Movie List (to be updated)

Sometimes, I forget that I have this blog. I think I have about 8 blogs in total but Being Free is my first and main one. I posted there the other day about a couple of movies I watched. Probably would have been nice to share those here. Better late than never.

One of the best Christian movies I've seen in a very long time is called Divination. I found it on Amazon in the Prime Video section which means that, for some of us, the viewing is free. What I liked so much about the movie - though I struggled with some of the theology - was the superb special effects. The actors did a really good job and, let's face it, acting talent can be a hit or miss thing with low-production movies.

The other movie is called Let There Be Light and while it was a tiny bit sappy-sweet in spots, overall it was a good film. The acting was good and the cast included most of Kevin Sorbo's family. Here's the thing though: I have issues with the rabid support for Trump in the evangelical community. Of course, we all have our own opinions and you might disagree with me. In this movie, Sean Hannity made an appearance and it just reminded me of the whole Trump-can-do-no-wrong deal. I literally fast-forwarded through every time I saw his face. That's petty of me but... My testimony is still in progress.

When I found those movies on Amazon, I thought it was funny that I kind of had to stumble across them. Once I did, I searched out some other shows by looking at the recommended titles under those two movies. There are quite a few interesting documentaries and other shows that Christians might want to see. It's shocking how many titles I ran across. Of course, I can't vouch for shows I haven't seen but here are some that I have added to my own Watchlist:

• Grace in the Book of Romans
• Bible Warfare: How to Defend Your Faith
• Great Bible Stories: Volume 1
• Jesus of Nazareth (one of my favorite movies though its Jesus looks more British than Hebrew)
• I Beheld His Glory
• The Gospel According to St. Matthew (in color)
• The Passion of the Christ (which I have not yet felt strong enough to view)
• Acts: The Acts of the Apostles

There are so many more that it would take me days to list them all. If you want to explore for more Christian offerings in the Amazon Prime (or for rent) section, there a few ways to go about it. The description page of the videos will list Genre, Director, and Starring. You can click on any of those to pull up other videos or suggestions. If you scroll down a description page, other possibly similar or related videos will be listed. That's how I found most of the ones I listed here.

What I love is that there are not just movies for entertainment, but many teaching videos. I have watched a couple about certain books of the Bible. 

Now, I will suggest that you are always careful and prayerful about anything. When I watch movies or shows labeled as "Christian", I pay close attention to theology. Let the Bible be your guide so that you aren't ingesting bad information or ideas. 

Speaking of Christian movies, there is one that I used to have a DVD of. It was beautifully filmed and had lovely background music. It basically tells the first several chapters of the Bible through a quiet narration against a Middle Eastern backdrop. This is how IMDb summarizes the film:

A sage (Omero Antonutti) recounts biblical stories to his wide-eyed grandson and nomads around a desert campfire. 

I love that it's not like the films that don't show any ethnic realism in the casting. Again, I just can't say enough about the music. I lost my copy during one of my many moves and have not been able to find another. It was titled Genesis: The Creation and the Flood. Amazon will occasionally get a copy but they sell out fast and become unavailable. 

**Well, guess what? I just checked Amazon to get a link for this post and there was ONE copy of the movie up for sale. I'm so broke right now that I rattle when I walk, but I grabbed that copy.**

Sadly, another discovery I made while looking up info is that the writer and director of  The Creation and the Flood passed away just last year. I will update this post as I can. Maybe I will input the links for all the movies on my Watchlist one day. In the meantime...

Peace

--Free

Dr Martin Examines Arguments Against God

Dr. Walter Martin did a lot of debates on the John Ankerberg Show. I've listened to him examine the doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses, 7th Day Adventists, Mormons and others. I always admired his approach to Christian apologetics. He always, always anchored his responses on Scripture. He could debate with laymen, scholars and scientists.

When I tell people about the Lord, I can tell them about my faith and my hope that they accept the gift of salvation. Often I run into people who disagree with me and many of those people are well-versed in Scripture. Those are the ones who will try to tangle me up in theory and language and anything else they can to justify their disbelief.

Recently, I spoke via comments with a man who does not belief in God, does not want to believe in God and, yet, is angry that if there is a God, his deceased parents are suffering. What I would like to say to him is that, we cannot know whether or not our unbelieving loved ones accepted the truth of God before they passed or not. For all I know, my grandfather may have, before he passed, came to the knowledge that there is a God. I pray that he did. As for the man I have shared comments with on this blog, my heart aches for him and I hope that he realizes that we don't - we cannot - know what my loved ones or his believed at the moment they passed. There is still hope & I know that God is a merciful God. (I always think of the story of the men who worked all day and were paid the same wages as the men who came to work later in the day. Some of of come to believe long before we pass into death, but those who come at the last moment are given the same mercy and forgiveness as we are!) I desperately wanted to give him some kind of hope and love to rest in, but I couldn't find a way around his arguments. I will continue to pray for this person, but in the meantime, I thought that I would post for him (and others), this session by Dr. Martin.

Dr. Martin passed away some years ago, but many of his debates are still around via the Ankerberg Show. I found this YouTube audio of him addressing (apparently on a college campus) seven atheistic arguments. They are posted by user Christian Roadwarrior & I am so grateful to have found them. I hope they are a blessing to someone.

I don't feel no ways tired,
I've come too far from where I started from.
Nobody told me that the road would be easy,
I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me.

That's always been one of my favorite gospel songs. "I Don't Feel Noways Tired," sung by James Cleveland.

But there are times when I do feel tired. Weary. There is such an atmosphere of sin in this world that there are days when I feel I am struggling for spiritual breath.

