I love great epic movies.  The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Saving Private Ryan and Gladiator, just to name a few, rank among some of my favorites.  Seldom do I speak publicly, be it in a church or the basement of someone’s home, that I don’t show a clip from some great Hollywood production and from that draw illustrations of what exactly it is that God has for us in this life.

Recently I was challenged by a well meaning Christian as to the appropriateness of using these secular media clips in proclaiming a Christian message.  The concern, primarily, was whether the producers in Tinsel Town, who for the most part do not share my Judeo-Christian views, could have anything of importance to say to those of us of faith.  After all, aren’t they the very ones who are frequently laughing at us, promoting a gospel of sex, violence, and self-love?

As I began considering their concerns, I was reminded of Paul in the book of Acts. In chapter 17, we find him in Athens, a very ungodly and pagan area of his world.  As he is walking through the town, he stumbles on one of their temples.  Numerous gods are represented, but the one that gets his attention is the ‘Unknown God’.  He begins to explain this unknown God to the people, and then he does a very interesting thing, he quotes one of their pagan poets.  This quote is now in our Holy Bible (v. 28).

Later in 1 Corinthians Paul writes the ‘all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all are yours, and you are of Christ and Christ is of God.’ (1 Cor 3_21-24, NIV, emphasis mine).

Paul claimed truth wherever he found it.  And so should we.  As the Church, one of our biggest failures is this inability to accept truth from anyone or anything that does not have the official seal of the church on it.  This is much of what angered Jesus so about the Pharisees of his day. They walked with myopic vision, unable to see God in the world around them.  And yet Jesus walked the earth and saw truth in a woman mourning the loss of her son, in a fisherman frustrated with his lack of a catch, and even in a wedding banquet that had run out of wine.

I believe the written Word of God is our standard, that it is true, and that it is beyond contestation, but I also believe that when Maximus states that ‘we’ve got a better chance of survival if we work together’, he too is speaking truth.  I am thankful that he is declaring to the audience the very truth that God spoke in Ecclesiastes 4:2: ‘Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.’

So grab some popcorn, say a prayer, and begin asking the King to reveal truth. It is all around us.

To the King,

David