The Passion of the Christ

[Timebuilder]

The movie presumes you know the whole story and you already understand why this sacrifice was made. If you don't, then you will not learn it from this film. JMHO.

No, you are probably correct, there is little "learning" from the film, aside from learning the brutality of Romans and the degree of suffering endured. And there certainly is a great deal of "poetic license" that Gibson feels is acceptable that someone more familiar with the Bible might not feel is acceptable.

There is however (and I think this is one of the reasons the movie was made) a stimulus to ask questions. Imagine: someone sees the movie, and he doesn't understand why Jesus was rejected as the Messsiah, or why He suffered this treatment willingly. This moviegoer will likely ask the first person he thinks can give him an answer. Maybe a friend. Maybe the local Bible church. A neighbor, or a poster on an aviation message board.

Before this movie, I had imagined a "flogging" to be the kind of whipping that a seaman might suffer on the Bounty under Captain Bligh. You know, a couple of dozen strokes of the whip, a bucket of seawater, and off to your hammock to suffer in recovery for several days, and then back to work on the ship.

It never occurred to me that they would just keep going until the victim was more like road kill than a man.

It makes the idea of His sacrifice even more impressive, because He could have decided against the whole thing, and let us all be lost. Instead, He was the architect of compassion and service. Wow.

 

[skydiverdriver]

Surplus,
You are free to doubt that anyone will be converted because of the movie. Or, you could actually look at the evidence, and find that many people are being saved because of it. I hear people talking all the time about the things that happened in the film, and if they could find where it was in the Bible to check it's accuracy. Perhaps you havn't heard anyone say these things, but I have, a lot.

I'm a bit suprized that you refused to answer my question about Bible "versions" with different interpretations. You refer me to a website where people debate about what the Word means, but that doesn't mean the interpretations are wrong. Two people could read the exact same sentence and come up with different meanings. That's why Protestant christians believe in the preiesthood of the believer.

I'm also wondering why you think you are a christian because you belong to the Catholic church. I'm wondering if I were to join a golf club, would that make me a golfer? What if you left the Church, would you still be a christian? Can you leave the Church? I really am curious as to how you feel about these things.

Thanks for reading, and answering.

 

[skydiverdriver]

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NEWS BRIEFS:
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'Passion' Prompts Man's Murder Confession

A Texas man who authorities say had literally gotten away
with murder confessed to the crime two weeks ago after
seeing "The Passion of the Christ."

Dan Leach, 21, admitted to Fort Bend County, Texas,
sheriff's deputies that he killed his 19-year-old
girlfriend in January -- staging the crime scene to appear
like a suicide. Authorities fell for the ruse, ruling that
the suburban Houston woman hanged herself.

"He was very, very meticulous," Detective Mike Kubricht
told the Associated Press. "It was very well-planned and
well-executed."

One thing Leach apparently didn't plan on, though, was the
conviction he'd feel after seeing Mel Gibson's film about
the last 12 hours of Jesus' life on Earth.

"He made an admission that viewing 'The Passion of the
Christ' had some impact on him," Chief Deputy Craig Brady
told Houston television station KTRK. "I believe it's his
conscience that got the best of him. He approached members
of his church congregation first, and told his family
members what had occurred."

Leach told deputies his motive for the killing was that he
thought his girlfriend was pregnant -- and he didn't want
the responsibility of being a father. The woman's autopsy,
however, revealed no evidence of pregnancy.

----------------------------------------------

 

[surplus1]

No, you are probably correct, there is little "learning" from the film, aside from learning the brutality of Romans and the degree of suffering endured. And there certainly is a great deal of "poetic license" that Gibson feels is acceptable that someone more familiar with the Bible might not feel is acceptable.

I can agree with that.

There is however (and I think this is one of the reasons the movie was made) a stimulus to ask questions. Imagine: someone sees the movie, and he doesn't understand why Jesus was rejected as the Messsiah, or why He suffered this treatment willingly. This moviegoer will likely ask the first person he thinks can give him an answer. Maybe a friend. Maybe the local Bible church. A neighbor, or a poster on an aviation message board.

