February 20, 2024 • 13 mins
We take a break from the heavy understanding of the creed to using stories to teach the greatest story.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ethan (00:00):
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture.
A few weekends ago, I met one ofmy grandson's birthday parties
and he receives, this Spider Mangift.
It's a sleeve with a glove andthen attached to the sleeve is
(00:21):
this plastic device and youinsert an aerosol can that
shoots out this yellow.
like silly string and it ismeant to invite him to
experience the power of SpiderMan shooting out a web we get it
going and it's all over the carand me and the driveway and
(00:44):
we're about halfway out of thecan and I'm trying to convince
him, Hey, you know, let's savethis for another day.
Paul (2) (00:50):
I mean, you've already used half the can.
And he just can't resist whatit's like to imagine being
Spider Man.
This is Raising Joyful Childrenin an Angry World.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
We've been in the creeds, theApostles Creed and trying to
talk about their significance aswe teach our children to trust
(01:15):
and believe in God and believein Jesus.
And sometimes that conversationcan get a little heavy
theologically.
So today I want to try and bringin this superhero angle.
I think we have to teach ourchildren that the characters or
people in the story do not haveto be real in order to teach us
(01:37):
what is real.
When we were playing with theSpider Man, we finally ran out
of yellow silly string.
My grandson who was turning fivesays, you know, Spider Man is
not real.
No, he's not real.
But each time a story shares apiece of truth and points us to
a greater truth, until weactually understand the greatest
(02:01):
story and the most importanttruth, there is something real
about the story.
Understanding Ninja Turtles andMarvel and DC and all sorts of
superheroes is important and Ibelieve it can help in trying to
explain There's a reason Ibelieve that children love
(02:25):
superheroes, because one, theyare bigger than life, but I
suggest that the tenderness oftheir heart sees the world in
need of being saved.
See, for the heart of the childhas not been filled with years
of human achievement.
(02:48):
Their souls have not lived longenough in this world of pride,
fuel humanity.
Their minds aren't saturatedwith political and philosophical
arguments that say thateverything that's wrong in the
world is because of humanbeings.
And then of course, thisconflicted solution that
humanity is going to solve allthe problems that human beings
(03:11):
have caused The pride thathumanity is the answer, all that
kind of stuff.
It hasn't been drilled intotheir heads, but the heart of
the child, I think, sees theworld as it is.
No veneer, no varnish, nopolish.
They think about it and mostkids, even though they have
(03:32):
probably never been a victim ofa crime, or lived in a war torn
society, But they have notrouble grasping the concept of
good and evil.
They recognize their limitationsand our limitations and it makes
sense to them.
The world needs something biggerthan ourselves.
(03:54):
The Lord, he tells us that wemust come to him like a child.
He also explains when we talkabout pride, that it's difficult
for a rich man to come, allthings are possible, he says,
but rich men, like a camel goingthrough the eye of a needle, our
children haven't been baked intothat kind of thing.
(04:17):
And so these.
These stories I believe canpoint us to the truth about God
and what is real.
I believe what convinces us toignore God sends us to what is
false.
And, you know, we've talkedabout Augustine's, there's two
kingdoms.
One is real.
And that is the kingdom ofheaven.
(04:37):
The other is false.
That's the kingdom of man.
That's led by the devil.
And if God created the world andme and loves me, then God
creates reality.
And anything that points toGod's reality.
Has an element and a substanceof being real I think when you
look at superheroes storiesYou're going to find At least
(04:58):
five.
Maybe more themes or componentsto these stories.
First, you're going to find thatevil exists.
That there's good and evil inthe world.
Secondly, that humanity lacksthe power to stop the evil.
The superhero has both a dualnature often is somewhat human,
(05:21):
but also has superhero powers.
The superhero is oftenhumiliated in some sort of
initial defeat and then isexalted in the final victory.
Humanity is saved by thesuperhero.
And then the hero takes hisrightful place.
(05:43):
These fictional stories, Ibelieve are given by God to
provide our kids with pieces ofthe puzzle, glimpses of truth
that point them to the greateststory ever told.
Now, we certainly got to, youknow, watch and some of these
things get a little too out ofhand and they're maybe not age
appropriate.
(06:04):
But the superhero themes thatI've described point them to a
greater reality.
They point them to the only trueGod man that had both the nature
of man and the nature of God.
The creed takes us from acartoon or a fictional character
(06:24):
to a historical reality and anexplanation of how God came to
earth, of evil, the humiliation,the exaltation, and what it all
means for us.
For the creed goes on on to sayhe was conceived by the Holy
Spirit Born of the Virgin Mary.
There we see he's both God andman, the dual nature.
