This is less of a well thought out devotional post than a few of my thoughts on Mel Gibson's movie which has got every Christian in America heartily kissing his behind. Now quite frankly, I haven't even seen the movie yet nor do I have anything against Mr. Gibson or whoever portrays Jesus or anything of that sort. But I'd like to point out a few things before we fall too in love with this movie.

All of these points were brought up by a friend of mine who has refused to watch this movie (his reasons here). First of all, the Passion is a movie. And only a movie. While this movie can be a nice lead in to a conversation about Christ and His Gospel, it simply cannot be used as an evangelism tool or a way to draw nearer to God. Movies cannot produce faith. They can produce emotions and curiousity but "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" as Romans 10:17 tells us.

Secondly, placing too much importance on this movie and taking it as the Gospel over that which is in the inspired Word of God is accepting a modern day man's artistic view over the infallible Word of God. Due to time constraints and the obvious fact that Gibson was not there nor could he reproduce the passion of Christ in its entirety even if he was, Gibson was forced to add and subtract from the Word of God. Referring back to point one, a truncated or altered Gospel is not a true Gospel, making the movie an ineffectual evangelism tool. Thus, we must take this depiction with a grain of salt...or a bucket...depending on who you ask.

This leads us to the third point which is that this movie can lead people to violate the 2nd commandment ("You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." - Exodus 20:4). Simply because this is a man's interpretation of the passion of Christ, the movie, of course, does not portray the Lord Jesus perfectly nor does it portray the Gospel perfectly. To have the images of Gibson's Christ appear in our mind when we think of our beautiful Savior and to imagine the sufferings of our Lord to be as this movie portrayed them is to worship an idol fashioned by man. Granted the movie's Christ is no golden calf, but any image of God created by man, no matter what name it is called, is an idol for no man can fathom who God is in His perfection and glory.

I'm not calling on anyone to boycott this movie. Most likely I'll end up seeing it myself. I just think it is important for us to keep these things in mind when we see this tear-jerker. It's just a movie made by a man. I'm grateful for Gibson's work and know it has been and hopefully will continue to stir up interest and controversy concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, if we ponder upon it and soak it in, the record of Christ in the written Word of God ought to leave us with a speechlessness and a sense of awe that no movie could ever come close to.

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