Recently, I posted my Spider-Man Bible Study / Discussion Guide. Simultaneously, I dropped a few comments on some blogs that referenced a different Spider-Man Bible Study produced by Fuller Theological Seminary's professor Craig Detweiler.

Some GodBloggers have been critical of the whole "movie-based Bible study" enterprise. Not surprising, really: using Hollywood movies to teach Biblical truth is a little like using dance to teach worship, or wine to serve Communion. There may be a place for it, but it's going to generate controversy somewhere.

I've been asked before to justify how I could write a Bible study with a movie as its context. After all, if I'm writing a

These are a few of the things I've recently found interesting, but don't have the time to properly blog on. I don't necessarily like or agree with the links here, I just think they're interesting. And just in case you do, too, enjoy.

(You can view past Del.icio.us links here or subscribe to my Del.icio.us feed here. )

I posted a couple comments recently on a blog I visited off my PneumaBlogs aggregator that I'd like to recapture here for additional commentary from my readers, if you're game.

There was an interesting post by Maryellen at her “To Everything a Time” blogspot about God's divine plan and predestination, and the moral and intellectual confusion this causes. In fact, Maryellen herself was asking good questions after reading some sci-fi, so like a good blogger, she shared the angst.

This was what caught my attention (from early morning insanity):

Is this whole mess God’s divine plan? ... And one more question, can one believe in God, love God, and still be damned? Like Cane, or Esau? Like Judas?

I commented:

Interesting post. I like your question, “can one believe in God, love God, and still be damned? Like Cane, or Esau? Like Judas?”

I stumbled across an interesting passage from Plato's Phaedrus (translated by Benjamin Jowett) the other day. (Or, check out the published translation.) It seemed relevant to me as I am wrapping up my research on Heaven & Hell in preparation for my presentation at church this coming Wednesday.

I lean on the Internet quite a bit as I do research. And beside me at this moment I have no less than 16 books measuring two feet in height that I have also leaned on — or should I say they have leaned on me? Yet through it all I am painfully aware that my knowldge of either Heaven or Hell (I capitalize the terms for I think of them as real places) is bound up