The Eclectic Web Journal
December 2022

Welcome to the December 2022 edition of The Eclectic Web Journal!

In this edition we’ll look at the famous wise men of Matthew 2. Also, we’ll note the interesting ways that the minor prophets portray God in the second verses of their writings, and we’ll continue our study through Romans.

Additionally, we will look at a book about violence, natural history, and the French Revolution. And, we’ll discuss some concerns that we had about The Rings of Power, and how this compares to Peter Jackson’s films.

You may not agree with every article or perspective, but if you like the free exchange of ideas and civil discussion, you can still give our Facebook page a “like.” And if you’d like, feel free to leave a comment on any of our articles there or you can respond to any of our posts.

Thanks for reading, and stay eclectic!

BIBLE STUDY: The Magi and their Gifts, Matthew 2:1-12

I love this perspective from humorist Dave Berry about public school holiday programs: “To avoid offending anybody, the school dropped religion altogether and started singing about the weather. At my son’s school, they hold the winter program in February and sing increasingly non-memorable songs such as ‘Winter Wonderland,’ ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and—this is a real song—‘Suzy Snowflake,’ which is pretty funny because we live in Miami.” Berry concludes by saying: “A visitor from another planet would assume that the children belonged to the Church of Meteorology” (Dave Barry, “Notes on Western Civilization,” Chicago Tribune Magazine, July 28, 1991).

Tremendous efforts go toward cutting Christ out of Christmas. We throw the Ten Commandments and manger scenes off civic property. They play ad nauseam sappy seasonal movies; pundits pretend that Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Winter Solstice celebrations are all equally legitimate; the radio plays cotton-candy Christmas songs that may sound nice but have no substance and leave the listener feeling hungry and cold. Sometimes it just feels like there is no more Christ in Christmas.

In contrast, many make tremendous sacrifices to celebrate the Child in the manger. Many go to great lengths to put their Christology into practice. As we look at the magi in Matthew 2:1-12, we see people who went out of their way for Christ then; wise people today should go out of their way to serve Jesus, too.

In an old The Eclectic Kasper article, we discussed some of the facts and myths surrounding the mysterious magi of Matthew 2:1-12. Here we’ll discuss these individuals and the gifts that they presented to the Christ child.

First, the word magos (v. 1), from where we get the word “wise man,” or “magician,” seems to be a Persian word, used only here and in Acts 13:6-8 of “a magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus.” Of course, in ancient times they didn’t divide religion, science, magic, and philosophy; these were all part of the arts that privileged men would study, practice, and teach. These “magicians” were probably of Jewish descent, a result of the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BC.

Their quest from Persia brings them to Jerusalem, where they inquire to then-reigning King Herod regarding the birth of the King of the Jews (v. 2). These magi are aware of something great happening in Herod’s kingdom that Herod isn’t even aware of. The magi note that their purpose is “to worship” (proskuneo) this new King. This verb is used elsewhere in Matthew of worshiping Christ as God (14:33; 28:9, 17).

Herod’s advisors discern that this Messianic King would be born in Bethlehem (vv. 3-6). Not wanting to cause a stir, Herod summoned the magi secretly (v. 7). Matthew reveals what the magi would discover later, that Herod is sponsoring the magi on a false premise that he, too, wanted to see this new King, when actually, Herod wanted to kill Him (vv. 7-8, 12; see v. 16).

The magi again see the star, God’s supernatural provision of direction for them, and this gave them great joy (vv. 9-10). They find the Child in a “house” (v. 11); he is no longer in the stable or manger as recorded in Luke 2. Mary and Joseph had apparently found a house to stay in temporarily; for they, too, would soon have to leave on account of Herod’s rage (vv. 13-15).

When the magi saw the Christ Child, they indeed worshiped Him; nothing they saw dissuaded them from believing that He was indeed, the Messiah, the Christ, and “the King of the Jews.” This title, which would later be used against Jesus in sarcasm (Matt 27:11, 29, 37), is an affirmation the magi believed from the very beginning of His life.

They opened their “treasure boxes” to offer the Child gifts (v. 11); this is reminiscent of Isaiah 60:6: “All those from Sheba will come; They will bring gold and frankincense, and will bear good news of the praises of the Lord.”

Gold is a timeless gift, and commonly given to royalty and nobility. This gold probably helped finance Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt in order to escape Herod. Frankincense and myrrh are gum-resins taken from trees. Frankincense is usually associated with ritual incense and sacrifice, and myrrh is sometimes associated with burial rituals. The magi didn’t know this, but these gifts may hint at the sacrificial suffering and burial of Christ as the divine Lamb that would take away the sins of the world. His death and resurrection serve as the crowning acts for which He was born.

