Romans

Hulk Smash – Part Four

This is the last part in our Hulk Smash series, unless I think of another topic. 😉 I hope that you’ve enjoyed this!

Revenge.

So many times in movies, books, and real life, actions are fueled by revenge. Not necessarily with the Hulk, but… well, I thought it needed to be in here. The Bible talks a lot about revenge, and what it says isn’t good.

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,

“I will take revenge;
I will pay them back,”
says the Lord.

Romans 12:19

This verse even quotes another verse that talks about revenge. The message is clear. Never take revenge. Let the Lord AVENGE you. 🙂

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Is He Dead Or Not?

Caution: There may be a few spoilers in this post, or, if you’re like Sherlock Holmes, you could deduce spoilers from things I say in this post. Just sayin’.

Have you ever noticed that it’s impossible to believe that people are actually dead in superhero movies?

I’ll admit that the same problem occurs in other movies, too, and in books fairly often. Or is that just my imagination? It’s not.

Sherlock Holmes, for example. He “died” in the books, and he “died” on the BBC Sherlock show (Which I have not watched, but I know quite a bit about thanks to a few friends. *wink* And a past post I reblogged.)

And then, of course, there’s all those minor characters in the superhero movies that supposedly die but don’t. Sometimes main characters, too, like Captain America, although we know that something’s up from the beginning of the movie. You can almost never believe that people are actually dead in those movies.

But you know what’s cool? That’s happened in real life before, too! All those people that are raised from the dead, like Lazarus. (We don’t know the names of most of them.) But the best coming-back-to-life episode? Jesus.

Unlike in superhero movies, Jesus really died. And then he came back to life. He conquered our sin by suffering the worst death the Romans could invent, and then he rose again, conquering death itself. He love us that much.

 

The Shield of Faith

In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil.

-Ephesians 6:16

With our faith, we can block the flaming arrows of the enemy, like a shield. Paul was probably thinking about a Roman shield, kind of like this one:

romanshield

Maybe. The Roman’s shields were made out of wood, but they were covered in leather so they wouldn’t catch on fire, which was a big part of their battles. (Thank you, Pastor Tim from Wayside!)

When we think of shields, we normally think of something more like this:

CaptainAmericasShield

Sorry, I couldn’t help it… But, although this shield would definitely stand up pretty good to some flaming arrows (now there’s an idea, Marvel!), it doesn’t provide quite as much full-body protection. See what I mean?

HidingCaptain

The stronger your faith is, the better your shield will be, and the better you’ll be able to guard yourself against the devil’s flaming arrows of temptation. Which just might be mentioned in the next post.

(I can’t help it… which shield would you rather have? Why?)