Stay Tuned: Brief Thoughts for Future Posts

I don't know about you but I think faster than I type. So before my thoughts overwhelm the posts I want to write, I thought I briefly jot them down now.

Confession and the Double Minded Man

• Confession and the Double Minded-Man
• Images of the Divided Self
• Twenty Four: Switchfoot on our Longing to Be One
• My Personal Experience with Confession

Blindness and Sight

• M. Night Shamalayn on the Limits of our Perspective
• Tolerance in a Post-Christian World
• Sharing our Faith in a World that No Longer feels Guilty

Becoming One with God. I still have to finish explaining the meaning of the water and blood that flow of Jesus pierced side in John 19:34.

Meditations on Time

• A Brief Meditation on Time
• A Second Meditation on Time

Why is that in the Bible? or Why are there so many different Bibles?

• Canon - The Apocrapha, the Psedeophigrapha and the Apostolic Fathers
• Text - Why is the NIV missing verses? What happend to the ending of Mark?
• Translation - Why does the Living Translation use a swear word?

Anyway, I hope to get these posts and others very soon. At least I know where I'm headed and you do too.

Matt

Confession and the Double Minded-Man

“Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16)

I recently had a conversation with a friend in which he expressed deep skepticism at the thought of confessing his sins to anyone but God. “God alone can forgive,” he objected. But while I believe God’s forgiveness is an important end of confession, I don’t believe confession is only about forgiveness. Confession, the Christian discipline of admitting sin to another, is also about healing the divide in us. It’s about bringing into one the person that we are and the person we claim to be.

James was written to address this problem. The theme of the Double Minded-Man or what in the Greek he literally calls the two-spirited man plays in almost every passage of this little book. James calls attention to the double-minded man in his introduction, exposing him in those who wrestle between faith and doubt.

James 1:6-8
“But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

Next James turns to those who claim that God is tempting them to sin. James wants them to make no mistake. Their own duality is what is driving them to sin. “God cannot be tempted by evil, and Himself does not tempt anyone” because unlike us he is One and the same in all his ways.

James 1:17
“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

The theme of our divided selves continues throughout the rest of James.

James 1:22
“But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.”

James 2:1
“My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.”

James 2:14
“What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?”

James 3:10
“From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren produce olives, or a vineproduce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.”

James 3:17
“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy…

James 4:7-8
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

James 4:12
But above all, my brethren, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall into judgment

James statement on confession at the end of his little letter thus becomes extremely important for understanding how we fix the problem of the divided self. Through the act of confession we take an active step in eradicating the divide. Confession wips away our masks and leaves standing naked and exposed before our God who is One and the church who is was made in his image.

Blindness and Sight: M. Night Shamalayn on the Limits of our Perspective

“The world breaks down into two types of people, those who see signs and those who see chance.” So says Mel Gibson’s character in M Night Shyamalan's hit movie Signs. If you’ve ever seen a film written and directed by M Night Shyamalan, you’ll know exactly what he means. Shyamal's films often hinge on two ways of seeing.

In the Sixth Sense, Night takes his audience through the experience of Malcolm, a child psychologist, who is attempting to regain his confidence after being shot by an enraged patient. Malcolm spends the rest of the film working with Cole Sear, a child showing many of the same strange symptoms that plagued this former patient. At first Cole is nervous and keeps his distance from the psychologist but as the film progresses he warms to Malcolm more and more. Half way through the movie, Cole confesses to his counselor that he is afraid because he can see dead people, walking around as if they were alive all the while not knowing they are dead. Malcolm helps Cole come to grips with this gift, telling him that it’s possible they are coming to him for help. If he helps them solve their problems they might just leave him alone. His young patient follows his advice and discovers that it is indeed true and he doesn’t have to be afraid.

The real shocker, however, occurs in a closing scene when Malcolm, along with the audience, discovers that he himself is one of those dead people who sought his patients help. In His moment of realization the film quickly recaps half dozen scenes in which you can see how each scene has been wrongly perceived. Although it appears that Malcolm has spoken to others in the film, in reality no one has spoken to him since his shooting except the young boy. Watching the movie a second time reveals that every action in the movie is ambiguous, encouraging the audience to mistakenly grasp the significance of the story until the very end.


In Signs, Shyamalan again builds into his story this two-sided perspective. The title itself participates in the film’s double meaning. At a first glance, Signs refers to the crops circles and other mysterious appearances that provoke the small family, around which the film centers, to believe they are being visited by aliens. Yet, as the movie progresses we find that while this may be the external situation around which the plot develops, the movie is really about Grant, the father of the family, and his loss of faith in the absence of God given signs. Like each scene in the Sixth Sense, the title is ambiguous. Although the audience doesn’t see it at first, Grant’s statement that, “the world breaks down into two types of people those who signs and those who see chance” mirrors Cole’s confession to Malcolm in the Sixth Sense. It is the statement upon which the film will hinge. Just like the title, evidence for God’s presence is often itself ambiguous. In the end, Shyamalan reveals in the ordered assembly of the numerous quirks in the story, the young daughter’s inability to finish a glass of water, the son’s asthma and the brothers desire to swing a bat all come together to reveal a benevolent God. Although God is never seen in the film, the order in the films closing scene reveals that he is in fact present to those who have eyes to see.