These wise men went out of their way to find and worship Jesus and to provide their material offerings to Christ. Wise people today understand their sin and their need for a Savior. Wise people today should go out of their way to follow and serve Jesus, as well.

THEOLOGY: The God of the Second Verse

In my preaching and teaching ministry, I try to cover one of the Old Testament minor prophets almost every year. They are challenging and yet, time spent in them is always rewarding. In early 2021 I took our congregation through Amos, and here in Fall 2022, we just finished a six-week study through Joel.

Many of these minor prophets have their own perspectives on God that are not echoed from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel or from other parts of the Bible. Given our neglect of the minor prophets, their crucial perspectives about God often go ignored, as well.

But for most of these guys, you don’t have to get too far into their collection of sermons and prophecies before you see their perspectives of God. Many of the minor prophets start with God, and reveal something special about God right from the beginning.

The pattern at the beginning of many of the minor prophets is similar: The first verse usually provides some basic information about the author (Amos 1:1; Zephaniah 1:1), or the time period of the writing (Hosea 1:1; Micah 1:1; Haggai 1:1). Amos 1:1 even mentions an earthquake as a historical referent, and the theme of “shaking” comes back toward the end of Amos (9:1, 9). Sometimes the first verse provides little more than the most basic information, such as Joel 1:1: “The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.”

Then, after the basic author and date information provided in the first verse, the message of the prophet begins formally in the second verse. Yet, the prophet doesn’t often start with a sin or a specific issue in that second verse; rather, he often begins with God. And the way the prophet portrays God tends to be the key to the sin or predicament that consumes the rest of that prophet’s writing. In this series, we will look at some examples of this.

The God who Roars, Amos 1:2. The first description of God in Amos is in v. 2: He is the Lord who roars from Jerusalem. He roars in sovereign might, unparalleled majesty, and in holy retribution. It is a roar that should elicit reverence, respect, and response. A lion’s roar signifies that it is about to attack; similarly, the Lord’s roar signifies that judgment is about to occur (Jer 25:30; Joel 3:16; see also Isa 31:4), though it may signify blessing, also (Hosea 11:10).

With Amos, it’s a lot of the first and a bit of the second. Amos describes divine judgments against the nations surrounding Israel (Amos 1-2) as well as many against the people of Israel (3:1; 5:1; 6:14). And yet, Amos ends with a beautiful coda of restoration and prosperity for those who trust in God (9:11-15). The roar of God is a precursor to divine retribution which demands a response; but it is also a reminder of His Sovereignty which means that everything will turn out well for His people in the end.

And there is a response: the earth mourns and the tops of mountains dry up at the sound of His voice (Amos 1:2). His voice will sound out, and it cannot be quieted, even if that roar is heard in the voice of his servant Amos. In Amos 3:8 the prophet notes “A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?” For us today, it doesn’t matter if the world tries to cancel us, or if nobody agrees with us. The truth of the Lord is still true, and we still have the right and responsibility to proclaim it and to be vehicles for the promulgation of God’s powerful voice.

The God of Surprises, Hosea 1:2. We are perhaps so familiar with the basic story of Hosea that we are no longer shocked by the scandalous nature of what the prophet does at God’s request. But Hosea 1:2 showcases the God of surprises who instructs Hosea to “take a wife of harlotry.” This verse basically summarizes the drama of this prophetic work.

God commands Hosea to “go and take” for himself a wife who is a fornicator or a harlot, a practice condemned by Mosaic Law (Lev 21:9, 29; Deut 22:20-21). He is also to “bear children of harlotry”; as we see from the rest of the chapter, it is ambiguous as to whether all the children that his wife bears while married to Hosea are his or not. This imagery of “playing the harlot” is deeply embedded in the Law; it was a symbol for a lack of faithfulness to Yahweh God and idolatry to other gods (Exod 34:15, 16; Lev 17:7; 20:5; Num 25:1), and Hosea is not the only one who refers to the spiritual faithfulness of Israel as harlotry (see also Jer 3:1-9; Ezek 16:15-41; 23:1-49).

Lest we wonder about this literal command to Hosea in v. 2, we are told in that verse that this questionable marriage will provide a vivid extended metaphor for the nation, or “the land.” The Israelites had certainly committed harlotry; the repetition of this verb (zanah) and use of the infinitive absolute construction acts as an intensifier, thus, the land “commits flagrant harlotry” (so NASB) or it is “guilty of the vilest adultery” (so NIV). As we interact with these prophets and with Hosea today, we have to wonder if the modern Church isn’t exhibiting some of the same traits of spiritual adultery as Israel was back then.

