Friday, January 27, 2012

John Wycliffe: The Morning Star

My Amazon review of the life of John Wycliffe:

Admittedly, the production is a little bit cheesy at times, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this brief overview of the life of John Wycliffe. Principle to this man was the centrality of the Scripture and his radiant faith in Christ, even when standing in situations of his life's peril. There are many valuable lessons that can be brought away from this film, namely Wycliffe's compassion and vigilance for the rights of the poor peasants of 14th century England, his love of teaching his students, as well as the beauty of Wycliffe's love of the Scriptures and his desire to see it translated into English. This is a wonderful piece of history, easy to follow, and ideal for a small group study or a family worship time (the film is very tame, with the only questionable content being a couple dead men following one of the peasant revolts.)

Side-note (not part of the review): this was my first disk received from Puritan Picks, and I'm really glad to have found this service.  Basically it's an alternative to NetFlix, but with good films and theology DVDs (so it's not just the material you find at the local LifeWay, but rather reaching by Sproul, Keller, etc.)  I'm looking forward to receiving more from this service.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

PleaseConvinceMe Podcast 235

I enjoyed the recent Please Convince Me podcast (#235), although it was more of one of his side-topics that caught my attention.  Jim was discussing some of the Facebook comments about "Wealth and Prosperity" gospel teachers, and made some good points about the manner in which a pastor should be living. With someone in a pastoral role, there is a level of prosperity a pastor should not exceed, as it hurts our testimony and causes a weaker brother to stumble. With new cars, expensive clothing, etc - the question becomes, are we in it for the right reason? Megachurch pastors are frequently living large, and although they might give away thousands, they are making millions,
and are living in a way dramatically larger then they ought to live. These people are the billboard that others will see and use (correctly or falsely) judge the faith. Coming from Jim Wallace, who was a strong non-believer for many years, I think he makes a fair point with this.
If you want a voice with everyone that you want to have a voice with, you can't trot around with bling and hope to convince people who might question your true motives.
Rather, it's how the twelve apostles lived is how we should live, with the understanding that we don't expect things to get easier but to get harder.

Some of the other topics covered, such as Tebow, didn't really capture my attention, but not being a football fan I guess I just don't follow the hype.