If Superman and Mighty Mouse got into a fight, who would win? The boys asked this in the hit movie Stand By Me, by Rob Reiner, 1986, but there was no conclusive answer. Searching the Internet, I found some interesting answers.
A fan of superheroes said: "Mighty and Super are synonymous, so if you have (Super) (Man) and (Mighty) (Mouse) you can cancel the" super "and powerful, which leaves you with Man and Mouse. Of course the man usually wins, but the mouse can win 2/10 times. "
Yet another reader posted, "Let's just say that, by the argument, Mighty Mouse's power level was on the same level as Superman's. All Superman would have to do was keep the fight long enough for Mighty Mouse to burn his electric pill. So the MM is just an ordinary mouse. "
"The Mighty Mouse is so superior, he has its own song. Then he would beat Superman enough to make him to say “Uncle!”." Said another...
Some other fans commented, "I do not think Mighty Mouse can move on its own."
Corey Feldman, in portraying Teddy in the film, said: "Superman is a real guy. Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. No way a cartoon could hit a real guy. Stupid question Vern. "(I always stay on Teddy's side.) Superman! I love the fact that Teddy said he's real. He's real! (Oh, Boy!)
Even the wisest of the boys on those train tracks could not get it right! Their arguments were all flawed. They thought Superman was real, so it was not even a cartoon.
Lately, I have seen many of these kinds of comparisons and faulty questions about Christianity. Many today, are fighting over who is a better Super-Christian or a Super–Pastor. They debate over the “who is who” title in the evangelical arena and the one which, can get more likes in the extra-biblical gospel doctrines. There seems to be a continuing competition to see who is right. In the end, the question we ask is who will win in a fight, and the wisest answers we can give is an argument against the reality or authenticity of many godly men and women who live, learn, and teach about Jesus as the true head of God’s church.
A member of my church recently posted a picture showing a bunch of different superheroes from different universes sitting with an image of Jesus and the phrase "That's how I saved the world..." written under it, as if Jesus were speaking with his superhero friends.
Another popular post I saw on Facebook was a video of many superheroes bowing and showing their respect for the cross. I have a problem with that. It is not just the breaking of the second commandment, but it is the fact that we are comparing Jesus to fairy tales or comic book heroes.
Although these childlike comparisons seem to be popular today, we can see in church history that they have always been present in our midst.
AN OLDER SUPERHERO
The Church loved the radical Super-disciplines of Simeon. They admired his austere lifestyle. He was canonized as a saint in the Coptic Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. Cities fought for his body so that sacred relics could be parceled out from his remains. Shrines were built around his last pillar, which ruins’ remain to this day not far from the modern city of Aleppo.
Some years after the beginning of the 5th century AD, a 13-year-old Turkish shepherd developed a zeal for Christianity while reading the Beatitudes. About a year later, he entered a monastery and began practicing these extreme forms of self-deprecation that he was asked to leave. For a year and a half, he locked himself in a small hut from which rumors spread that he had spent a whole Lenten season without eating or drinking. As the fame of their superpowers spread, crowds began to visit this renowned Holy Superman (as Robyn would say) to seek his prayers and advice.
But many people stopped their contemplations. Then Simeon decided to climb up on a tower among the ruins of an ancient city, where he could escape even more from worldliness and temptation. There he lived - five feet off the ground for many years until he began to build higher towers. He spent his final years in a 20-foot tall tower in his constant desire to prove his devotion to God through his punitive lifestyle to his own body. Reverence for Simeon grew. He inspired many imitators committed to seeking holiness and purifying their worldly temptations.
I'm talking about Simeon Styllite; who is just another example of our human tendency to turn Paul's admonitions into the small church in Colossae completely upside down. Simeon and all who followed him were great examples of believers who had only "a partially learned Christ." They understood something of Jesus Christ, but they failed to see the full truth about him and the obvious implications of trusting in Christ. This is the main theme of Paul in almost all his letters; those whom he writes have to be a little savior. In the same way, many of us too are often making Christ, something smaller than he really is.
In our day and age, all you need to do to see this problem is to search the religious sites and gospel pages to be impressed by the ingenuity of the people who send money to support the modern Phrygian gurus, promising health and wealth and blessings of life in exchange for financial sacrifices. They are teaching a half-hearted Christ, leaving their followers open to all sorts of religious teachings that "sound" right while they are anti-Biblical and deeply sinister.
