You
cannot watch this film without being affected! In my opinion, it is, indeed, a
great movie! But to say or promote it as the greatest evangelistic tool—the
greatest gospel message—in the last century or in the last 2000 years is a bit
strong and very misleading. It’s a movie…a good movie, but just a movie! (Pictured:
Tim Timmons).To place the credibility of Jesus and His Gospel upon a movie is not what I am willing to do. Whether someone likes the movie or not is not equal to accepting or rejecting Jesus’ claims to be the Christ.
TENDENCY TO OVERSELL
“This movie will change your life!” “You will never be worked as dramatically as this!” When you’re excited about something, there is always a tendency to oversell. Whenever you take your experience and project it upon another, you run the risk of “over-sell and under-deliver”… It’s the same as having unrealistic expectations. This will produce disappointment every time!
To oversell this movie is to set people up to be disappointed! If it is so powerful, it doesn’t need your holy hype!
TENDENCY TO OVEREMPHASIZE A METHOD
The Christian church seems to be lovers of the latest and greatest methodologies—especially when it comes to evangelism. Revival meetings and evangelistic crusades, books and booklets, radio and TV shows or an evangelistic system of training all promise to be easy, sure-fire methods of evangelism that will reach your neighbor. Now we have a movie!
The New Testament doesn’t include any of these methods as the divine or most effective ways of reaching your neighbor. To overemphasize a method is to short-circuit what is really required for effectively introducing your neighbor to Jesus.
MOVIE IS GREAT…MEL’S STORY IS THE GOSPEL
In every pre-showing of The Passion of The Christ there has been an overwhelming response! But that response was not just to the movie or to being one of the “chosen” few who are able to see it before it hits the big screen. The enthusiastic response to this movie has been generated by the personal testimony of Mel Gibson -- how God has sent him on a mission to produce this movie…how he faced some major pain in his life which made him turn to Jesus as his only way out (to avoid “jumping out of the frying pan into the fire…literally”)…how God has demonstrated Himself supernaturally in a variety of incidents in the making of the film…how that Mel came to the conclusion that it was his sin (not just the Romans and the Jews) that put Jesus on that cross! Mel’s testimony is the Gospel!
ONLY 4 WAYS ATTRACT PEOPLE TO JESUS
