We Stand on Shoulders

Or: ceilings become floors of the future

In last week’s post, I wrote about how evangelistic practices have changed through the years, and I proposed the idea that today’s evangelists stand on a floor that was once the ceiling of the previous generation. In other words, in the Kingdom of God, we learn bit by bit, and what is beyond our comprehension or our capabilities today, will be within the reach of the next generation because of what we have been able to leave as a legacy, and as the starting point for those who follow.

It occurred to me that we have such a progression going on right before our eyes in the portrayals of Jesus in various movies of the last sixty years. Max von Sydow played the part of Jesus in the movie The Greatest Story Ever Told which opened in theaters in 1965. Brian Deacon played Jesus in the 1975 movie Jesus which has been translated into over two thousand languages. Jim Caviezel portrayed Jesus in the movie The Passion of the Christ, which was a phenomenon in its time. And Jonathan Roumie is now in process in that role with the Chosen.

I don’t know if you remember The Greatest Story Ever Told. It was reasonably accurate, Biblical, etc. but I don’t remember that it had much impact on the culture. It created a stir among the religious sector of the population, of which I was not one in those days. It came across to me as just a religious movie. Fast forward now to the Chosen, and we can see the progression in how powerful these attempts to portray Jesus have become, not only through the actors, but also in the ways in which all those involved in the production of these movies have stood on the shoulders, so to speak, of those who attempted this before. Video is an art form, a communication tool, and everything about it has progressed far beyond what was even thought of generations ago.

The point is, you are not only standing on the ceiling of your forebears, but you are creating a new floor for those who will follow you. Here is a passage that addresses this quite profoundly, challenging us to be careful about that with which we build. 1 Cor 3:10-13

“Each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood , hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.”