I can agree with that too.

Before this movie, I had imagined a "flogging" to be the kind of whipping that a seaman might suffer on the Bounty under Captain Bligh. You know, a couple of dozen strokes of the whip, a bucket of seawater, and off to your hammock to suffer in recovery for several days, and then back to work on the ship.

My reaction is different. I think the whipping scenes are overdone. It is extremely doubtful that a "man" could endure the severity of the beating depicted and then carry a cross over such a long distance. Persumably we believe that Jesus did not use the power of God to assist in His human sacrifice. The graphics depicted in the film appear to contrdict the possibility of any human being able to endure that, to the point of suggesting divine intervention. They have their purpose and their effect, but I wouldn't take them as Gospel.

The "debt" for human sin was not paid for by a flogging. It was paid by the decision of God to become man and endure death. The gory details of how the murder took place are not verifiable in the extremes depicted in the movie. Yes, we know there was a beating, we know there was a crown of thorns, we know He carried the cross and we know that He was crucified and died for us. However, the importance of that was not the severity of the beating, it was the fact that He was God and didn't have to do any of that.

It never occurred to me that they would just keep going until the victim was more like road kill than a man.

We really don't know that they did. The Gospel does not go into details of the scourging. It says that it happend but there are no graphic details. In any case this is to me irrelevant. The sacrifice was God becoming man and dying for us, not the severity of the flogging.

It makes the idea of His sacrifice even more impressive, because He could have decided against the whole thing, and let us all be lost. Instead, He was the architect of compassion and service. Wow.

Yes, He could have done away wilth all or any of that at any time. Yes, the compassion and service were the example but from my perspective the physical pain did not itself atone for the sins. If that were so, then any man could have suffered and been crucified. God becoming man and giving up life was the sacrifice.

Perhaps the movie will benefit many and I hope that it does, but for me personally it does nothing to create, improve or develop my Faith. It is a good film, but it is only a film.

 

[surplus1]

Surplus,

I'm a bit suprized that you refused to answer my question about Bible "versions" with different interpretations. You refer me to a website where people debate about what the Word means, but that doesn't mean the interpretations are wrong. Two people could read the exact same sentence and come up with different meanings. That's why Protestant christians believe in the preiesthood of the believer.

My arguments in the discussion have not pretended to determine which version is right or which version is wrong or which version is in between. If there are different interpretations of the meaning of the Word, there is conflict. Both can't be "right" if they are different. The "problem" is precisely that two people can read the same thing and come up with different meanings. If those "different meanings" contradict each other that brings the veracity of the whole thing into question.

The web site to which I reffered you is just such a debate. One version of the Bible is being compared to other versions of the Bible. The claim is made, repeatedly, that one version is accurate and the other is not. I am not making the claim, they are.

I said to you that until you all (reformers) get your act together about which "version" is accurate, I can't compare anything for there is nothing to compare with. I have no idea why you have all these different interpretations. From my perspective, man cannot "interpret" the Word of God and give it a series of different and conflicting "meanings" from time to time. It is either the Word of God or it isn't. When you change the "meaning" you have altered the Word.

I not saying that you have to use Olde English or any particular phrase or word exactly. I am saying that you can't have multiple meanings for the same thing.

I'm also wondering why you think you are a christian because you belong to the Catholic church. I'm wondering if I were to join a golf club, would that make me a golfer? What if you left the Church, would you still be a christian? Can you leave the Church? I really am curious as to how you feel about these things.

If you understood what I have been trying to say you would not ask those questions. Evidently I have failed to properly articulate my feelings or my beliefs. I'm sorry that I haven't been clear.

I do not think that I am a Christian because I belong to the Catholic Church. Catholics don't have "memberships" in churches in the same context that Protestants do. I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God made man, that he suffered and died for our sins, that He is the Messiah and Savior. Belonging to the Catholic Church does not make me a Christian and will not in itself save my soul. Faith in Jesus Christ is what will do that. The Church is merely a tool that the Lord uses to spread His Word.