Paul's concern with the small congregation at Colossae was that they knew Christ only partially. Then he writes to draw them back to the fullness of their union with Christ. He writes in Colossians 2: 9-10, "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. " You need no teaching that insists on adding other things to your faith to get any personal feeling of "fullness". But the Colossian gurus offered what appeared to be simple solutions to such felt needs.
LIVING A SUPER-BELIEVING LIFE (Colossians 2.16-19)
There seemed to be only certain things necessary to gain fullness-certain simple and capable disciplines that needed to be exercised. And we are all very naive. Evangelical Christians always seem to be looking for a quick and easy way to experience greater spiritual wholeness. "Fullness" was one of the keywords of propaganda for first-century gurus, just as "higher life" or "true spirituality" or "holiness" or "winning walk" became modern keywords of the evangelical market of our days. Here in this text, we have an idea of the kind of super spiritual discipline that can be sold in the Lich Valley in Paul's day.
BEVERAGES, JUICES, DIETS AND DAYS (Colossians 2.16-17)
The first higher life program on the menu involved keeping diets restrictive and celebrating certain days. Dietary restrictions and observance of the days of fasting and feasting ruled the lives of the Jews. The Mosaic Law contained no drink restrictions (other than a prohibition against drunkenness), suggesting that this was not an entirely Jewish set of sacred rules. However, it seems that the gurus were teaching restrictions on kosher foods and Jewish feasts and fasting days as a means of improving one's Christian experience. Remember that just a few centuries before the time Paul wrote, Jews were willing to die instead of eating an impure diet or skipping a feast or a day of fasting.
The social pressure of these passionate diet and day advocates would have been enormous. "Besides, what harm could it do? Maybe this will improve my religious experience. " We may think in our day about social pressures in militant evangelicalism to maintain a certain set of political beliefs, or to educate their children in a certain way, or to use only the "best" Bible translation (whatever it is in your church circle). Weather or not someone can clap their hands or use humor for the Biblical exposition.
The checklists for more complete Christian experiences are endless today. Some advocate "biblical diets" and natural healing remedies as part of the improved spiritual experience. The damage is not in things or in the programs themselves. If you like essential oils and the Daniel Diet, it's good for you! The evil lies in accepting the subtle idea that anything or any program can bring you a fuller spiritual life than you already have in your union with Christ.
The diets and days of the Old Testament were shadows cast in time by the body (substance) of the Lord Jesus Christ. "You do not need to look into the shadow," says Paul, "because Christ has come in all its fullness!" Paul sums up his commandment not to be judged by such things, "These are a shadow of things to come, to Christ ". It echoes the description of the author of the ceremonial law as a shadow of the heavenly realities (Hebrews 8.5).
I heard from Albert Mohler an illustration for this subject: "Many of you have already been away from the family. Maybe you took a picture of your family with you, and every now and then you would look at that photo. But when you came home, you could hug your wife and your children. Why do you want to hug and kiss the picture? "The types and shadows thrown back by Christ are just figures; you have the real substance of Christ.
LOOKING FOR ANGEL’S FEATHERS (Colossians 2.18-19)
"Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from which the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow... " Then the program of the Phrygia super spiritual disciplines was a strict self-denial, perhaps in the order of Simeon Styllite. This kind of bodily torture probably made the sufferer worthy to enter the kingdom of angels and learn the deeper truths of the spirits who were there. Only the truly "self-righteous" practitioner was apt to receive the deeper truth of angelic beings, so said these false teachers.
In later centuries, the churches in this region persisted in the worship of the angels. The Synod of Laodicea in 363 AD condemned the practice. But in the ninth century, it was again considered pious to worship the angels; It was invented a tradition that the Archangel Michael had diverted a torrent and caused other natural disasters of the region. It makes you want to hit your head and ask, "How stupid can these people be?" The answer is the same as Teddy's: This is a stupid question, Vern ... "- As stupid as you and I when we put ANYTHING above the fullness of our union with Christ!
