Ray Fowler .org

“The Messiah” is a new movie from Iran depicting the life of Jesus from an Islamic perspective. Unfortunately, the Islamic perspective changes some crucial details concerning the person and work of Christ. Here are some excerpts from an interview between ABC’s Lara Setrakian and Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh:

LS: What are the key differences between Jesus through Islam’s eyes and Jesus through the traditional Christian perspective?

NT: We are talking about the same beautiful man, the same beautiful prophet, the same divine person sent from heaven. In the Koran, it emphasizes maybe three main points: about the birth, about the fact that he was not the son of God, and then, that he was not crucified. The rest is [the same] Jesus … the sermons, and the miracles, and the political situation …

LS: While production on this movie was happening, Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” came out. What did you learn from watching that film?

NT: We were almost finished filming when Mel Gibson started shooting. I saw the film, and it’s the first time the Gospel of John has ever been depicted. It was nice. But it was the wrong story. In my film, I respect that common belief with all the good intentions the Christians have … according to what Islam says. Yet, Jesus, at the night of the last supper, ascends to heaven [without being crucified]. A beautiful man, a beautiful prophet. Why should he be bloodied that way?

LS: What kind of response have you gotten from Christians? What kind of feedback and interchange has there been since the movie was released?

NT: Many thought this film is a good step for serious inter-religious dialogue. Many of them liked it — seeing the Koran-based ending. And I was very happy that the practicing Christians were very happy with the film. I have never found one case among practicing Christians who are offended [by the movie].

I am amazed that Talebzadeh says he did not find one practicing Christian who was offended by his movie that denies two of the most central beliefs of Christianity: that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died on the cross for sin. Perhaps he needs to ask around a bit more.

HT: Neatorama

It is tax time here in the United States. So, for all of you who are trying to figure out your taxes for the year, here is a truly bizarre British tax law that is still on the books in the UK.

It is illegal not to tell the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing.

How’s that again? And you thought the United States tax laws were confusing!

Note: Click here for other strange laws still on the books in Great Britain, including the following:

• It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.
• It could be regarded an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British king or queen’s image upside-down.
• Eating mince pies on Christmas Day is banned. (!)
• The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen.
• It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour.

Greg Gilbert recently wrote a couple of interesting posts over at Church Matters on music and worship in the church. In the first post (facetiously titled “Against Music”) Gilbert voiced his concerns about churchgoers relying too much on music in their worship of God.

I’ve been amazed since becoming an elder in a local church just how dependent many Christians are on a certain style of music, or certain level of excellence in music. How many times have you heard someone say, for example, “I just can’t worship in that church.”? Or “I just don’t feel like I’m connecting with God there.”

Gilbert shares about his experience in college attending the Passion Conferences in Texas. He joined with thousands of students in worshiping God through modern praise music led by excellent, skilled musicians. Then he returned home to his small church in New Haven Connecticut.

The praise bands were gone, I didn’t have a group of people who’d gone with me and shared that experience, and the churches had a piano and thirty people singing Isaac Watts hymns. That forced me to learn how to stoke the fires of worship with truths and words, and not just with excellent music. I’ve learned how to be emotionally affected by the excellent words of hymns whether they’re played and sung “excellently” or not.

Gilbert then followed up with a second post ( “Some More Thoughts on Music”) offering the following ten questions to help us consider whether we’ve allowed our hearts to become too dependent on music for our sense of spiritual well-being.

1. Do you get bored when someone reads a longish passage of Scripture in your church? Do you start wishing they’d get on with the music?
2. Do you need music playing in the background for the reading of Scripture to affect your emotions?
3. Does a prayer seem too “plain” or “stark” to you if it doesn’t have music playing behind it?
4. Do you feel depressed a few weeks after a worship conference because you haven’t felt close to God in a long time?
5. Do you desperately look forward to the next conference you’re going to attend because you know that, finally, you’ll be able to feel close to God again?
6. If you’re in a big church with great music, are you able to worship when you visit your parents’ small rural church?
7. Do you ever feel worshipful in the middle of the week, at work, at school, etc. just because of thinking about God and his grace? Or does that only happen when the music’s playing?
8. Do you tend to feel closer to God when you’re alone with your iPOD than you do when you’re gathered with God’s people in your church?
9. Do you feel like you just can’t connect with other believers who haven’t had the same “worship experiences” that you have? Can you only connect with other believers who “know what it feels like to really worship?”
10. Is your sense of spiritual well-being based more on feeling close to God, or knowing that you are close to God because of Jesus Christ?

