HERE IT IS SO PLEASE READ VERY CAREFULLY: I am the senior pastor of our church but my wife and I also minister to the youth of our church on Tuesday nights. I’ve been teaching them how they need to know the real Jesus for themselves and the only way to do that is by reading the bible and having a close relationship with the Holy Spirit. We’ve been warning them of the dangers of being deceived and that they really need to know Jesus. Several of them told us they were going to go to see the movie “Son of God”. I was not ecstatic when they told us because of my concerns with that movie and the people that are behind making it. They wanted us to go with them and I wasn’t exactly thrilled about that idea. So I told them that I would go but that we were going to talk about this movie in youth group as to whether or not it was true to the bible. With pen and notebook in hand I went with them ready to critique the movie. Having been to law school I have been trained to look at both sides of a case in order to be adequately prepared for a presentation of a case and a trial.
\nSo here goes: The Son of God has been done in a visually appealing way. The visuals are eye catching and very awesome too watch. The movie is slick and not done in a shoddy way. It is very professional. The acting is quite good and generally speaking keeps your attention. There are gaps in the storyline which could have been woven together to make the movie flow a little smoother. The music is interesting and adds and highlights the scenes in a typical movie like fashion. The music adds and does not distract. To the average movie goer I suppose The Son of God would overall be viewed as a fairly decent and respectable and emotionally moving movie. The ladies cried when Jesus was being scourged with the Roman whip and there were those who applauded at the movies ending. Many Christians will probably like this movie as well as non-Christians.<\/p>\n
NOW TO THE POINT OF WHY I WENT IN THE FIRST PLACE. All of the above is true. But is the story about THE Son of God found in our Holy Bible? The answer is absolutely NOT! There are many changes to the story which I suppose they would call artistic license. If these type of changes are to help the movie flow smoother and do not change what is in the bible and its message then I suppose I can accept that. That is not the case in this movie and one needs to ask the question WHY? For instance: Why was Satan really taken out of this movie? Why do we never see Jesus casting any demons out as one of His miracles? Why is there NEVER any mention of hell? Could it be to push the current teaching that there is no hell, no devil, no demons? In the story of Mary Magdalene….. Oh wait. The movie never tells her story at all. Her character is in the movie because she is called Mary and we can figure out that that is who she is. Those who know the biblical story that is. But we are never told her story. Never told what a sinner she was and how Jesus made such a difference in her life as to completely change her life. Which brings us to another issue. The word repent is never ever used in this movie. Jesus does tell the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. However, the whole idea of repenting and departing from this world system is absent from this movie. As is any mention that we as followers of Jesus are to take up our own crosses and follow Him. Why is that? Why no mention of repenting and coming out of the world and bearing our own cross? I guess we have no responsibility for this. It’s all on Jesus. Hmmm… Isn’t this universalism? Jesus did it all and w e can sit back and relax and enjoy the benefits that His suffering and death and resurrection have brought us free from any personal responsibility. In the Last Supper scene we hear Jesus mention that the cup and bread are His blood and body. But we never hear Him say what they represent. Again I ask why? Peter asks Jesus what are we going to do? Jesus responds we are going to change the world! Really? Jesus never said that in the bible. Nor did He try to do that Himself through His ministry. He knew the world was corrupt and dying. The worlds systems and institutions were not His concern. People’s hearts and lives were His concern. He came to save people and transform their lives. However, kingdom now people believe we can bring the kingdom about ourselves. Again hmmmm…. Only Jesus can establish the kingdom on earth at His second coming. For now it is within us. At least that’s how my bible reads. Oh yeah, and Mary Magdalene. Why is she the ONLY woman to be seen traveling with Jesus ALL the time and a bunch of His male disciples? What is that implication all about? There are other issues as to why do we see Jesus going into the tomb where Lazarus is lying dead and Jesus places His hands upon Lazarus’ head and kisses him on the head? Really? Why? There are other smaller things but I think I have made my point.<\/p>\n
So. Do we see Jesus upon the cross as some have said? Yes we do. But we have no clear idea as to why or what we are to do. Some have said this is great for witnessing. Really? As flawed as it is? What about us? I thought WE were to be His witnesses. We were given the Holy Spirit for just that purpose. If we can’t do a better job of being witnesses than this movie then maybe we would be better off selling real estate. Or maybe we just don’t want the personal responsibility that God Himself gave to us. Either way something is definitely wrong. Let me make this clear–I am not in any way promoting or endorsing this movie. Yes, I paid the money to see it but ONLY so I can now go and teach our youth how they really need to know the Jesus of the bible. Also, so when others say “Well, how do you know?” I can tell them how I know. I wouldn’t recommend any unbeliever to go and see this film. It will NOT give them any sense at all of what the truth of the bible is. You might say that God can use this movie. Yeah well God can use anything He wants to. What He really wants is to use you and me and not some Hollywood bozos who don’t know truth from fantasy. After all it is OUR God given responsibility. And we have been letting Him down and continue to let Him down every time we take people to this sort of mess. Again these youth were going regardless. I told them how I felt and they saw my Facebook posts. They knew I was going to point out the flaws so they can be better equipped. I wouldn’t recommend Christians to go either. Don’t waste your time and money supporting ANOTHER Jesus. Pastors and other leaders may want to go ONLY so you can authoritatively and with knowledge speak as to this movies fatal errors. But that I will leave up to you. It’s between you and the Lord now as it ought to be.<\/p>\n
Hopefully I haven’t offended any of my friends who have taken a stand against this movie. I still stand in opposition to it alongside you. Nor am I trying to be hypocritical or talk out of both sides of my mouth. I hope you see and understand my reasons for going. If I have offended others who are in favor of this movie — GOOD. You really should not favor it nor recommend it to anyone for any purpose. I highly doubt the apostle Paul would have used any such badly flawed tool. We would say we ought to stone a prophet who gives a false message. Well this movie is as false as they come. You do the work of an evangelist and fulfill the responsibility the Lord gave to you.<\/p>\n
I truly submit this to you in love and my prayer is you will see God’s truth. Ask Him and I’m sure He will show you much better than I can. After all He is God!<\/p>\n
HERE IT IS SO PLEASE READ VERY CAREFULLY: I am the senior pastor of our church but my wife and I also minister to the youth of our church on Tuesday nights. I’ve been teaching them how they need to know the real Jesus for themselves and the only way to do that is by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-7J","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":480,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions\/480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}