Monday Night Magnificence

A couple weeks ago, I posted about the fact that my Carolina Panthers were getting no respect despite the best start in franchise history and one of the top records in the NFL. I have a feeling that's about to change. The Panthers shredded the lauded Tampa Bay defense en route to a resounding 38-23 win last night on Monday Night Football. The Bucs had allowed only 1 rushing touchdown all year, but Carolina's tandem of Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams (or as they're becoming known, "Smash and Dash") gashed them for 300 yards (Williams 185, Stewart 115) and 4 touchdowns. Add in another explosive night from Steve Smith and it was a party atmosphere in Charlotte last night. Our last 3 games are very tough, but Carolina now controls their own destiny for home-field advantage in the playoffs - win out, and we're the NFC's #1 seed. At any rate, I don't think we'll be seeing many more hack job pieces like this one written by SI.com's Adam Duerson last Friday.

A Lesson On the Value of Human Life

"One way of catching class attention is to ask what advice [medical] students would give when presented with the following family history. The father has syphilis, the mother tuberculosis; they have already had four children -- the first is blind, the second died, the third is deaf and dumb, and the fourth has tuberculosis. The mother is pregnant with her fifth child, and the parents are willing to have an abortion, should you so decide. Assuming there aren't too many Catholics in the class, you will usually find a majority in favor of abortion. You congratulate the class on their decision to abort -- and then you tell them they have just murdered Beethoven." - L. R. C. Agnew of the University of California School of Medicine at Los Angeles, quoted in "A gripping lesson on abortion," The Palo Alto Times, September 27, 1977.

HT: Vitamin Z

Following Christ in Hitler's Germany

Time Magazine has recently rereleased this amazing article, originally published in 1940, about the German Christians who gave their lives in opposition to the Nazi regime during World War II. I don't know if I'll ever be required to suffer for my faith like they did, but after reading their inspiring accounts I pray that if so I would value Christ enough to stand for him at any cost. Don't miss this one.

HT: Denny Burk

Friday's Featured Film - 12/5/08

New movies are usually released to theaters every Friday, but who’s got 10 bucks these days to drop on a movie that may well be a load of crap? Given those odds, each Friday I offer an alternative on DVD that you can rent at your local video store (or in some cases, avoid at all costs). Some will be new releases, others you may have to hunt for, but all of them are available to light up your small screen should it be a lazy Friday night.

Get Smart

I love The Office. I think Steve Carell is one of the funniest actors of our time, and is to this decade what Jim Carrey was to the last – a hilarious everyman who can pull off both the silly and the serious with near equal effectiveness. When the trailers for his update of 60's spy spoof Get Smart began to hit theaters earlier this year, I was more interested than I figured I’d be. Most old TV comedies that get turned into movies don’t exactly turn out well (Starsky and Hutch still gives me chills). However, if ever there was an actor tailor-made to step into Don Adams’ shoe-phone, it’s Carell, and I wanted to see if he could pull it off. A couple weeks ago, Heather and I rented it, and I found it to be quite funny and a just-plain-fun movie.

Carell plays Maxwell Smart, an over-eager analyst for CONTROL – a spy organization from the Cold War that the CIA claims no longer exists. They tackle only the most secretive cases, and Max dreams of finally being promoted to agent status. However, despite his great aptitude for compiling intricate reports, his hand-eye coordination isn’t the world’s best. However, after an attack results in the death of most of CONTROL’s agents, Max is paired with the stunning and deadly Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) and sent out to save the world. With star Agent 23 (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and The Chief (Alan Arkin) backing them up, Max and 99 attempt to halt the latest plot of the worldwide terrorist juggernaut, KAOS.

It’s the same cornball setup from the 60’s TV show, and the tone of the jokes is much the same, merely updated for our modern world. I think your enjoyment of the movie will likely hinge on your enjoyment of Carell – if you find him funny and charming, you be entertained, if not, this will be a long hour-and-change. I thought he was great, Hathaway had surprisingly good comedic timing playing the straight-man (er…woman), and the plot of the film was just tight enough to hold my attention as it basically served as an excuse to funnel Max and 99 into one sketch after another. Director Peter Segal (whose track record includes both charming surprises like 50 First Dates and embarrassments to humanity like Anger Management) skips many of the easy, dumb jokes common in this type of movie and generally plays it pretty smart. Even the movie’s action was entertaining enough, surprising in a movie that clearly is billed as a comedy. At the end of the day, though, it’s a solid comedy with a solid cast. It was a great popcorn film all-around, and I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. It’s nothing you’re going to remember five years from now, but for a fun Friday night at home, it’s a winner. - *** (out of 4)

Get Smart is rated PG-13 for crude humor and some language.

Sola5 Wednesday Recap - 12/3/08

This weekly topic is an effort to recap the Wednesday night Bible study I teach at Sola5, my youth group. I hope it serves to help us all in contemplating the ceaseless riches of God’s grace as revealed through the Scriptures.