What do you think? How important are matters of style and excellence when it comes to worshiping God through music? Have we become too dependent on music for our sense of spiritual well-being?

Yesterday was the first in a new series of messages called The Road to Jerusalem. The message was called Roadblocks on the Road to Jerusalem, taken from Luke 9:51-62.

Luke 9:51-62 – 51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them, 56 and they went to another village.
57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.”
62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (NIV)

The roadway of discipleship is the roadway of the cross. The main idea of the message was that we must overcome the roadblocks that stand in the way of our following Jesus in discipleship all the way to the cross. Here is a brief summary of the message:

I. The Roadblock of Rejection (51-53)

The people in the Samaritan village did not welcome Jesus, because he was heading for Jerusalem. The roadblock of rejection occurs whenever someone rejects Jesus outright and refuses even to consider walking the road of discipleship with him.

II. The Roadblock of a Judging Spirit (54-56)

James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans who rejected Jesus, but Jesus rebuked his disciples. You cannot walk to the cross with Jesus when you have a judging spirit. The purpose of the cross was salvation for man, not judgment. Jesus did not come to destroy but to save.

III. The Roadblock of Hasty Commitment (57-58)

This man boldly declared to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” But he failed to count the cost of discipleship. Jesus did not come to earth to live in comfort and luxury. He came to suffer and to serve. And he calls us to do the same.

IV. The Roadblock of Delay (59-60)

The roadblock of delay is the opposite of the roadblock of hasty commitment. When Jesus called this man to follow him, he asked if he could first go and bury his father. The roadblock of delay seeks to put off the call of discipleship until a later time. But the call of Christ takes precedence over all other things, even the solemn obligation to bury one’s parents.

V. The Roadblock of a Divided Heart (61-62)

When Jesus called this man to follow him, he asked if he could first go back and say goodbye to his family. Eight hundred years earlier Elijah had let Elisha go back and say goodbye to his family. But now one greater than Elijah was here. Once you have made the decision to follow Christ, it must be all or nothing. The person who starts out with Christ, but then looks back has a divided heart and is not fit for service in the kingdom of God.

CONCLUSION: When Jesus walked the road to Jerusalem, he was walking to the cross to suffer and die. And he asks you to follow him. That is the meaning of discipleship. What roadblock stands in the way of you following Jesus today?

Note: To read the complete message, go to the Sermons tab at the top of the blog.

New TV Episodes. Find out when your favorite TV shows will return now that the writers’ strike is over.

Tax Rebate Calculator. Find out the size of your rebate under the new economic stimulus package.

Richard Mouw reflects on hymns as compacted theology. “The hymns of the past are the shorthand poetic records of the spiritual and theological memories of the Christian church.”

Matthew Cornell identifies three indecisive phrases that mean the opposite of what they say, weaken your mind and hurt productivity. He explains why they are unhelpful and also shares the few times they are okay to use. Do you use any of these three phrases?

1. “Let me think about it.”
2. “Let’s get together sometime.”
3. “Interesting.”

Justin Taylor shares some ideas from Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham on picturing the sacrifices from the Old Testament. “It is very difficult for modern readers to picture the sacrifices described in Leviticus, because they, unlike ancient Israelites, have never seen, let alone participated in a sacrifice. What we really need is a video showing all the different kinds of sacrifices, the burnt offerings, the peace offering, the sin offering, and so on! Just as the stories in the Old Testament are designed for reading aloud, not silently, so these ritual texts are meant for people who already have a good idea of how to sacrifice. They are just underlining important or controversial points, so that anyone offering a sacrifice would do it in a way acceptable to God.”