(06:47):
Matthew pulls this quote fromIsaiah as he's back in the day
trying to, calm the nerves ofKing Ahab in the middle of the
battle.
And he says, God will send you asign.
The Virgin will give.
birth.
There's lots of discussionaround this from different
theology perspectives, but Jesusis born of a virgin and is
(07:08):
conceived by the Holy Spirit.
And therefore he is the God man.
There's much more to this, butthis is a basic message that our
kids need to grasp.
And, and then he suffers.
So our kids understand that thisactually happened in history.
We know Pontius Pilate existed.
(07:30):
In fact, we know the crucifixionhappened.
It's a historical fact.
And there we see the humiliationof Christ, humiliation that he
surrendered.
Not that someone overpoweredhim, but that he was willing to
be humiliated.
And, and then when it seems likeall is lost, he has descended
(07:50):
into hell.
it seems like, Oh my, was thisreally this, God, man, and then
Jesus in his plan with thefather and the Holy spirit, he
rises again from the dead, hedescends into hell.
And then the third day he roseagain.
And there you see the exaltationand in humanity is saved.
(08:14):
And then he ascends into heavenand sits at the right hand of
the father.
Now this all, if you think aboutthis is an historical reality
that helps be explained there'sgood and evil.
(08:35):
Yeah.
Humanity can't stop evil.
Yes.
We need something bigger thanhumanity.
And so the whole humiliation andexhaustation theme is in this,
and these stories, I believe,help people.
Children grasp this now, theinteresting thing about this is,
and this is the best part of thestory that we have to help our
(08:57):
kids see is that when we trustin the only God, man, Jesus, he
gives us power.
So we don't get a pretendplastic glove and sleeve and,
and we're not some canister thatwe shoot.
String out of, but God actuallypromises us, he promises us
(09:20):
resurrection power.
And it, and while it is fun toimagine what it would be like to
shoot a web like Spider Man, butJesus tells us that the the
power that rose him from thedead, he gives to us as a gift.
And he describes the power.
In, words like dunamis, which isdynamite, and, he uses, a word
(09:44):
for force.
And then he has this other termthat we, we get pneumatics from,
like from an air tool or an airpower tool, something that is
extremely powerful.
and then we, you know, can takeour kids and say, look, you see
that rocket with that explosivepower or that building that was
dynamited and it collapsed.
(10:07):
We see the force of a strongwind or, or we go to a shop or
just getting our tires done andwe see the air tool.
moving boulders by thispneumatic power, we can tell
them that we are given aspiritual power that works
spiritually, like those thingsthat you are seeing.
(10:29):
that are real.
For the Holy Spirit breathes hisair into our life, and we, like
Jesus, will rise from the dead.
And we have that power all we dois trust our King, who is on the
throne and the promises that heoffers.
Here, I think we can take thiscreed and, and use stories to
(10:53):
help explain it.
there's a part, I think, ofevangelical Christianity that
sees this whole thing of faith,the whole death and resurrection
as sort of having created.
I don't know, an insurance passto heaven when you die, or maybe
it includes an operator's guideto live wisely.
(11:15):
And too often it strips themystery, the miraculous power
that the creed is encouraging usto teach and for our kids to
grasp.
I mean, the sacraments are oftenmisunderstood as some sort of
monthly or quarterly memorialinstead of an invitation to have
union with the risen Christ.
(11:37):
Postmodern Christianity has kindof poured the blood into pots of
rational water.
Boiling it down into a reductionsauce that meets our life and
makes it more palatable.
The apostles creed and what itreally means and teaches should
help us to see there is so muchmore to this story.
(12:00):
Our faith is both rational andmystical that Jesus really is
the God man.
The father is almighty.
We'll talk about the Holy spiritin our next episode and that as
we trust that as we believethat.
We receive eternal life,resurrection power, and all the
(12:21):
promises of God, and it allcomes from our Father in Heaven,
and Jesus the Son, the onlybegotten Son, along with the
Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity.
We're not given a toy that wecan wear and pretend, we're
given real power, communion withGod, sacramental union with the
(12:43):
risen Christ by his blood andhis body, a mystery that is
beyond our understanding, yet isframed in the rational
understanding of our youngestdays.
Children get the world is evil,that evil seeks to harm us, and
the only supernatural being isGod, who is Jesus, who can save
(13:07):
me.
Children who see God is theAlmighty, Jesus is the one and
only begotten Son.
The real story of salvation.
That our fictional characterspoint us to are equipped to live
in joy in a culture that haslost its way.
(13:27):
Use stories to help themunderstand the greatest story
ever told so that they can livethe greatest life they ever
could.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
(13:48):
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast
dedicated to faithful parentsnavigating their families
through a stormy culture.
