Daily Scripture: Mark 3:22 The Torah-teachers who came down from Yerushalayim said, “He has Ba‘al-Zibbul in him,” and “It is by the ruler of the demons that he expels the demons.” (Complete Jewish Bible).
Acts 17:26 “From one man he made every nation living on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the limits of their territories and the periods when they would flourish. 27 God did this so that people would look for him and perhaps reach out and find him although in fact, he is not far from each one of us, 28 ‘for in him we live and move and exist.’ Indeed, as some of the poets among you have said, ‘We are actually his children.’ (Complete Jewish Bible).
Reflection Questions: In The Greatest Showman, theater critic James Gordon Bennett harshly blasted Barnum’s “fake” show. In a pensive moment near the film’s end, though, he told Barnum, “Putting folks of all kinds on stage with you… all colors, shapes, sizes… presenting them as equals… why, another critic might have even called it ‘a celebration of humanity.’” “I would’ve liked that,” Barnum replied. Religious critics said what Jesus did was evil, not good. But Jesus acted on what his follower Paul told philosophers in Athens. Jesus and his followers believed that all people, not just a select few, are children of a personal, life-giving, loving God.
- Paul quoted a line from an Athenian poet named Aratus in verse 28—“We are his offspring.” Today many believe that “science” means we are simply a cosmic accident, no one’s offspring (though many highly-qualified scientists believe in God as much as Paul did).* How does it shift your outlook on other people to see them as God’s “offspring” rather than as results of a random accident?
- Paul also told the Athenians that “God isn’t far away from any of us.” One whole group of Greek philosophers believed that the gods were very far away from human beings indeed, and were quite indifferent to what happened to us. Do you find inner resonance with Paul’s assertion about God’s nearness, or do you struggle to believe that is true? What experiences either support or challenge your ability to believe God cares about you?
* Some scientists who’ve written about their faith are Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Owen Gingerich and Rev. Peter J. Gomes, God’s Universe, Joan Roughgarden, Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist and Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (P.S.).
Randy Greene is a part of the Communications team at the Church of the Resurrection. He helps develop and maintain the church's family of websites. He is also a student at Central Baptist Theological Seminary and loves to write stories about faith for his blog.Whenever we begin reading the Bible at the beginning, one of the first convictions we find is that each of us carries the image of God within us, a spark of the divine that reveals the character of God to us and draws us deeper into intimate relationship with our Creator.
For me, this is a source of hope and peace, because it shows me that I am loved and that I belong. Yet it is also a challenge, because just as it reveals God’s affection for me, so does it reveal God’s affection for each person around me—even the ones I don’t particularly like.
In The Greatest Showman, P.T. Barnum highlighted the humanity of each member of his circus. He empowered these people, who were considered “freaks” by society, to accept themselves as they were. Each of them was visibly different than the “normal” people around them, and Barnum encouraged the world to allow them to be just as God created them because each of them carried that spark of God inside them.
This message does not just apply to those who are “different” based on their physical appearances, though; the challenge of seeing the image of God inside people is that it applies to everyone with whom I interact on a daily basis:
- The guy who cut me off on the highway
- The woman who continually posts inflammatory comments on Facebook
- The cashier at the grocery store who is moving so slowly today
- The politician who is only in it for the money
- The neighbor who refuses to maintain his yard
- The friend who is living the life I deserve
- The friend who can’t catch a break
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You might also like:
- “I am what I am by God’s grace”
- Prayer Tip: The Greatest Showman
- The Lion/Lamb: “I am not dead!”
- The divine wisdom of bridge-building
- Confronting past errors
- Or download this week's printable GPS
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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