“The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians says when you discover you’re riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in modern business and ministry, because of the heavy investment factors, other strategies are often tried with dead horses, including:

1. buying a stronger whip;
2. changing riders;
3. threatening the horse with termination;
4. appointing a committee to study the horse;
5. arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses;
6. reclassifying the dead horse as “living-impaired”;
7. hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse;
8. harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed;
9. donating the dead horse to a recognized charity and deducting its full original cost;
10. doing a time management study to see if lighter riders would improve productivity;
11. declaring a dead horse has lower overhead and therefore performs better; and
12. promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.”

My favorites are numbers 4, 5, 8 and 12. Which are yours?

HT: Dr. Sam Lamerson.

My parents emailed me this neat little valentine this morning, so I thought I would pass it along to you.

For God so loVed the world
      That He gAve
            His onLy
            BegottEn
                  SoN
                      That whoever
        Believes In Him
              Shall Not perish,
        But have Eternal life. (John 3:16)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Related post: What Is Love?

“BOOKENDS” – by Ray Fowler

On frosty winter mornings when I rise
And venture forth to meet the stillborn dawn,
The prickly air pokes sharply at the flesh
And sweeps the dust of slumber from my eyes.

When winter falls with force upon my home
And icy fists rap sharp on window panes,
I draw my blanket snug about my heart
And let the warmth of sleep invade my bones.

________________________________________
Click here for more poems by Ray Fowler.

NarniaWeb received the following message from Douglas Gresham about the recent test screening for the Prince Caspian movie:

Taking a break from working on Dawn Treader and other projects, I attended the test screening and I think that the team has done a fabulous job on Prince Caspian, starting with a less good story, our team has produced an even better movie than LWW. I must be perhaps the severest critic of all, and I like this movie very much!

There are other rumors and reviews from the test screening at NarniaWeb, but click at your own risk, because there are all sorts of potential plot spoilers over there!

Click here for more Narnia and Caspian related posts.
Click here for Narnia sermon series.

Behold, Jeremy Kipnis’ $6 million home theater system. Powered by 35 amplifiers with a combined 11,315 watts, the Kipnis system has 3 center-channel speakers, 8 reference towers, 10 super tweeters and 16 subwoofers. The video is projected onto a giant 18-by-10-foot laboratory-grade motion picture screen.

If King Solomon were alive today, he would definitely have one of these. And after three months of watching movies in it, he would write up the following review for Popular Mechanics:

“All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing … I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1:8,14)

I know, negative take. But as much as I love movies and technology, this just seems way over the top to me.

HT: Neatorama

Earlier I posted the funniest attack ad of the political season. Here is the funniest defensive moment of the season.

Update: Whoops, the YouTube video is no longer available. Here is a different link to the same video: Comedy Central: Colbert and Huckabee. And here is a link to a shorter version: Click here for ‘Huckabee Ices Colbert – in Air Hockey’

Video length (3:35)

Mike Huckabee and Steven Colbert play air hockey with the primaries.

HT: God and Culture

Here is the funniest attack ad of the political season.

(Video length: 0:58)

Related posts:

• Hillary Clinton In-Flight Announcements
• The MPR Select a Candidate Quiz

“I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies.”
 – Senator Hillary Clinton

“Hillary Clinton disparaged the act of baking cookies.”

“I eat cookies all the time. My mom bakes cookies. Does baking cookies for me make my mom a bad person? Hillary Clinton thinks so.”

“Why put down cookies, then offer up a recipe for cookies?”

“Oh, I thought you didn’t care about baking cookies.”

“Which is it? Huh? Huh?”

“Why the double standard?”

“Double standard … flip-flop.”

“Whitewater.”

“Miss Clinton? I don’t like your recipe.”

“My mother baked me this cookie.”

(Crunch) “Mmm, that’s good.”

“This message is sponsored by Swift Kids for Truth.”

HT: World on the Web