The God of Compassion, Jonah 1:2. The message of Jonah is not just about a compassionate God who wants to show compassion on those who eventually recognize their need for it. The story is really about whether or not God’s representative will recognize God’s compassion on sinners and will joyfully comply with the need to spread it to even the most vile people in the world.

God instructs Jonah in 1:2 to travel to the Assyrian city of Nineveh. God wants Jonah to proclaim a message of potential judgment and destruction from God so that they will repent and subsequently receive God’s compassion and mercy, which they eventually do (3:6-10). But Jonah is so bent against the Ninevites receiving mercy that he infamously tries to flee from God by going in the opposite direction across the Mediterranean Sea.

Jonah’s skepticism about the Ninevites receiving mercy is not entirely misplaced, as the Assyrians had a reputation for being especially brutal. A set of Assyrian reliefs (carved pictures) from the sack of the Israelite city of Lachish in 701 BC depicts Assyrian soldiers beheading, impaling, and torturing captives. Do such people really deserve the mercy of God?

But isn’t that the point of mercy? None of us deserve it. That is why it is so important that God provides it to all humanity. All are sinners and we all need God’s grace and mercy for eternal life.

Also in Jonah, it is important to note that God initiates this message of mercy and provides it to the Ninevites. This is like NT soteriology (the doctrines pertaining to salvation), in that God must initiate salvation; He must provide it, and He does so independently of human intervention. Or, as the Apostle John states concisely in 1 John 4:19, “We love, because He first loved us.”

Despite such great compassion of God, all Jonah could see was the alleged undeservedness of the people of Nineveh; he bucked his mission of mercy, and was angry at God when He decided not to judge the Ninevites (Jonah 4:1-3). It is unfortunate, too that Christians today have a reputation for being condescending and judgmental. If God has profound compassion on sinners, shouldn’t we?

There are many more things that the minor prophets say about God in the second verse of their writings, and we’ll get to those in a follow-up article. For now, we’ll just image how much more robust modern evangelicalism would be if we had less glitz and schlock and if we focused more on the God of the second verse of the minor prophets instead.

ON MY BOOKSHELF: Storms of Revolution and Political Violence

The revolutionary storms that swept across our urban centers in May and June 2020 and the Capital Building insurrection of January 6, 2021, these are not the first instances of violence in the name of politics.

In A Natural History of Revolution: Violence and Nature in the French Revolutionary Imagination, 1789–1794, Mary Ashburn Miller connects the increasing use of natural and meteorological language with the political language of the French Revolution.

The Enlightenments of the late eighteenth century encouraged more investigation of the natural world including the violence and uncontrollable character of earthquakes, lightening and volcanoes. Since violence in storms and volcanoes were natural, so was the violence of revolution; French leaders spoke of a volcanic eruption of political passion and a torrent of change and progress.

Aggression in nature was used to justify excessive political aggression: “The idea that violence and disruption were sometimes necessary and constructive forces in the natural world was translated into an exoneration of political violence” (page 4). Violence in nature was necessary, and sometimes even had a purgative and purifying effect; similarly, the inevitable progress of social ends validated, for some, the incomprehensible brutality of the revolutionary means. Miller describes the interplay and effect of natural and political language: “Nature’s force was revolutionary, just as revolutionary force was natural” (106).

During the Enlightenment, the natural elements were demystified and desacralized. In British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment, Jan Golinski described that many people in England during the seventeenth century saw weather as an expression of God’s pleasure or anger. As the eighteenth century progressed, the power and violence of the weather was linked more to natural causes than to supernatural ones. Additionally, a symbol like lightening was no longer merely wielded by gods, aristocrats, and tyrants, but also by the people; the revolutionary masses were told that they paralleled nature’s inevitable and unstoppable forces.

Revolutionaries connected the negative effects of natural calamities with the unfortunate effects of political ones. As with the tragic deaths that resulted from the earthquakes in Lisbon in 1755, so also revolution creates tragic casualties, and yet, this should not marginalize the legitimacy of revolution. The frequency of quakes, storms, and volcanoes demonstrated that destruction and tragedy is natural and normal, as is the tragedy that sometimes results in political upheaval. And just as the natural world was given its own agency, so also was the torrent of political revolution given agency and justification without blaming anyone particularly for revolutionary violence and excess.