Still, I know God is with us. Even in my weariness there is proof of God. He told us that these times would be. We know from the Bible that people would be proud and cruel and stubborn. So, I am listening to these words from the song:



Peace
--Free

Cindee's Video

Guys - I want you to see these videos from Cindee Martin Morgan. I think sometimes we need to be reminded of the profound promises the Lord made to us. I hope that I'm posting these at just the right time for someone who especially needs the message. For more, visit Cindee's YouTube Channel.





BTW, Cindee is the daughter of the late Dr. Walter Martin. Dr. Martin really blessed my life with his teachings on various subjects. He had the ability to teach without being mean-spirited. The following is one of his appearances on the John Ankerberg Show.



Peace
--Free

Do Bible Translations Matter?

I've heard the arguments before about whether or not Bible translations other than the KJV were accurate. Usually these arguments were nasty, heated exchanges that you would expect to hear in a meeting between the Klan and the NAACP... Just really mean and, well, let's just say that people can get upset over the discussion.

A long time ago, I got it into my head that all my nieces and nephews needed their own Bible. This is back when I was working and making pretty good money. I started going to the Christian bookstore every other payday or so and picking out Bibles I thought were appropriate for each one of my nieces and nephews. I remember buying the Adventure Bible, study Bibles, Teen Bibles, etc. I don't think that I bought any of the Bibles in the King James Version. My intent was that I wanted the kids to be interested in what they were reading and that it be easy to read. Eventually, I bought a Bible for each of them. I believe they all still have their copies today.

For myself - and this is when I was studying the Bible on a more regular occasion than now, even at one point setting myself the goal of reading through the entire Book - I bought various versions: the KJV, NIV, Amplied, NASB Study, John Hagee Prophecy, and Living. One of the reasons I'd given myself for using different versions was that they were easier to read & understand. (That comes up for argument later in a video I'm embedding.) I recently was going through some of my boxes of packed belongings and realized how many versions I had collected. The one I had kept out and available while I was busy moving from place to place (pillar to post?) was the NASB Study Bible. To be honest, I didn't often read it. Every now and then, when something came up in conversation, I would refer to the Bible.

Anyway, I was looking for more teachings on the faith and subjects of the faith when I ran across a video on YouTube that was about the controversy of modern translations of the Bible versus the KJV. I was surprised first that the speaker was not angry or ill-tempered. Next, I was fascinated by the information. Of course, as I listened, I pulled out my NASB and a KJV and began to take notes.

Wow.

In a nutshell, what mainly caused me to consider the argument for the KJV was comparing the Lord's Prayer from my NASB Study version to the KJV. Here is the first video of a series presented on YouTube:



There is another video - short and with a general chart - that more simply explains the sources of the various versions. The man presenting the information, Kent Hovind, can be a little more grating than Gail Riplinger from the first video I embedded, but the information is clear.



At any rate, I have not thrown out the other versions I have because I think it will be helpful to show others the differences, but I am now using the KJV for my study and use. (By the way, I don't know how exactly to explain this, but do you ever feel like, when you have learned something, that it's as if the knowledge was right there in front of you all the time & you were just missing it??? That's the way I have been feeling lately.)

What do you guys think? Do you prefer other versions to the KJV and why? Do you get what Riplinger and Hovind are saying about the other versions?

Peace
--Free

Revelation 22:18-19
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

Free & Faith

I am starting this blog because I wanted a place to post about matters of faith and Christianity. I have other blogs I started for different reasons. By the way, since this is going to be about me (Free) and matters of faith, that's where the title came from (and it was available for Blogger!)

With this blog I hope to share conversations and thoughts with others about the daily life as a Christian. For the last many years of my life I have been complacent and lazy about my faith and commitment to the Lord Jesus. Things have happened recently to encourage me to be more firm in my walk as a follower of Christ.

For so long I have been a worker, daughter, wife, sister, friend and citizen who happens to be a Christian. I now want to be a Christian who happens to be a part of society. In other words, I want to be a Christian first.

One of the things that happened to me recently was that I happened across a series of sermons on culture and music by a pastor who is exposing the deception that has crept into aspects of everyday life. Here is one of the videos:





After hearing this teaching, I really had to take a look at some of the entertainment choices I'd made. It was a little shocking to me to realize how little attention I had paid to the arts and culture I was fond of. That led me to prayer and the desire to be more discerning. Since then, I have dusted off my neglected Bible and gotten back into the reading and studying of God's Word. I never should have allowed myself to be lured away.

The thing about life is that, if you are not careful, you can get pulled away from the most important things by meaningless things. For myself, I allowed myself to get so busy filling up time with working, talking and amusing myself that I grew away from spending time being thankful to God. I grew away from praying (except for before bed and when worried about something), reading the Bible and just being an attentive child of God.

Let me tell you something about how lax I have become as a Christian. I rarely attend church anymore. I curse on a daily basis. I gossip and criticize and belittle. I spend more time doing my hair and nails than I do praying or reading God's Word. I have been so disobedient.

Calling myself a child of Christ, I have often been more worried about offending friends and family. I have been so self-centered that I forgot to be thankful every minute to my Savior.

So. This blog is something I am doing to connect with other Christians. I want to share the Word and encourage and be encouraged. With my other blogs I have met people and formed connections that have nothing to do with my faith. I joined Twitter and connected in a matter of weeks with hundreds and hundreds of people. I sincerely hope that I can do the same here.

Oh, and because this is my blog, I will be opinionated! LOL. I will be sharing information and ideas that may offend some people. The only Person I am seriously worried about offending is Jesus Christ. Everyone else can just choose not to visit this blog.

Peace
--Free

Romans 12:2
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.