A few weekends ago, I met one ofmy grandson's birthday parties
and he receives, this Spider Mangift.
It's a sleeve with a glove andthen attached to the sleeve is
(00:21):
this plastic device and youinsert an aerosol can that
shoots out this yellow.
like silly string and it ismeant to invite him to
experience the power of SpiderMan shooting out a web we get it
going and it's all over the carand me and the driveway and
(00:44):
we're about halfway out of thecan and I'm trying to convince
him, Hey, you know, let's savethis for another day.
Paul (2) (00:50):
I mean, you've already used half the can.
And he just can't resist whatit's like to imagine being
Spider Man.
This is Raising Joyful Childrenin an Angry World.
I'm your host, Paul Osborne.
We've been in the creeds, theApostles Creed and trying to
talk about their significance aswe teach our children to trust
(01:15):
and believe in God and believein Jesus.
And sometimes that conversationcan get a little heavy
theologically.
So today I want to try and bringin this superhero angle.
I think we have to teach ourchildren that the characters or
people in the story do not haveto be real in order to teach us
(01:37):
what is real.
When we were playing with theSpider Man, we finally ran out
of yellow silly string.
My grandson who was turning fivesays, you know, Spider Man is
not real.
No, he's not real.
But each time a story shares apiece of truth and points us to
a greater truth, until weactually understand the greatest
(02:01):
story and the most importanttruth, there is something real
about the story.
Understanding Ninja Turtles andMarvel and DC and all sorts of
superheroes is important and Ibelieve it can help in trying to
explain There's a reason Ibelieve that children love
(02:25):
superheroes, because one, theyare bigger than life, but I
suggest that the tenderness oftheir heart sees the world in
need of being saved.
See, for the heart of the childhas not been filled with years
of human achievement.
(02:48):
Their souls have not lived longenough in this world of pride,
fuel humanity.
Their minds aren't saturatedwith political and philosophical
arguments that say thateverything that's wrong in the
world is because of humanbeings.
And then of course, thisconflicted solution that
humanity is going to solve allthe problems that human beings
(03:11):
have caused The pride thathumanity is the answer, all that
kind of stuff.
It hasn't been drilled intotheir heads, but the heart of
the child, I think, sees theworld as it is.
No veneer, no varnish, nopolish.
They think about it and mostkids, even though they have
(03:32):
probably never been a victim ofa crime, or lived in a war torn
society, But they have notrouble grasping the concept of
good and evil.
They recognize their limitationsand our limitations and it makes
sense to them.
The world needs something biggerthan ourselves.
(03:54):
The Lord, he tells us that wemust come to him like a child.
He also explains when we talkabout pride, that it's difficult
for a rich man to come, allthings are possible, he says,
but rich men, like a camel goingthrough the eye of a needle, our
children haven't been baked intothat kind of thing.
(04:17):
And so these.
These stories I believe canpoint us to the truth about God
and what is real.
I believe what convinces us toignore God sends us to what is
false.
And, you know, we've talkedabout Augustine's, there's two
kingdoms.
One is real.
And that is the kingdom ofheaven.
(04:37):
The other is false.
That's the kingdom of man.
That's led by the devil.
And if God created the world andme and loves me, then God
creates reality.
And anything that points toGod's reality.
Has an element and a substanceof being real I think when you
look at superheroes storiesYou're going to find At least
(04:58):
five.
Maybe more themes or componentsto these stories.
First, you're going to find thatevil exists.
That there's good and evil inthe world.
Secondly, that humanity lacksthe power to stop the evil.
The superhero has both a dualnature often is somewhat human,
(05:21):
but also has superhero powers.
The superhero is oftenhumiliated in some sort of
initial defeat and then isexalted in the final victory.
Humanity is saved by thesuperhero.
And then the hero takes hisrightful place.
(05:43):
These fictional stories, Ibelieve are given by God to
provide our kids with pieces ofthe puzzle, glimpses of truth
that point them to the greateststory ever told.
Now, we certainly got to, youknow, watch and some of these
things get a little too out ofhand and they're maybe not age
appropriate.
(06:04):
But the superhero themes thatI've described point them to a
greater reality.
They point them to the only trueGod man that had both the nature
of man and the nature of God.
The creed takes us from acartoon or a fictional character
(06:24):
to a historical reality and anexplanation of how God came to
earth, of evil, the humiliation,the exaltation, and what it all
means for us.
For the creed goes on on to sayhe was conceived by the Holy
Spirit Born of the Virgin Mary.
There we see he's both God andman, the dual nature.
(06:47):
Matthew pulls this quote fromIsaiah as he's back in the day
trying to, calm the nerves ofKing Ahab in the middle of the
battle.