Miller’s argument is interesting, and could be seen even more broadly. Natural and meteorological language is prevalent in many historical contexts, and often used to shape the activities and mentalities of people. In addition to a variety of nods to animals, birds and aquatic beings, American sports franchises also invoke mountains and meteorological phenomena, such as the NFL’s San Diego Chargers, the MLB’s Colorado Rockies, the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder and Phoenix Suns, and NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes and Colorado Avalanche. In the same way as the French Revolutionaries, these teams leverage geophysical and meteorological referents to project strength and confidence, to intimidate foes, and also to justify the violence they inflict on their opponents.

A Natural History of Revolution reminded me of other works that wrestle with the reality of social and political violence, such as Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland and Isabel Hull’s Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Browning describes the atrocities committed by ordinary men under Nazi orders especially upon Jews in Poland. Hull connects the excessive violence exacted upon colonial subjects by German military forces and blames it on “institutional extremism” (1). Similarly, Miller describes how “the logic of the natural world offered a crucial means of explaining and justifying transformation and violence that, at first glance, seemed inexplicable” (10).

Miller enters a historical debate that struggles to explain the origins of the violence in the Terror, a time of excessive violence toward the beginning of the French Revolution. One of the questions historians struggle with is whether that violence was external to the Revolution or intrinsic to it. Yet, whether detailing violence that results from military extremism, or religious fanaticism, or revolutionary eruption, historians are able to describe outbreaks of violence and brutality, and yet they seem to lack the vocabulary and tools—such as those wielded by an anthropologist or a theologian—to definitively explain them.

Everyone in America seems to either be on the side that is upset about the atrocities and violence that took place during the widespread riots during the Summer of 2020, or on the side that is aghast at the storming of the Capital Building on January 6, 2021. Whichever of these upsets you more, or at all, has become a litmus test for your party affiliation.

This also demonstrates that many today are less concerned about public violence and danger and more interested in just waving the flag of one party or another. Nonetheless, dramatic violence and revolutionary language still create storms in our culture. And it is difficult to imagine that the thunder and lightning of political discourse and even the inexplicable violence will be calmed anytime soon.

CALVIN’S CORNER: The Challenge of Choice

As we’ve said before, some people are offended by learning about a variety of Biblical principles that we call “Calvinism,” and some people are offended because they misunderstand Calvinism. We discussed an “Introduction to Calvinism” from the March 2022 edition and we presented some of these misunderstandings in the article “Misconceptions of Calvinism” in the August 2022 edition.

But we’re not done, because want to address some more misconceptions of Calvinism. In this article, we will work on clarifying on set of issues that get confusing when we discuss the tenets of Calvinism, specifically, those issues that revolve around the idea of choice.

While we live in a society where we feel like we can make many choices, this blinds us to the fact that there are many that we can’t make, including some of the things that are most important.

Another element of this problem is that people confuse the roles of choice in the Bible, or they believe that Calvinists assert that people can’t make any independent choices. There is obviously some confusion here, and we want to clarify the relationship of choice to our salvation and sanctification.

It helps at this point to clarify that the human will and ability to chose works differently in different contexts. We can identify at least three of these contexts where the idea of choice operates very differently, and this helps resolve some of the misunderstandings that people have about Calvinism.

Practical Choice: People can clearly make a variety of choices on minor and even important issues. Again, we tend to emphasize this in our own culture; vocational choices, consumer choices, relationship choices. It seems that the will is completely unfettered and unbound.

But the fact that we have many choices as modern Americans can give us a false sense of the impact and extent of our ability to choose. We think that we are choosing to be helpful, or religious, or humanitarian. However, without God’s grace in our lives, even our decisions to be altruistic are the moral equivalent of dirty rags: “And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment” (Isaiah 64:6). While we can make a wide array of choices in our normal everyday lives, there is one important decision that we can’t and won’t make on our own without God’s calling and election of us.

Salvation Choice: The decision to be saved is not one that we can make independently or without the intervention of God’s gracious calling. We sometimes describe salvation as if it were a decision in a revival service or a camp meeting. And to the person deciding to trust in Christ, it appears to be a decision that they make entirely on their own. They seem to be making a conscious decision to trust in Christ as their Savior and to receive the gift of salvation from God.

The point that a Calvinist would make, however, is that to the extent that this is a decision on the part of an individual, it is a decision that is contingent or dependent on God’s decision to save us first. As we discussed in the last article in this series, it is helpful to remember that Scripture states that because of sin and fallenness, nobody pursues, seeks, or chooses God. This is simply not possible apart from God’s intervention of grace into our lives and His work of drawing a person to Himself (Psa 14:1, 53:1, both of which are quoted in modified form in Rom 3:10-12; see also Prov 20:9; Ecclesiastes 7:20). Because of these verses, we presume that for those who “choose to be saved,” that choice was the result of God first giving them the gift of salvation (John 4:10; Rom 5:15; Eph 2:8-9).

