Preaching on the Passion

God can work through many means to bring people into a living relationship with Him. Where I go to church, we are advertising at the movie theater and have a 7 week sermon series set up to answer the questions that unbelievers may have. The first 600 tickets the church purchased went very quickly. It was strongly expressed that the tickets were to be given only to unbelievers.

The sermon series (found at www.passionchrist.com) is:

Feb.29 Is the Bible true?
Mar.07 Is Jesus the only way?
Mar.14 Does God really love me?
Mar.21 Is there life after death?
Mar.28 Did Jesus die for me?
Apr.04 Who killed Jesus?
Apr.11 Is Jesus alive today?

(No sermon outlines yet-sorry)

Services for us older believers will be shifted to evening service.

A sermon about how bad the film is wouldn't interest me a bit.

A sermon about the heresies in the film wouldn't interest me either. If God could use imperfect Jonah to bring a wicked city to repentance, He can certainly use Mel's imperfect movie.

Sunday's newspaper had a front page article about a neighboring (Baptistic) church and their use of the film. In todays editorial section they mentioned the church I attend as one of the local churches most involved in developing ways to evangelize using the film.

Rob

 

baptistteacher, it's Korean bro. Sorry, I thought everyone knew Korean. That's my fault and I'm deeply regretful about it. No, seriously I have no idea what's going on there. John MacArthur's web site is Grace To You. Try typing in his name or Grace To You. Maybe it's dot org instead of dot com. I'll figure this out and get back to you. Sorry.

So now Jesus films can be extremely violent? by a man who loves making violent films? Okay.

Here's my response to that: what if a man who makes porn movies makes a religious Christian film and it's rated X for sexual content? As long as it stimulates discussion of Jesus it's okay? I'll leave it there because both gratuitous, extra-biblical violence and sex are disturbing to me. Wake up people, wake up and smell the coffin. Biblical accuracy is dying here in good old America.

 

We should avoid generalizations, and we should definitely avoid guilty-by-hypothetical-association scenarios. Each and every movie that comes out should be judged on its own.

Legalism is thriving quite nicely.

 

Concern for biblical accuracy is "legalism". Then call me the Sheriff and lock me up and throw away the key. Love of God's Word and concern for biblical accuracy in a Jesus film is not legalism. This movie claims to be about the Saviour Jesus Christ. So I demand that it be accurate. What if I did a movie about your dad, and put in lots of wild fantasies that were not true. You'd not like it, I'm sure. But with Jesus, that's okay. Think how that sounds, bro.

 

No it isn't. Using "concern for Biblical accuracy" as the label on your cattle-prod - trying to tell other people how they should act/feel/respond, implying you are more authoritative than the Holy Spirit in their lives - is.

It depends on what was portrayed, why it was portrayed, what effect it had on people, etc. But I do know I would keep my mouth shut and reserve critiquing until I had actually seen the movie.

 

Okay. Thanks for an honest reply. If concern for Biblical accuracy is now a "cattle prod" do you realize what you have just now said about God's precious Word, the Word by hearing which cometh faith to salvation, the Word by rejecting or falsifying it we are cursed by God?

Do you realize what that statement of yours about God's Word is called in the Bible? Theologians have a special word for it. I'll let you figure out what that word is.

 

You are obviously not reading my posts carefully. I never said concern for Biblical accuracy is a cattle prod. Good try though.

 

At pastors.com, Rick Warren is offering a free Easter sermon relating to the film. I believe he is planning on preaching it (or he may already have) in correlation with the release of a film.

While I am unsure if I will preach his exact sermon, I always welcome fresh perspectives and other people's thoughts, so I downloaded it.

 

Some folks around here are doing a lot of grandstanding. It reminds me of some of our associational meetings.

 

USN2---you can't take Warren's sermon yourself and "improve" it just a little???

Your buddy,
Brother David

 

blackbird, I'm guessing you've seen the kind of meetings I'm talking about...

 

Those where preachers try to "trump" each other sermon's??? Those kind of meetings???