The Village, while not as popular as the Sixth Sense or Signs, still trades on the concept of sight. The film centers on a group of families living in small colonial community and in particular two youths a quite boy and Ivy, a girl who is out going but blind. Throughout the film, the town is dominated by the fear of a wild beast - he who must not be named – that roams the forest, keeping the villagers confined to their tiny world. But when the quiet boy is wounded, the blind girl must confront the forest and seek help from the outside. Remarkably it is she who is blind who is shown that the beast is simply a costume, a phantom created by the elders to keep the young from leaving the village. After groping through the forest she climbs a fence to the other side. In that moment the film cuts to Ivy’s parents back in the village. They open a box and pull out some papers, old photographs to be exact. The photographs reveal a past that is not a black and white pioneer world; instead it’s a colored photo of 1960’s. The audience at once experiences a paradigm shift. In an instant, past and present slam together. The village does not exist in the past, rather it is a gated community locked away from the present. Cutting back to Ivy on the other side of the fence, we find her confronted not by a horse and buggy but a modern SUV. In Shyamalan's worldview the blind are the ones who are truly able to see. For unlike the audience, there blindness has allowed them not to be fooled by the external trappings of this world.


It is Shyamalan's penchant for dazzling his audiences with things hidden in plan sight which has made his films so successful. The movies in and of themselves reveal that there are truly two types of people, those that see and those that don’t. At first the audience is completely blind, ignorant of even of their own ignorance, unable to even comprehend that they are interpreting the story wrong. When the revelation comes however it not only exposes their ignorance but gives them eyes to see.

Logos Made Flesh in 2007

Two years ago I began this blog by filling in a blank title box; Logos Made Flesh. I chose this title for two reasons. First it connected this blog to my passion for studying the gospel of John, a love that is highlighted in many of my posts. But secondly, and I beleive more importantly, it tied this blog into the heart of all Christian witness, the incarnation of Chirst. In selecting this name, I hoped that many of the posts would seek to do what God did in Christ, bring the word of God closer to man.

This past year, 2007, has seen a number of improvements over 2006. First I have been more consistent in posting. In 2007 no more than a month or two has seperated any given installment. In the spring of 2007, Jason Wakefield also agreed to become apart of the writing team and if you've read his stuff I know you'll agree that its a vast improvement. We have also begun to branch outside the written word as we become aware of other forms of media technology on the web. Film, I believe even more than the written word, is deeply connnected with the reality of the incarnation. And it is through film that I hope to explore the revelation of God in Christ more fully in the years to come.

Here is a list of the posts that have appeared here this year.

"The Longing of Man" (2/22/07) - The significance of the death and resurrection of Christ is found in modern films.

To Him Who Has Eyes to See (2/24/07) - Christian film makers should follow the example of Christ, asking good questions rather than shoving answers done their audiences throat.

Superman as Christ (3/18/07) - Superman Return's teaser is an example of how Christ is subtly proclaimed in films.

What is the Incarnation? (3/21/07)

The Scandal of the Incarnation (3/26/07) - God becoming Man is not as polite as you might think.

The Traveler? (3/28/07) - Who is the traveler in Walter De La Mare's famous poem?

Rain (3/31/07) - To everything there is a season (Jason's first post)

Pondering Heavenly Wisdom (4/17/07) - The ways of God are not the ways of man.

Questions to think about when reading the Gospel of Mark (4/30/07)

Real Beauty? (5/11/07) - Is this fantasey more beautiful then the real?

Seeing the World as a Christian (5/22/07) - A Christian worldview beats the alternative

Becoming One With God Part 1 (5/29/07) What does the Bible teach about Theosis?

The Flow of Blood and Water: Becoming One with God Part 2 (5/31/07)

Marriage in John: Becoming Onew with God Part 3 (5/31/07)

Marriage in John: Becoming One with God Part 4 (5/31/07)

Inviting the Elderly: Diversity in the Church (6/09/07) - When thinking about diversity in Church we often overlook the elderly

Marriage in John: Becoming One with God Part 5 (8/05/07)

Keep Reading (9/01/07) - You'll never understand the Bible until you continually read the Bible.

The Message of Mark (10/15/07) - Jesus calls us to follow.

Blush (12/03/07) - The Scandal of the Incarnation written as a Christmas message

A Brief Meditation on Time (12/12/07) - When we long for the past what we really want is to know the future.

Christ and the Shawshank Redemption (12/26/07) - A portion of my letter, responding to a challenge made about the "Longing of Man."

I hope you draw closer to him this year as you continue to walk with us in this blog.

Matthew Miller