Part of that process is also being “born again” or “regenerated,” that is, the will of the fallen person needs to be made alive so that we can receive grace and then live that grace out in obedience (John 3:3, 7; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 1:3, 23). The NASB of 1 Peter 1:3 notes that in God’s great mercy, He “has caused us to be born again.” Being born again is entirely of His choice and His work; God’s choice regarding our salvation precedes our choice to be saved.

Another way to see this is that we cannot chose God if He does not extend the gift of salvation to us first (Eph 2:8-9). God must choose us before we choose Him. In fact, the priority of God’s choice of us is consistent with other statements to this end; for instance, while we think that we chose to love God, this is only “because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Or, to utilize the language we mentioned before, our “decision” to trust in Christ is contingent or dependent on God first choosing us.

Thus far, we have talked about the idea that as sentient beings, we have a variety of choices regarding where to live, what car to buy, what job to take, and who to marry. There are many smaller decisions, as well: to order a Big Mac or a fish sandwich (or both!), to watch Star Wars or Star Trek, to take a jog or to take a nap. This plethora of choices that we have, however, veils the fact that we can’t earn salvation or choose to receive salvation from God on our own. We simply lack the capacity to deserve it or choose it.

However, once we have been born again and been given the free gift of God’s grace, then we can trust in Christ, and whole new vistas of options are available for us to choose, which brings us to our third kind of choice . . .

Sanctification Choice: Remember what we just said about being born again and regenerated? Those terms apply to the whole person, but have specific application to the human will. The will of a fallen and unbelieving person only has a variety of options to satisfy human and fleshly impulses; in fact, we were previously dead in trespasses and sin (Eph 2:1, 3, 5; Col 2:13). Because of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, those who believe in Him can live in that freedom to serve God and we do not need to be slaves to sin and the flesh (Rom 6:6, 17, 18, 22; Gal 5:24; 6:14). Now we have the choice to “walk by the Spirit” and to not “carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal 5:16).

However, the regenerated will of the person who believes in Christ can now actively pursue commands to follow Christ (Matt 10:38; 16:24; 19:21), to obey God and His Word (Deut 28:1; Psa 100:2; Heb 9:14; 1 Peter 1:14), and to be yielded to the Holy Spirit (John 14:17; Rom 8:14; Gal 5:18, 22-23; Eph 5:18; 1 John 3:24; 4:6). That is, as believers, we have a will that has been made alive, and we now have an array of choices that we can make that we were not capable of making before.

Whether you are a Calvinist or not, every believer should celebrate the renewed will that we have been given by faith in Christ Jesus. It is a will that allows us to obey God as we were created to do, and to do so in ways we never could before.

ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: The Logical Fallacy of Atheism

The following article is originally from the November/ December 2012 edition of The Eclectic Kasper, and presented here with minor modifications.

We have had several articles already about “Arguments or the Existence of God” (see our first one in the August 2012 edition). I doubt that these will convince the hardened skeptic, but for the rest of us, some of these arguments bring a measure of intellectual plausibility to what we know to be true by faith.

While those who claim to be pure atheists are a relatively small percent of the population, they are a rather vocal minority. What they often don’t realize is that the staunch assertion that God does not exist is a logical fallacy. I will prove theoretically the logical fallacy of atheism, but first I will give you an illustration:

Look at your hand. Go ahead – look at it! Is there a spider on your hand? Hopefully you will answer, “no!” Then, I would respond, “How do you know that you don’t have a spider on your hand?” That is, what knowledge is necessary for you to ascertain the answer to this question? Now the issue is less about the existence of something, but your knowledge of the existence of something.

So, how do you know whether or not you have a spider on your hand? To answer this query adequately, you must have two kinds of knowledge. The first is that you must have knowledge of the subject, in this case, a spider. I am not referring to some microbiological form, but an arachnid that is large enough to be seen with the naked eye and that is identifiable as a spider. You must have adequate knowledge to identify a spider in order to know if you have one on your hand or not.

Second, you must have complete knowledge of the arena, which in this case, means that you must have thorough knowledge of the outside of your hand; for this is the arena in which the spider’s existence is in question. Again, it is not enough to simply have complete knowledge of the palm of your hand, but also complete knowledge of the back of your hand and of your fingers in order to be able to ascertain whether or not there is a spider on your hand.