And he says, God will send you asign.
The Virgin will give.
birth.
There's lots of discussionaround this from different
theology perspectives, but Jesusis born of a virgin and is
(07:08):
conceived by the Holy Spirit.
And therefore he is the God man.
There's much more to this, butthis is a basic message that our
kids need to grasp.
And, and then he suffers.
So our kids understand that thisactually happened in history.
We know Pontius Pilate existed.
(07:30):
In fact, we know the crucifixionhappened.
It's a historical fact.
And there we see the humiliationof Christ, humiliation that he
surrendered.
Not that someone overpoweredhim, but that he was willing to
be humiliated.
And, and then when it seems likeall is lost, he has descended
(07:50):
into hell.
it seems like, Oh my, was thisreally this, God, man, and then
Jesus in his plan with thefather and the Holy spirit, he
rises again from the dead, hedescends into hell.
And then the third day he roseagain.
And there you see the exaltationand in humanity is saved.
(08:14):
And then he ascends into heavenand sits at the right hand of
the father.
Now this all, if you think aboutthis is an historical reality
that helps be explained there'sgood and evil.
(08:35):
Yeah.
Humanity can't stop evil.
Yes.
We need something bigger thanhumanity.
And so the whole humiliation andexhaustation theme is in this,
and these stories, I believe,help people.
Children grasp this now, theinteresting thing about this is,
and this is the best part of thestory that we have to help our
(08:57):
kids see is that when we trustin the only God, man, Jesus, he
gives us power.
So we don't get a pretendplastic glove and sleeve and,
and we're not some canister thatwe shoot.
String out of, but God actuallypromises us, he promises us
(09:20):
resurrection power.
And it, and while it is fun toimagine what it would be like to
shoot a web like Spider Man, butJesus tells us that the the
power that rose him from thedead, he gives to us as a gift.
And he describes the power.
In, words like dunamis, which isdynamite, and, he uses, a word
(09:44):
for force.
And then he has this other termthat we, we get pneumatics from,
like from an air tool or an airpower tool, something that is
extremely powerful.
and then we, you know, can takeour kids and say, look, you see
that rocket with that explosivepower or that building that was
dynamited and it collapsed.
(10:07):
We see the force of a strongwind or, or we go to a shop or
just getting our tires done andwe see the air tool.
moving boulders by thispneumatic power, we can tell
them that we are given aspiritual power that works
spiritually, like those thingsthat you are seeing.
(10:29):
that are real.
For the Holy Spirit breathes hisair into our life, and we, like
Jesus, will rise from the dead.
And we have that power all we dois trust our King, who is on the
throne and the promises that heoffers.
Here, I think we can take thiscreed and, and use stories to
(10:53):
help explain it.
there's a part, I think, ofevangelical Christianity that
sees this whole thing of faith,the whole death and resurrection
as sort of having created.
I don't know, an insurance passto heaven when you die, or maybe
it includes an operator's guideto live wisely.
(11:15):
And too often it strips themystery, the miraculous power
that the creed is encouraging usto teach and for our kids to
grasp.
I mean, the sacraments are oftenmisunderstood as some sort of
monthly or quarterly memorialinstead of an invitation to have
union with the risen Christ.
(11:37):
Postmodern Christianity has kindof poured the blood into pots of
rational water.
Boiling it down into a reductionsauce that meets our life and
makes it more palatable.
The apostles creed and what itreally means and teaches should
help us to see there is so muchmore to this story.
(12:00):
Our faith is both rational andmystical that Jesus really is
the God man.
The father is almighty.
We'll talk about the Holy spiritin our next episode and that as
we trust that as we believethat.
We receive eternal life,resurrection power, and all the
(12:21):
promises of God, and it allcomes from our Father in Heaven,
and Jesus the Son, the onlybegotten Son, along with the
Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity.
We're not given a toy that wecan wear and pretend, we're
given real power, communion withGod, sacramental union with the
(12:43):
risen Christ by his blood andhis body, a mystery that is
beyond our understanding, yet isframed in the rational
understanding of our youngestdays.
Children get the world is evil,that evil seeks to harm us, and
the only supernatural being isGod, who is Jesus, who can save
(13:07):
me.
Children who see God is theAlmighty, Jesus is the one and
only begotten Son.
The real story of salvation.
That our fictional characterspoint us to are equipped to live
in joy in a culture that haslost its way.
(13:27):
Use stories to help themunderstand the greatest story
ever told so that they can livethe greatest life they ever
could.
The ultimate battle for theheart and soul is a fight for
identity.
Our king invites our kids toknow who they are, what to
(13:48):
believe, and where they belong.
Until next time, let's rememberthe words for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
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