All these forms of strict super-disciplines only gave the appearance of humility. Paul literally says that these gurus are "lacking in humble spirit and godliness" and are "being conceited by the mind of the flesh" (v. 18). Our sinful nature, our flesh, our old Adam is desperately drawn to keep all kinds of man-made rules that make us feel better about ourselves and offer us a super-sized spirituality.
Compare the gurus of "the most complete knowledge" with Paul, who was caught up in heaven where he heard things that one can not speak - obtaining the highest, fullest, and most profound knowledge (2Corinthians 12. 3-4). Then he writes, "And that I might not be exalted for the excellence of the revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to slay me, that I might not be exalted." (2Corinthians 12.7)
The flesh, the old Adam, loves to steal the glory of the work that Christ does in us. Imagine how much more do the false teachers, without Christ, loving the self-glory and worship of their followers seeking a fuller life through deeper knowledge.
That is why so many pilgrims of the fifth century traveled to seek Simeon Styllite; they thought he had the deepest and most complete truths. Why? Because he was an excellent self-sufferer, he certainly ought to have been more worthy of receiving great messages from God. But the doctrine of the fullness of Christ utterly obliterates the desire of the ancient Adam for spiritual glory. The fullness of Christ utterly obliterates the secret wisdom of supposed holy and insane men. If you are trusting in Christ, Paul says, "Let no one decide for you... "Because you are already filled with Christ. Thus, the whole Church grows with a growth that comes from God, not from human regulations and programs.
Paul wants you to know every time you listen to a teacher speak, there are three questions to ask yourself. First, ask yourself who is being exalted in the message? Does it draw you to the speaker, or does it draw you to focus on yourself, or force your heart's ears and eyes to Christ? Who is great, gracious and glorious in the message of this master? Second, what is the teacher NOT saying? Is there anything missing in the message? In Phrygia, what was absent from the message was the focus on the fullness and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Finally, what is the effect of teacher education? The effect in Phrygia was that the gurus were full, but the body of Christ was not built to grow with the growth of God. Some, without any preparation, repeat teachings as parrots, causing a temporary impact that generates scourges and pains for many years to come. When a person calls himself a teacher, he has a source of dubious and often deceitful knowledge, and must be examined in the light of Scripture.
HUMAN OBVIOUS REGULATION (Colossians 2.20-23)
In the last three verses, Paul sums up the teachings of those gurus. First, it reminds us that these self-focused checklists are part of the elementary principles of the world. They are part of the satanic philosophy that something unlike God is necessary for the fullness of humanity - like that beautiful fruit hanging from the tree of judgment in Eden. The apostle describes the programs of the false teachers in a series of three negative rules.
Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings.; Colossians 2: 20-22
Man, not by God, makes these rules because they focus their attention on the earth and not on the one who has risen, and ascended into heaven, being fully glorified, our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul gives us some significant marks of the false teachings in verse 23.
First, Paul says that false teaching "will indeed have a resemblance of wisdom..." False teaching will provide a way to keep your life seemingly solved. It will offer a way to organize the old Adam, the flesh, so that sin becomes less visible and outward. It can offer freedom against debilitating depression or freedom from an addiction. It can offer a new purpose for your disorganized life. You can promise feelings of peace in a world of chaos. You can make yourself into a Super Believer. It can make you grow. But remember: He must increase and I must decrease. (John 3.30) But false teachings will not have the glorious focus on the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It will be a religion made by yourself and for yourself. It will be a religion invented around you and about for you. This is not simply the religious culture of the world of the first century or of the world of the twenty-first century. This is the dominant religion of all mankind from the moment Adam chose self-realization above the fullness of God. Self-taught religion is the elemental principle born in the Garden of Eden and, in the category of fall, programmed into the DNA of all mankind.
The function of all your self-made religions is to help people manage themselves to make progress in life. It's about self-discipline, self-education, self-improvement, and self-success. But Jesus commands us to come and die for the ego and live for his honor and glory.
I still mostly think of Heaven as the place where all my problems will disappear and where in fact, I will finally glorify God perfectly for all eternity. Heaven is still the place of personal improvement rather than the place to fully experience the reason for my creation - to glorify God and to enjoy it forever.