So, let’s review: in order to determine whether there is a spider on your hand, you must have adequate knowledge of spiders (enough to be able to identify one), but relatively complete knowledge of the outside of your hand, perhaps not down to the cellular level, but knowledge that is thorough enough to know that every surface of your hand is accounted for.

So let’s take this to the next step; we’ll stick with the subject, a spider, but change the arena. In fact, consider your house, perhaps, a typical middle-class, two-story home. Do you have a spider in your house? Again, in order to ascertain this answer with any measure of certainty, you have to have adequate knowledge of a spider but complete knowledge of your house: every crack and crevice, every closet and corner. To definitively assert that there are no spiders in your house, you must have complete and exhaustive knowledge of the entire structure; for to have anything less than complete knowledge of every aspect of your house may result in missing a small section where a spider dwells, thus undermining your thesis that there are no spiders in your house. I suspect that even if some exterminators came through to inspect and spray, they still couldn’t guarantee at the end of their task that they had eradicated every spider from your abode. Therefore, the claim that there are no spiders in your house is completely absurd since that assertion requires such exhaustive knowledge of your house.

So let’s change the subject from spider to God. Remember, we don’t have to have exhaustive knowledge of God, but rather, just enough to recognize and identify him.

But what about the arena? When one states confidently that God does not exist, the unstated arena is the entirety of existence. And remember what kind of knowledge one has to have? We only have to have adequate knowledge of the subject, but exhaustive and complete knowledge of the arena! But searching for a spider entailed complete knowledge of merely the physical realm. Locating God requires not merely complete knowledge of the physical realm (where there may perhaps be evidence of His existence) but of the non-physical (or spiritual) realm as well! That is, asserting confidently that God doesn’t exist requires one to have complete knowledge of everything.

Now here’s the real problem with that: while Biblical Christianity has many doctrines that are distinct from any other faith system, there are a few truths which most faith systems share. These are the extension of general revelation provided by God through common grace. For example, virtually every religion acknowledges that their god, or the chief deity in their pantheon, is all-knowing, all-seeing, or, more technically, omniscient. The being who knows everything, hears everything, sees everything is called “god.” Again, this is a universally recognized property of what it means to understand and define god.

So, let’s get back to our foolish atheist. When he boldly asserts that God does not exist or that there is no God, this assertion requires him to have sufficient knowledge of the subject, but exhaustive and complete knowledge of the entirety of existence. He must be all-knowing, all-seeing, completely omniscient in order to claim that he has looked everywhere – behind every rock, within every galaxy, in all places known and unknown, in every realm physical and non-physical – and can definitively conclude that God does not exist anywhere.

That is, in order to claim that God does not exist, the atheist has to claim to know all things (foolish), presuming himself to be completely omniscient (doubly foolish), which is to claim himself be the very being, namely, God, whose existence he initially set out to disprove (ridiculously foolish!).

So that’s the illustration; now I’ll put it now in theoretical language:

1. Contextualized and isolated assertions (such as “There is no spider on my hand”) must be based on adequate knowledge of the subject (spider) and relatively complete knowledge of the arena (the outside of my hand).

2. Absolute assertions (such as “There is no God”) must be based on adequate knowledge of the subject (God) but exhaustive (or absolute) knowledge of the arena (all things material and immaterial that exist).

3. To assert God’s non-existence requires one to have exhaustive knowledge of all existence.

4. Only God, as defined by almost any religion, has exhaustive, omniscient knowledge.

5. Therefore, the one who asserts God’s non-existence presumes himself to be God and essentially claims to be God himself.

So, as you see, atheism is a logical fallacy, as only God can prove that God does not exist, which God won’t do because He exists.

But this also takes the heat off the individual who believes that God exists. We are often backed into a corner, tasked to prove that God does exist. However, the burden of proof is not upon one who believes in God to prove that He exists (a claim that we expressly admit is based on faith!). Rather, the burden of proof is on those who definitively deny that He exists, because they must possess exhaustive knowledge and convincing evidence in order verify their claim.

And Scripture has already created apt titles for anyone who claims that there is no God (Psa 10:4; 14:1; 53:1)!

MOVIES/ TV: Real Problems with The Rings of Power

It is not fair to compare Peter Jackson’s interpretation of Lord of the Rings with Amazon’s derivative version called The Rings of Power (hereafter, RoP). As Shakespeare’s Hamlet, would say, it’s like comparing “Hyperion to a satyr.”

However, I think that the comparison is inevitable, and therefore, necessary.

