"The Men" - starring Marlon Brando

Over the last few days I have watched Marlon Brando's acting debut in "The Men". It is almost hard to believe that this was his first film. Even from this movie, he was a classic. This is a movie about men that had become paraplegics while fighting during World War II and been confined to a veteran's hospital. I thought that that casting of the men in the movie was really well done. Each of the men had personalities that were much different from the others and provided insight into how each person might handle the hardships that would come. The movie is dated from the standpoint that there is not nearly the stigma about handicaps that once existed in the US, but it is still good to reflect on how we might have other stigmas about people in our own day and age.

Context and Understanding

If you were born blind, and I was given the job of explaining the color red to you, is there really any way that I could do it? I would never be able to explain completely what an apple looks like or how it is related to pink or purple.  You would have no context for understanding what it meant. But if somehow one day, you were to gain your sight, I would only have to say, "See, this is red", and it would make complete sense to you.

If there was a law that you had to interpret, but we stripped away any information on who wrote the law, why the law was created, the judges that had interpreted the law, the precedents that affected the law, as well as any amendments that changed the meaning of the law - would it have any meaning? Would the law be anything more than words on a page? 

It is the same with God. If we strip away what the Bible teaches about God, we can have no true understanding of him. Everything will be guess work at best, or whatever we think he or she should be -  while leaving out all the things that we would never want a god to be, at worst. If I worship a god that is not found in the Bible, I am worshiping a god that I basically made up in my own head and heart.