I recently saw a video announcing a church and it’s Bible institute, and the catch phrase was: "Because the most important thing for the Christian is to gain knowledge!" (Oh Boy!) That's a blatant lie! The flesh does not need self-improvement; the flesh must die. The most important thing for the Christian is to glorify God and to enjoy it forever! It's the first question in the catechisms! Even Corisco, my late parrot, knew that! (Seriously, I taught the Catechism to him)
Note that false teaching not only seems wise and is done by itself but also has a focus on the body in the form of asceticism and severity for the body. It is the religion of "do not do this and do not do that". Asceticism is a philosophical doctrine that defends the abstention of physical and psychological pleasures, believing to be the way to achieve perfection and moral and spiritual balance. The gurus and their followers thought they were offering God a voluntary addition to their basic requirements-a super-disciplined devotion through which they hoped to gain superior deity, approval, and rewards with a higher lifestyle. But Paul warns that no matter how "evangelical" or "Jesus' language" a false teacher sprinkled in false teaching, it will never be of any value in stopping the condescension of the flesh and sensuality.
How did God restrain Paul's desire for the glory of the flesh after Paul heard the deeper divine revelation? He gave Paul a constant affliction by which the grace of God was sufficient by itself. In other words, God chose the way Paul would suffer. Paul was not famished. Paul did not lock himself up in a cell so small that it only fit him, as Styllite did. Paul did not sit on top of a 10-meter tower for the rest of his life.
It was not some self-imposed method; no method of suffering that made Paul seem humble in the face of all the secret revelation he received. No program that Paul could have done for himself would have humiliated him. God poured out situations completely beyond his control, so that he would be in constant dependence on the fullness of Christ for the glory of Christ alone. Believers have no reason to be arrogant. But if you're arrogant, it's because you have not suffered enough yet in situations totally beyond your control.
Paul urges us to question whether the teachings we receive increase the burden of death in my life, or serve merely to disguise my sins? Do these teachings build or destroy fellowship of the church? Do these teachings enslave me to the teacher, pastor, coach, or guru? Do you focus on man-made regulations or the glory and honor of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it in the Bible or is it in the throats of someone who knows how to speak well?
The great tragedy of many of our lives is that we seek ANYTHING apart from Christ - any means other than His fullness and our union with Him - to administer our self-constructed religion. But Paul commands us to fix our gaze only on Christ, because all we need is in Christ and everything is ours through our union with Him.
Our old Adam loves lists of things to do to administer the flesh, for such lists have the appearance of wisdom. But the list of Paul (of Christ) is small: fix your heart and your mind in Christ. The apostle will continue to show us through commandments far beyond our ability to follow that the only way to make real progress is "Step number one: it's all about Jesus."
All the fullness you need is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. True pleasure cannot be found in the self; the "I" is desperate to turn everything around him into a mere appendix or reign of his own controlling ego. True pleasure can only be found outside of you and in Christ alone.
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
(Hebrews 1.3,4)
It can be a wonderful thing to have role models and mentors to help guide us as we navigate the twists and turns of life. God created us for relationships - with Him and with others - and we can learn a lot from those around us. It may also be worth cultivating our creative skills and inventing characters and figures so that we can tell the story of the redemption of evil and wrong. Lewis and Tolkien were very accurate when they added characters like Lucy and Frodo Baggins to our cognitive archives. We must keep in mind, however, that our models are also human. We must be aware that the superheroes of fiction are as finite as their authors. And that before inventing the comic book characters, false teachers and teachers like Nietzsche already permeated thought and brought a strange struggle to the Christian wrestling mat. If we place our complete faith in someone here on earth, or in the pages and pixels of different universes, it is almost a guarantee that we will be disappointed in one way or another.
We need to be aware and make sure that no one else is controlling us with the teachings of this world. Looking at someone who is truly committed to following Jesus and the Word of God is a good place to start, but no human being is completely exempt from falling into temptation or from being stuck with the things of this world.
So, is there anyone we can look at with full faith? Yes! We can look to Jesus for strength, wisdom and guidance in all things. We can read the teachings of God and compare what the world wants us to believe against what the Bible says. Jesus wants us to be anchored in the truth and He will help us get there if we seek Him. We can certainly learn from those around us and our relationship with others can bring many blessings. But let us not forget that the image of God in Christ is holy and incomparable to any other creature. Real or fictitious.
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