Education: Training to Live Our Identity in Christ -- Overcomer Movie [VIDEO]

About

Overcomer movie breaks through the old lack-luster, corny Christian films of the past and provides a better taste of quality movie production capturing Christian truths — especially the abiding truth of living in Christ. It is incredibly difficult to produce a movie, let alone a good movie, and more so a Christian movie, and Overcomer movie has done just that. Overcomer movie digs deep into historical Christianity and deep, inspirational truths from the Bible’s New Testament book of Ephesians. To see Ephesians 1 on the “big screen” and captured in the right contextual meaning is incredible.

Overcomer brings the audience into a undeniably real life scenarios involving all various aspects of this broken and sinful world:

1. Grand-parenting (raising grandchildren without their parents)

2. Parents

3. Families

4. Children

5. Teenagers/Adolescence/Young adults

6. Neighborhoods

7. Orphans (parentless, single parents)

8. Christian school (administration, teachers, coaches, parents, guardians, students, classes)

9. Sports (basketball, football, cross country running, coaching)

10. Small town

11. Anger

12. Hate

13. Confusion

14. Loneliness

15. Theft

16. Selfishness

17. Division

18. Disease

19. Disabilities

20. Weird people

21. Funny people

22. Mean people

23. Christian people

24. Life decisions

25. Life changes

26. Learning to understand

27. Learning to forgive

28. Church

29. Pastors

30. Hospital visitation

31. Hospitality

32. Bible

33. Faith in Christ

34. Child of God

The movie captures an incredible amount of width of issues as well as narrowing on the single, residing, and resounding answer of God and the gospel. Here are a few statements shared at the end of the film:

1. I was a mistake.

2. No place in this world.

3. Unwanted.

4. I felt unloved.

5. So many mixed messages from the world around me, I lived in confusion.

6. My parents did not want me

7. It doesn’t come from the culture around me …

8. The Creator gets to define his creation.

9. I still have good and bad days.

10. I still have struggles.

11. The one who loves me and died for me and overcame everything for me … Sin, suffering, and death … I walk with him everyday … I trust him everyday.

12. Since my identity is found in him, and I know exactly who I am.

If one interprets the movie or Christianity as a self-discovery help with tips and tricks, then they’ve missed God, Christianity, church history, and the Bible. This is turning from ourselves and the world to God — entrusting the entirety of our real life to him.

Mid movie, there’s a scene with the coach talking with the man in the hospital with critical health issues. The one on the hospital bed challenges the “Christian” school coach and his identity in Christ to reveal God is greater and more important than life itself.

The movie ends with 1 John 5:5:

“Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

This is a great movie revealing how we are to be trained to live our identity in Christ, a Christian, in this real world. Every person has a telos-centered heart. The question is, what is your telos? Or, who is your telos? Is it you? This world? Something you miss? Don’t have? Want? Or God himself?

Movie Trailer

Related

Education: Has Science Buried God? by John Lennox [VIDEO]

About

Eric Metaxas interviews (mainly at minute 6 on the video) John Lennox at the Colson Center in Washingon D.C. in summary form regarding the topic question, “Has Science Buried God?” The interview might just be best for a helpful introduction to Lennox and to discover more of what he has authored and argued, especially in debates with high profile atheist (20th-21st century version) professors and scientists. Dr. Lennox provides a lot of helpful statements and introductory level direction in how to think and find more answers. Many of the statements are also challenging modern day assumptions, decades old under-toe current, and now seemingly tsunami wave of people’s ‘anti-belief’ in God. Below the video are quotes/statements written out from the interview for reference also.

Metaxas allow 3 questions from the audience at the end, which starts about 1 hour 5 minutes that addresses: 1) Mathematical proofs; 2) Abortion; and 3) What would Lennox say before God in heaven upon death?