Two weeks ago, we wrapped up our series in the Gospel of John. After a week off for Thanksgiving and before venturing into another book study, I decided to take a couple weeks and revisit our “You Asked For It” Q&A series from the summer. We had a few students’ questions left in the box when the series ended, so I decided to spend last night answering one of them. The question involved whether or not we should judge those who are in sin. To find our answer, we first tried to think about what is meant by “judging” someone. That word carries a very negative connotation in our culture. When asked, my students said that it brought to mind thoughts of a holier-than-thou person laying into people they didn’t even know based upon generalizations or stereotypes. Certainly all of us have seen Christians exhibiting this kind of behavior (or even been guilty of it ourselves!) at some time or another. How do we avoid it? Should we avoid passing judgment on others altogether? What did Jesus mean by “Judge not?”

For our answers, we took a look at Matthew 7:1-6. The passage begins with Jesus’ famous words, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” This passage is among the most frequently quoted (and misused) in all the Bible. Upon first glance, Jesus seems to be saying that God will judge us by whatever standard we apply to others, so it’s best to be gracious. However, when examined in light of other parts of the Bible (Galatians 3:10, James 2:10-11) or even Jesus’ words from this very sermon (Matthew 5:17-20, 43-48), that idea makes no sense. Those passages make it pretty clear that God will judge us all by the same standard – his own holiness. So what is Jesus saying here?

He’s warning us that our standard of judgment will be turned back upon us by those whom we judge. When you point out a fault in someone else’s life, what’s the first thing they tend to do? They look for something to fire back about you. It’s human nature. When we’re told we’re wrong, we look for the opportunity to label the accuser a hypocrite so that we can dismiss whatever it is that they’re saying. Jesus wants us to realize that this is what we can expect when we point out sin in someone else’s life. So, he tells us to make sure we take care of ourselves first. He gives the humorous example of a man who tries to take a speck of sawdust out of his friend’s eye while he has a tree protruding from his own. This is silliness – and we look just as silly when we make judgments about other people’s lives while remaining blissfully ignorant of our own shortcomings.

We might be tempted to stop here, and imagine that Jesus is just telling us to mind our own business and let others mind theirs. That’s the American way, right? One of my students pointed out last night, “But if we don’t help each other fight sin, we’ll all end up in bad shape.” Very true, and that’s why we need to notice what Jesus says in verse 5 – “First take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” When we are waging war against the sin in our own lives, we will then be able to help those around us. We will have the right humility, the right attitude, and the right dependence on God that we need in order to be beneficial in the lives of others and not a hindrance.

Ultimately, Jesus is giving us a warning here, not a rebuke. Though we carry a lot of negative connotations with the word “judge,” the Greek word Jesus used simply means to express an opinion or view on matters of right and wrong. It carried no connotation of pride, arrogance, or bitterness. The word was used of those who were wise and just leaders and rulers. Jesus isn’t telling us not to stand up for what is right and speak out against what is wrong. If he was, then he’d be quite the hypocrite, since he did his fair share of both. He’s telling us how we ought to judge, putting away pride and taking on humility, and with the attitude of Galatians 6:1 ensuring that we can be used for good in the lives of the people we care about.

Out With the Old, In With the Older?

Just when I thought I'd seen it all in the sports world. Today, my Carolina Hurricanes fired coach Peter Laviolette and replaced him with...the guy that they fired 5 years ago whom Laviolette replaced, Paul Maurice. I just don't get it. Laviolette wins you the first Stanley Cup in franchise history, and you can him after two disappointing (and injury-riddled, I might add) seasons. This year has been no different - the Canes are hovering around .500, but have lost a ton of guys to injuries in the young season. It's this same "what have you done lately" attitude that had people calling for Carolina Panthers coach John Fox's job during the summer - and he's come back to lead them to the best start in team history this year. Doubtlessly, 'Canes management is hoping for the same kind of bounce that Bruce Boudreau brought to Washington when he took over mid-season last year, and I hope Maurice provides it. I'll be pulling for him all the way. That doesn't change the fact that I find this move - and the overall approach to coaches in pro sports - dumb.

A Commentary Doubleheader

A couple weeks ago, my youth group and I finished a 58-week study in the gospel of John, the tail end of which you’ve been able to follow here on the blog. It was a great study, and my teaching preparation was greatly enhanced by the two commentaries that I used over the course of the study. I commend them to you.

The first is Arthur Pink’s Exposition of the Gospel of John. This thick volume contains Pink’s insights into the text, many of them drawing from the most miniscule details to produce great insight. That’s the primary reason I would recommend the commentary – Pink often sees meaning in the details of the text that I simply didn’t. I’ll never forget planning the first lesson in the study. I had intended to teach John 1:1-18 the first Wednesday night. I had my outline prepped and ready, only to have the Pink commentary arrive from Amazon on Tuesday. I sat down and began to read that evening, and very quickly realized that there was absolutely no way I could do justice to those 18 verses in one night. Pink challenged me to go deeper and to search familiar verses for truths that I had neglected, which is in effect the job of any Bible teacher. I ended up taking 5 weeks to tackle the passage, and never felt like I was stretching. However, the commentary’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Sometimes, Pink draws out things from the text that I’m just not convinced are there. He is very apt to allegorize narrative passages, and there were several weeks (especially the accounts of Jesus’ miracles) where I didn’t find much of profit despite much reading. There were several occasions where I would ask a trusted friend their take on Pink’s interpretation when the water between profound exegesis and allegorical stretching became muddied. All in all, though, the good far outweighs the bad for a discerning reader.

