how encouragement for the individual believer.