I also believe that the Catholic Church is the the church that Jesus founded and sent his Apostles to teach His word in and through. However, belief in "the church" is not the source of belief in the Christ. It is the other way around, i.e., belief in the Christ is the souce of belief in His Church.

Equating that to membership is a golf club is specious and does nothing more than indicate your lack of comprehension. I don't know what you believe or don't believe and it doesn't matter to me. I've been critical to some extent of the "born again" Christians but I don't mind saying that when it comes to the analogy that you use, they are way ahead of you. The Faith is in Jesus Christ, not in some "club" that you call a church.

The Church is universal, the vehicle through which God chose to spread his Word. It is not a "thing" made by man that I can leave or not leave. In that context all churches are irrelevant. Christianity is not belief in a "church", it is belief in Jesus Christ. You choice of words is therefore totally confusing to me. I say again, the church does not make me a Christian, therefore it is not possible for me to "leave" the Word of the Lord. The church merely spreads the Word, it does not create it.

The Word can't be spread with whatever "meaning" man chooses to give it. It comes from God and His teachings must be followed. They can't be subject to the whims of men. The Apostles and their descendents were charged by Jesus with teaching His Word. They must do so accurately, not however they feel they should at different times.

As an example, when they come up with the idea that Christ was not divine, not God, (like the Unitarians) or like the Jehova Witnesses, that is a perversion of the word. Someone has to keep it straight until God returns. His Church was charged with doing that.

Over the centuries, many men have made grave errors in how the went about teaching the Word. Many of those men were Catholics, some even Popes. They were men, and men make mistakes. We must ask ourselves -- were the errors in the Word itself or the method of its teaching? In my opinion we are free to condemn the method when it is obviously contrary to the Word, but we are not free to change the Word itself.

This is a difficult subject for religion is an abstraction. As I tried to say earlier, it is not a question of fact, it is a question of Faith, i.e., the belief in that which cannot be proven.

I hope that answers some of your questions.

Respectfully,
Surplus1

Thanks for reading, and answering. [/B][/QUOTE]

 

[skydiverdriver]

Thank you for answering. I meant no disrespect by the golf club analogy, but I thought you said you were a christian because you were a member of the Catholic church. I must have misunderstood you.

I agree with everything you said in the previous two posts, with one small exception. I don't think everyone who is a protestant, which is a huge group, has to agree before we can have a discussion. People will always disagree on documents, such as the Consitution or any human writings. However, you dismiss all of us easily by saying we cannot agree.

Again, most of the disagreements have to do with styles of worship, and have little to do with the important things that even you and I agree on. For example, if one church uses loud rock music in their services, and another has the congregation sing traditional songs, but they agree on every other item, would you see this as evidence that both are wrong? I'm not trying to convince you that anyone is right or wrong, just that there may be misunderstandings on your part about the protestant churches as well. I have learned much from you about the Catholics, and I thank you for that.

 

[Timebuilder]

The "debt" for human sin was not paid for by a flogging. It was paid by the decision of God to become man and endure death.

I did not mean to imply that the flogging was the propitiation. I'm simply aghast at the level of brutality of the flogging that was never reallly explored in previous movies. Perhaps the movie carries this section to a level which a human could not endure, I don't know. I do know that it makes the sacrifice, willingly undertaken, even more impressive from the aspect of suffering.

Yes, the compassion and service were the example but from my perspective the physical pain did not itself atone for the sins. If that were so, then any man could have suffered and been crucified. God becoming man and giving up life was the sacrifice.

Once again, the pain endured did not atone for us. The sacrifice did. The nature of the sacrifice, and its associated pain, was never so fully communicated, either by the Gospel account (which may have had a clearer and more vivid meaning for the early Christians) or the accounts of the Gopels brought to film.

Perhaps the movie will benefit many and I hope that it does, but for me personally it does nothing to create, improve or develop my Faith. It is a good film, but it is only a film.

Good.

For others, it will no doubt be a catalyst for recognition of the importance of this singular event to the entire world.

That's pretty impressive.