The second is John Calvin’s commentary on the book from the Crossway Classics series. If Pink was my source for the minute details, Calvin was where I turned for the broader strokes of theme and application. I found his writing spot on and extremely useful, to the point where if I was crunched for reading time during a particular week and could only get through one commentary, it would more often than not be his. His pastoral heart shines through in the way that he applies the text, and often his application would inform my concluding thrust to my students (who says that dead French theologians have nothing to say to modern American teenagers?). In addition, the people at Crossway did a fantastic job of translating Calvin into a very accessible modern English without it ever having that dumbed-down, JV feel that such a translation can easily fall prey to. It was a great commentary on all fronts.

At the end of the day, if I could only buy one, I’d buy Calvin’s. However, both of them read quite differently and are incredibly useful in their own right. If you’re planning a study of John or would just like a commentary to aid you in your personal study, you won’t go wrong with either of these.

Don't Let Your Cell Phone Rule You

"Technology is a great servant but an evil master. Technology is proof of the greatness and grace of God and something we ought to be thankful for. But why, then, have so many of us allowed it to rule and govern our lives?" - Tim Challies

Live from Louisville, it's Irony!!!

HT: Vitamin Z

Bond is Back

I’ve posted before about my high degree of anticipation for this year’s new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. After the daring, exhilarating masterpiece that was Casino Royale and Daniel Craig’s deep, dark turn as the famous superspy, Heather and I have been waiting with great excitement for the follow-up. Upon its release a couple weeks ago, the movie was met with good, but not great, reviews. Both my brother and my sister-in-law saw the movie during it’s opening weekend, and they both echoed the common summary of the critics – good movie, but nowhere near what Casino Royale was. Thus, when we finally headed to the theater to take it in Saturday, my expectations had been somewhat lowered. Perhaps that was a good thing, because though Quantum of Solace isn’t nearly as good as it’s predecessor, it's still a terrific movie that provides a bit of closure (or, rather, a “quantum of solace”) to Bond’s origin story and sets the stage for the future of the franchise.

Daniel Craig returns as Bond as the movie picks up just minutes after the ending of Casino, a first for the series. We enter the story in the middle of a frenetic and violent car chase as Bond brings in Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), the lead he had captured at the end of the last film, for questioning. Bond is seeking answers regarding his Casino love interest Vesper Lynd, who was blackmailed into betraying him to save her boyfriend. With M (Judi Dench) keeping close watch, concerned that Bond’s desire for revenge will overshadow his duty, he follows a series of leads that takes him to business mogul Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) and the mysterious organization Quantum that seems to have eyes around every corner. Allying himself with a mysterious woman named Camille (Olga Kurylenko) and his old contact Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), he seeks to uncover the truth about Vesper while delving into an organization that threatens the stability of England and the rest of the world.

Once again, Craig hits it out of the park as 007. A character that had descended into caricature over the course of 20 (entertaining in their own right) films is once again explored in much the way Ian Fleming wrote him almost 50 years ago – a coldly efficient killer with a duty to country and strange allure. Craig brilliantly portrays a Bond broken by lost love but channeling the devastation into a brutal rage contained behind an almost robotic exterior. Quantum completes the origin story begun in Casino Royale, and by the time the credits roll we have a sense of who this Bond is and what makes him tick. The movie is also successful as an action film – it’s brief 100 minute running time is loaded with near constant action, expertly staged and frantically shot. Director Marc Forster, more well known for art-house fare such as Finding Neverland and Monster’s Ball, proves a capable captain at the helm of the ship, keeping the movie tightly focused and never boring. The supporting cast is good, especially the holdovers from the previous film such as Giannini and Jeffrey Wright’s Felix Leiter. Amalric is good, but Greene lacks the interest and magnetism of Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre. Similarly, Kurylenko’s Camille is a strong, if underexplored, character, but she can’t hold a candle to Eva Green’s Vesper. She’s not supposed to – after all, despite the presence of two Bond girls (Gemma Arterton joins the cast as a British support agent), Vesper is in a way the strongest female presence in the film, despite never appearing onscreen. That, perhaps, is the best indication I can give as to what to expect from Quantum. The film functions as an entertaining though unspectacular epilogue to Casino Royale, not the groundbreaking success that film was (how could it be?) but a great addition to the new Bond canon nonetheless. It will be interesting to see how the franchise breaks into new territory in the next outing. Until then, Bond fans, go in with the right expectations, and you’ll enjoy this one immensely. - ***1/2 (out of 4)

Quantum of Solace is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some sexual content.