Training or Gifting?

Geeksaresexy.com has this great cartoon up right now about the difference between Japanese heroes and American heroes.

Ryu (yes, that Ryu; from Street Fighter) decides to prepare to protect Earth from alien attack. He makes a point about how he'll train really hard, even carrying a bolder to do so. As he is fighting aliens, he feels overwhelmed. Way to many for him to fight alone. In come 3 heroes, from our 2 biggest hero houses, DC and Marvel, to help him. As he compliments them on their skills, they all admit that they haven't really trained that much. Iron Man just has cool gadgets and money, Spidey got bitten by a spider, and Superman was born with it.

This is a huge over-generalization, right? Look at the X-Men. They have a huge room devoted to training and even a whole school. Wildcat has a purpose in DC comics of training younger heroes and vigilantes. Think about our other heroes, that we label under other things. Catniss Everdeen trains on various techniques before going into the Hunger Games.Luke Skywalker has to train with Yoda and Obi-wan.

On the Japanese side it doesn't seem so off, though. Almost all Asian heroes that I know of have a lot of training and a strong emphases on preparation. I am sure there are exceptions, though. Feel free to let me know of any.

This week we celebrated Veterans Day. A day when we remember men who trained hard and worked hard to keep our nation free. Now, in some cases, such as Word Wars, the training was quickened a little bit. And in other cases, such as the Vietnam War, soldiers arrive to a theater of operations to find out they need to learn a whole new set of lessons from soldiers who have been there for a while.

As Christians, we are told to train. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 4:8 that physical training is of some value, but the training in Godliness holds much more relevant value. This is one of the reasons we have the Bible. To train in righteousness. In 1 Corinthians he tells us about the proper uses of spiritual gifts. These gifts are given to all followers of Christ freely, but we don't always look for them.

You see, real heroes have a mixture. God freely gives all his followers gifts to use in fighting spiritual battles and in serving. Yet we still need training. We need to learn how to use those gifts, when to use the gifts, and we need to learn wisdom. But it isn't only training.

In the cartoon mentioned above, Spiderman, Superman and Iron Man somehow all come at once to aid Ryu. What did Jesus do when He sent the disciples out to teach? He sent them out 2 by 2. They went out as teams. Paul's treatment on spiritual gifts in his letter to the Corinthians comes in a context of unity. He discusses order in worship during this time as well as the beauty of the diversity of the Body of Christ.

In order to be real super heroes, we need all of these. We need training. We need natural talents and spiritual gifts from the Holy Spirit. We need each other. That is the recipe for true heroism.

**Quick Note: This Saturday, Nov. 15, is a gathering at Cornerstone Univ. 6:00pm. Come join us for a chapel service and some gaming after that.**

Iron Man's Science vs. Asgards Magic, or Faith and Reason

Found at: www.unleashthefanboy.com

Iron Man and Thor had an ongoing argument for an episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (such a better cartoon than the current Avengers run). Thor was tired of man-made technology and science causing problems that they had to deal with. Soon, the world was filled with winter as Maleketh opened the Casket of Ancient Winter. Iron Man was convinced that magic was far less useful and more dangerous while Thor kept declaring the opposite.

This debate goes on in schools, homes and coffee houses all over our world. And it is old. The Psalms refer to this debate ("The fool says in his heart, there is now god." Psalm 14:1) When Paul was in Athens, he found himself debating with stoic and epicurean philosophers. Now, as we read his discussion with them in Acts 17, we find something interesting: he uses the work of people who were not following Christ in his side of the discussion, including a description on a statue and a poem. Granted, this is more like a combination of faith and culture than faith and reason, but it is still an interesting note to make.

When Ezra and Nehemiah worked on the Temple and Walls around Jerusalem, they did so based on a faith in God and a love for His chosen people; but they built these with engineering ideas that are found in exploring our natural world. They used faith and science together.

We find many times in our narratives when these come together, although I feel like many of these are of bad guys messing with forces they shouldn't play around with. In the movie "Bulletproof Monk" we find the prophecy coming out through modern means (mechanical cranes instead of bird type cranes) and we find bad guys using technology to get the secret out of the Monk. In "Warehouse 13" our favorite team includes people who work with research and technology as well as a guy who just gets bad vibes about stuff. In "A New Hope", Luke uses the Force to aim but technology to fire.

So how did this all end for our mightiest heroes? While fighting Maleketh, they realized they were failing. Black Panther said something interesting: "In Wakanda, we use both mysticism and science". So Iron Man used the metal in his armor to weaken Maleketh while Thor sent his lighting to be the final blow. They had to use both faith and reason.

Put your faith in God and use the senses and the brain He gave you.

Luke, Vader, and Love

Love "...holds no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."  1 Corinthians 13

So yesterday I watched Star Wars Episode VI, Return of the Jedi.  I recently picked up the blue-ray set of the full saga and had this last one to watch.

I find the issue of Luke confronting Vader interesting.  It seems Yoda thought confronting him meant fighting/killing him.  Luke did not take to that.  He looked for any bit of goodness in his father and in the end he found it; even though it meant Luke had to approach death to find it, he found it.  Saving Luke's life may not have been much compared to the years of killing and hunting Jedi, but it was a beginning.

Whether or not someone pursues righteousness is their choice and the reality is that people do not always make that choice.  Paul was not asking us to be ignorant or naive.  Simply to know that we should look for the best in people.  How can you do that today?