A Knight's Blog

  The Bible has 365 verses that admonish us to fear not. That is one for each day of the Gregorian Calendar Year that most of the world uses. Why is fear so crippling? How does is interact with faith? What does our Lord tells us to do when it is moving so strongly in our lives? The answers as ever are found in Scripture, but before we explore them, I want to share a personal story.  I have battled the giant fear and its armor bearer anxiety for much of my life. As a child I had crippling moments when the giant sat on my chest and manifested its dark power. With intercessory prayer from family, my Lord Jesus rescued me from those bouts. However, the worst form of this monster came roughly a decade ago, when I began to experience persecution for being a Christian. I    have always been bold to wear crosses and signs of my devotion, but when I began to be harassed and get burnt burgers, I decided to conceal my cross under my shirt, convinced I was following, “I am sendi...

  In churches there is always that person or persons who judges, who points the finger and is ready to caste the first stone. This is called The Holier Than Thou religious person, who uses religion as means to crush others to hide their own insecurities or jealousies. This has been since the beginning of the Church, the religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus because of envy, “Pilate knew very well that the religious leaders had arrested Jesus out of envy” (Matthew 27:18), they hated Christ was popular and that he was threatening their religious bubble of control, financial security, insecurity masked by “tradition!”, and that God in the flesh was undoing the world they knew, “Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath [and He has authority over it],” (Mark 2:27-28), “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat the...

  The original Fraiser series is a classic sitcom. I love the witty and odd Fraiser & Niles Crane, the down to earth Martin Crane, the sarcastic Daphine Moon, and Roz. While as a Christian I take issue with Freud, Karl Jung, and the rest of the psychological pantheon, I do agree we need to talk about our problems with someone we trust. In Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism confession is mandated, and so congregants are encouraged to unburden their souls before a priest or pastor.    I say a Christian Counselor is sufficient or a Christian friend you trust, but not go to a secular therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as Go...

  In the film Kingdom of Heaven, while Sybilla and Balian are together, she says a profound statement, “Their prophet says submit, Jesus says Decide.” The line perfectly incapsulates the theologies of Islam and Christianity, Islam means “submission to God* [see footnote at end of post]” and Christianity being Decide, as in decide to believe, “for whoever believes in his Only Son shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).  I have often meditated on this line of Sibylla delivered by Eva Green, it harkening to the hymn, “I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus! I have decided to follow Jesus; No turning back, no turning back.” (Sudha Sundar Singh, or pastor Simon K Marak from Jorhat, Assam).    That our Lord Jesus calls to all, but you must decide to believe, to trust in Jesus as Lord and Son of God. Our Savior does not coax with a sword or demand our allegiance, the decision is left to each person, be a disciple or not. While Calvinist...

  Ridley Scott has made some incredible epics, Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven are masterpieces. His skill in cinematography, memorable characters, and costumery is unmatched. Of late his motion picture making prowess has slipped, The Last Duel (2021) was rather drab and basically the same 30mins of footage shot three times with some variations. His attempts with the Alien prequels were not well receive, and now Napoleon has been shrouded in controversy as history buffs decry inaccuracies that Scott has had to defend in public. The truth is telling the turbulent life of a tyrant who has left his mark on France is no easy task, when you make someone as enigmatic, brutish, and megalomaniacal the protagonist the audience is bound to feel grim. With Gladiator you have a righteous Maximus who says “what we do in life echoes in eternity,” and Balian in Kingdom of Heaven says “its a Kingdom of conscience or nothing!” Both Maximus and Balian lose their wives, one to villainy and the other ...

  The Book of Revelation is a very difficult book of the Bible to fathom. When anyone writes a book to help explain it, that book garners attention. Bart D. Ehrman, a scholar, claims that there are really two views of The Book of Revelation, one is that it is literal and futurist, that it is going to happen verbatim as written and the other is that it is a symbolic story meant to comfort Christians in any period of history, to let the know no matter how bleak things get Jesus will prevail. Ehrman spends time of a third view later in his book, The Preterist View, which claims Revelation has happened already, Nero was the Antichrist, and we living in Millenia Reign of Christ, and must conquer The Earth and create The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. The problem with this view is Jesus is suppose to be literally reigning in the flesh for a thousand years in the current Jerusalem (Revelation 20:4-6), which is not happening at the moment and Nero did not control buying and selling around wor...

  There are many ways to pray. The most common is to close your eyes and cuff your palms and fingers together. However, this is not the only way. Some use prayer beads or Rosaries, Anglicans make ones without crucifixes and Madonnas. Still some prefer to raise their hands in adoration and stand, rocking a little as they pray in Hebraic style. The point is that one method may not work for you, but there are others! Some prefer to use a kneeler and have a prayer corner with an altar cross, saints, and candles, while others like to set on a bench and talk to The Holy Trinity in a more casual way with eyes open. Some people speak in tongues in prayer (1 Corinthians 12:10, 1 Corinthians 14:13-17), others use Latin or their native language, some even go back and forth between prayer styles.  What matters is which style or styles help you feel closest to Christ and helps you want to pray. Some are insistent you have to pray a certain way: bowed head, eyes closed, and cuffed hands. Th...