I wanted to be delighted that there is more Middle Earth for us fans to digest. I really wanted to. Perhaps we should just be grateful for that.

As with many movies and TV or streaming shows today, RoP has beautiful cinematography, stunning graphics, and dramatic music. However, I am beginning to appreciate that these are increasingly used as facades for a lack of good characters and story-telling. (We discussed an evangelical documentary that also used cinematography to mask its lack of content, and you can see that article here).

Despite the beautiful pictures it presents and the stories it purports to tell, RoP postures in a self-importance it has not earned, and often descends into cheap movie clichés that we’re tired of seeing.

I braced myself, knowing that it wouldn’t be Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, but even with those tempered expectations, I was shocked at the slow pace, the uneven story-telling, the amateurish writing, and the dozens of plot-points that seemed, well, pointless. Some of the costumes were good, but many were lacking, and some were a proper reflection of the beings that inhabited them, characters with no depth and whose motives were poorly developed.

Most of the protagonists are brooding caricatures of the kinds of gloomy anti-heroes that pollute so many of our films today. Galadriel, for instance, is gloomy and bratty, and she bears no likeness to Tolkien’s nor Jackson’s versions of this character. I do like Elrond; his complicated relationship with Durin is one of the highlights of the series. Otherwise, the people, plots and places take themselves so seriously, and seem humorless, soulless, senseless.

I suppose that I should just sit back and watch and enjoy without any sense of comparison, or thinking, or anything else. Just enjoy it for what it is, like trying to enjoy Thor: Love and Thunder or Matrix: Resurrections. However, it is difficult to avoid making the comparison to something earlier; in the case of RoP it is difficult to not compare it to Jackson’s profoundly superior offspring; Hyperion to a satyr indeed!

I remember first hearing about Amazon’s dalliance into Tolkien’s mythos and how they wanted to create a very different vision and interpretation of Middle Earth than Peter Jackson’s films. But the question is, Why? Were more than five Tolkien devotees demanding a different version of Tolkien’s stories? Was there widespread disappointment with the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Were we deceived about the quality of these movies hinted at by the eleven awards, including the award for best picture, that The Return of the King won in at the Academy Awards in 2004?

Whereas The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings captured the best of these novels, any sense of the epic nature of Tolkien’s world is lost in the petty plots, bloated dialog, and the weird rabbit trails of The Rings of Power. For the great precedents that Jackson set and for all the money that was spent on this Amazon version, I was surprised that RoP was so meandering and lacking.

For me, a good test of the quality of something is whether or not I would watch it again, or a third or fourth or tenth time. I have watched Back to the Future and the original Star Wars trilogy dozens of times. I’m sure that we have viewed LotR close to a dozen times, too; we’ve even become purists in that we only watch the extended versions which adds 30-50 minutes to each of the three films. That is, we have invested many happy hours enjoying Peter Jackson’s vision of Middle Earth. By way of contrast, I have no interest in watching The Rings of Power again; I’ll be content to soldier through them just the once.

I mentioned Star Wars earlier, and that franchise provides an interesting parallel to Lord of the Rings. Both franchises revolve around an iconic initial trilogy. That original trilogy was eventually followed by a prequel trilogy, which was a bit disappointing, and even loathed at first, and yet, over time came to be accepted and even appreciated. But then came the highly-anticipated next installment, which turned out to be the ugly step-child of the franchise. For Star Wars, it was the highly disappointing sequel trilogy, episodes VII-IX, entries that would have sunk the franchise entirely if it weren’t for The Mandalorian and the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. So also with Lord of the Rings, specifically, the danger that The Rings of Power, as the discernibly-worse section of the franchise, does significant damage to Tolkien’s legacy.

Another parallel: the Star Wars sequels were produced without the creative direction of those who made the originals and the prequels. So also, RoP was made with little input from those who worked on LotR and The Hobbit. Again, I’m scratching my head as to why Amazon would squander the opportunity to bring Jackson and company in on this process.

I’m encouraged that last third of RoP’s first season became more interesting. Their portrayal of Númenor was epic, and they are clearly trying to build to some important moments in the Second Age. I can only hope that it will get better or that this iteration of Tolkien’s mythology will rise above the first few dreary episodes of this series. In fact, if it weren’t an iteration of Middle Earth, I would have given up on The Rings of Power after the first or second episode. It will never be close to the level of The Lord of the Rings nor even of the more critically received Hobbit trilogy; RoP is clearly a satyr to Peter Jackson’s Hyperion.