From Socrates in the City youtube video (1 hour 19 minutes) description:

“Host Eric Metaxas and Oxford professor John Lennox explore the question, "Has science buried God?" -- discussing the fine-tuned universe, evolution, logic, history, and more! "It's like we're an old Vaudeville team" says Metaxas, who eggs the legendary Lennox into retelling his equally legendary roast chicken anecdote. The interview was hosted by the Colson Center and took place in Washington D.C., in May 2019.“

Video

Dr. Lennox provides statements like:

1. “There are a myth in our culture: 1) Science is the only way to truth. 2) The position is logically incoherent … That statement (science is the only way to truth) cannot be true since it does not come from science.”

2. “Science can bury atheism.“

3. “It was the belief in God that drove science.”

4. “They got the wrong concept of God.”

5. “The more he understood of how it worked, the more he admired the genius of the God [of the Bible] who did it that way.”

6. “There’s a mind behind what’s up there … not mindless, unguided processes.“

7. “Our faith increases [in God when learning the world and science].“

8. “Kids can understand but professors cannot. The scientific explanation tells you how it works. The personal explanation works also … the two explanations do not compete but compliments.”

9. “[The why question] is an important question.”

10. “Something came from something, not nothing.”

11. “Science can bury atheism.“

12. “We have been miseducated by atheists that there’s science there and there’s faith here.”

13. “Atheism followed to its logical conclusion destroys rationality.”

14. “The Bible is putting the finger on what is really profound.“

15. “The universe is word based … not that the universe came from nothing and created itself.”

16. “And God said … The idea of God speaking is such a powerful one. The Bible has been talking about it for a millennia.”

17. “Nobody can get rid of the idea of creation. So reject God and end up with a self-creating universal and that’s a contradiction in terms … leads to nonsense.“

18. “It is a mistake to think that only Christians are a people of faith.”

19. “Every school in our country is a faith school.”

20. “They don’t realize that their atheism is a belief system [don’t you believe in your atheistic beliefs].

21. “We are people who believe in Christ, and provide why we believe what we believe.“

22. “[Put Christianity and truth in the public space] We need a lot of courage to do that, otherwise we all will be silenced.“

23. “Evolution only addresses when there is life and not how life came about.”

24. “Our culture is faced of a raw choice between God and nothing.”

Topics (mentioned or addressed):

1. Literature

2. Theology

3. Languages

4. Classics

5. God

6. Word

7. Universe

8. Life

9. Creation

10. History

11. Science

12. Evolution

13. Atheism (20th/21st century version)

14. Galileo

15. Kepler

16. Christopher Hitchens

17. Richard Dawkins

18. Stephen Hawking

19. Carl Sagan

20. Peter Singer

21. Reductionism

22. Ontological Reductionists

23. DNA

24. Fine-tuning

25. Chance, necessity, and laws of nature

26. Abiogenesis

27. Philosophy

28. Physics

29. Mathematics

30. The Bible

31. Biblical Revelation

32. John’s Gospel

33. Living Word, Jesus

34. Isaac Newton

35. C.S. Lewis

36. Logic

37. Rationale

38. Gravity

39. Energy

40. Education

41. Schools

42. What to say at death and before the Lord Jesus Christ?

Education: The Brutally Honest High School Valedictorian's Graduation Speech About the Telos of Life

Hear Kyle reference goals, relationships, purpose, priorities, generosity, etc., as he rightly learns and shares that when God is our telos, there’s ripple effects into our life related to money, relationships, education, jobs and careers, failures and successes, and so on. God is to be the epicenter of our life, as we walk and live beloved by him to love him and others in return.

And so, what a great speech with the theme of telos (goal, aim, completion) woven throughout, especially in light of real life! Maybe the only tweak to the speech is that your “launch into life” was when conceived and born, not merely at graduation! Ha! :) But, thank you for learning, and learning the correct lessons in life — especially the most important lesson in trusting your life to God through the person and work of Jesus and all of the effects that has on life like relationships, jobs, etc.