I’ve been to a couple of movies this
year that have been about God’s people.
By God’s people, I mean people who have had a true experience of God in
the way He reveals Himself in creation, His Word, His Son and our hearts. The best place to begin to open your heart to
God’s story is to read the Bible with the guidance of the Holy Spirit to
illuminate the story of God’s inconceivable love (yes on every page of the Old
Testament, made clearer if you start with the Gospels).
So when you attend a movie on a
spiritual topic written and produced by people who do not have the advantage of
the wisdom of God, you can expect that they won’t be able to emphasize what a
true believer knows to be vital.
However, I receive great spiritual benefit when I watch movies and
television shows through the eyes of God.
I am utterly amazed that God’s truth comes through even if the intention
was to discredit Him.
I viewed both movies Noah
and Exodus:
gods and Kings. Neither followed
the Biblical accounts and both exposed the spiritual darkness of the writers,
directors and producers. Ironically, the plague left out of the Exodus story
was the darkness that fell only in the land of the Egyptians. Here are two great stories of redemption of a
loving God for undeserving, despicable people.
The true biblical accounts are cataclysmic overshadowing the intimate
details of people’s reactions and story line.
Both films depicted the cataclysmic events in truly artistic ways that
aided my imagination towards accepting and remembering the events of the flood
of Noah, the Plagues, the Red Sea Crossing and defeat of Pharaoh. I wanted to see both films because of the
trailers that alluded to these scenes so familiar from my reading but I had
never seen on a big screen—the closest I could ever get to being there. These events were one time mighty acts of
God. They are meant to be
remembered. I wanted to conceive of them
in a new light. Both films reduced the
God of the universe to a pouty, punishing, unfair entity who held all the power
and showed no love.
I had to tolerate the spiritual
ignorance of the writers and directors.
How could they get this right?
Even if they were believers, it would only have been a human conception
of words. Who can conceive of the work
of God? I don’t attend movies to get
true biblical teaching. I go to church
for that. I attend movies to become
motivated and inspired by a story. I
like to leave not feeling that I have wasted my time. I liked that the movie helped me look at the
real people who are foraging through a real experienced and a real God (in
spite of the director’s personal beliefs).
The hardship of slavery, the indulgence of kings, the confusion about
figuring out God’s will, and the overwhelming task of leading so many people
from a revolt to a new land; were brought out in this film. The religious and historical inaccuracies
were abundant.
What I love most is that if the
director understood his audience more, he would have definitely strayed away
from depicting God as a little boy. God
is never humanized by Jews or Muslims.
He could have reached a wider audience without God made flesh. For me, God depicted as a young boy shows
that the Exodus, this redemption story, was only a precursor to the true
redemption that was planned. Jesus is
the only way true believers see God in human form. This is only because God put Himself in human
form to help us to see Him better which shows the full extent of His love. He revealed Himself as a grown man on a real
cross bloodied by our sin.
You don’t need to see the film to
know the God whose story it is; but if you do, watch it through God’s eyes or
you will be totally disappointed. What
can we expect from someone who does not fear (reverence and adore) the Lord? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good
understanding. To
him belongs eternal praise (Psalm 111:10).
What can we expect from the God whose story this is?
Copyright
2015. Deborah R Newman
teatimeforyoursoul.com All Rights Reserved.
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