ROMANS: Freed from Death’s Dominion, Romans 6:6-9

One of the enduring and tragic legacies of slavery in our own country is that after many slaves in the south were released, they continued to live in squalor and economic hardship not any better than what they endured as slaves. Their ability to progress was hindered by their lack of education, and there were political mechanisms that hindered their success, as well. Many former slaves lived in conditions that were almost as bad as when they were slaves.

Similarly, many Christians, despite being freed from the condemnation and power of sin, continue to live in the squalor and servitude of sin.

Most of the rest of Romans 6-7 deals with this question: Since we have been justified by Christ and freed from the guilt and power of sin, why in the world do we still voluntarily live in the putrid squalor of sin? Having a greater understanding of Christ’s work, of baptism, of resurrection, and of justification will help us overcome some of these sanctification roadblocks we often face.

In Romans 6:6, Paul promotes the notion that union with Christ includes being “crucified with Him.” If we are united with Him in His death, we experience the same kind of death. That death was the nullification of the body on the cross. The word katargeo means “to render ineffective, nullify, cancel; destroy, abolish, do away with.” I don’t think the idea is to “do away with” as some translations say, but more the idea of nullify or render the power of the flesh and the body ineffective. Again, to be joined with Christ in His likeness is to crucify the flesh and its dictates.

To this end, the verse concludes by affirming that we are no longer slaves of sin. Whereas once we could only serve sin, now believers need to consciously reject the sin nature and recognize that it no longer has power over us.

Paul continues in v. 7 to say that the individual who has participated in death is now no longer subject to sin. Literally, the individual who has died no longer sins, because they lack the ability to do so. Similarly, anyone who participates in Christ’s death has been freed from the need to sin, and should therefore exhibit their freedom from sin through Christ’s death. The word here for “to free” or “to liberate” (dikaioö) is usually used for the idea of “to justify” or “to be put in a right relationship with”; 14 of the 39 NT instances of this word occur in Romans. However, here, and in Acts 13:38, it means to be freed from something. Perhaps the NT authors use these different meanings as somewhat of a play on words; that is, by being justified and set in right relationship with God, we are “set free” from the shackles of sin and of the bondage to this world.

Again, there is a difference between the fact that we will occasionally sin, and the habitual sin that should not grip a believer. There is also a difference between being free from sin and the fact that we still have the pull of the sin nature, which Paul addresses in Romans 6-7.

In verse 8, Paul again links the realities of dying with Christ and therefore, sharing in the benefits of His resurrection as he did in v. 5. The difference here, however, is that while v. 5 discussed sharing in His future resurrection by receiving resurrection ourselves, here the point is to look beyond merely the act of resurrection and recognize that we will also “live with” Christ. Beyond the marvelous resurrection there is a glorious existence with Christ wherein the believer will participate in His meaning, purposes, life, and joy.

Because Christ died once already, the fact that He now lives means that death will never affect Him again (v. 9). This is the kind of life that believers will enjoy also after the resurrection; an existence that can no longer be threatened by disease, decay, and death.

The fact that Christ was raised “from death” means that He will no longer die. Having experienced it, and having demonstrated His power over it, death will never again affect Him. The last phrase reiterates this reality; it no longer “reigns” or “exercises lordship over” Him. Paul said in the introduction to Romans that Jesus Christ was “declared to be the Son of God” and that He could rightly be called “Lord” because of the resurrection. Having raised from the dead, the dominion of death no longer had any sway over Him. Having defeated it, He has now become Lord over it, with the privilege of providing resurrection for those who believe in Him.

But Christ’s reign over death and sin is transferable, meaning that if we have trusted in Christ, sin and death no longer reign in us. Paul will get to this in v. 11, but that release from the lordship and tyranny of sin (v. 9) is a freedom that we should be exercising in our lives also.

If death doesn’t reign over Christ, then neither should death, or mortality or sin reign over us. Of course, we will die physically if the rapture doesn’t occur first. However, we no longer have to be afraid of death as Christians, and we can live for the eternal life we will have with Christ. This includes no longer living in the squalor of sin and, instead, living for Christ and pursuing His purposes during the rest of our lives.

The Eclectic Web Journal is written by Matt Kasper and edited by Martha Kasper. Matt is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and Dallas Theological Seminary, and is currently completing a PhD. in reformation history from Georgia State University. Matt is the pastor of a small church northeast of Atlanta called Grace Atlanta Bible Church, and is involved in several other groups and activities in the Atlanta area, as well.

We had written a decade’s worth of articles in our previous web journal, called, The Eclectic Kasper, which we published from 2011 to 2021. Those articles are also arranged topically in our “Eclectic Archive,” which you can access here.

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