Christopher Nolan, Inception, and what he thinks of you.
I recently bought a teleprompter. It is not very big, but it allows me to make some really cool videos. To date, I have only been using it for academic reasons, but stay tuned - it allows me to get a lot of my thoughts out in an organized fashion.
This video was to provide a basis for how to think about things when watching what can be a very confusing film. (Inception)
John 3:1-36
Jesus has stopped being remotely subtle and has begun laying it all out in ways we can truly understand.
Jesus and Nicodemus
3 There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to him at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform these signs you do unless God were with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again,[a] he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 “How can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again. 8 The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9 “How can these things be?” asked Nicodemus.
10 “Are you a teacher[b] of Israel and don’t know these things?” Jesus replied. 11 “Truly I tell you, we speak what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven —the Son of Man.[c]
14 “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him may[d] have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world in this way:[e] He gave[f] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it,[g] so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by[h] the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”
Jesus and John the Baptist
22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the Judean countryside, where he spent time with them and baptized.
23 John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water there. People were coming and being baptized, 24 since John had not yet been thrown into prison.
25 Then a dispute arose between John’s disciples and a Jew[i] about purification. 26 So they came to John and told him, “Rabbi, the one you testified about, and who was with you across the Jordan, is baptizing—and everyone is going to him.”
27 John responded, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’ 29 He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly[j] at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”
The One from Heaven
31 The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth is earthly and speaks in earthly terms.[k] The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, and yet no one accepts his testimony. 33 The one who has accepted his testimony has affirmed that God is true. 34 For the one whom God sent speaks God’s words, since he[l] gives the Spirit without measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands. 36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son[m] will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.
Gist
John 3 is the clearest early explanation of what Jesus is about:
You can’t “be good” to get into heaven; you have to be reborn.
Jesus isn’t just a teacher - He is the only way.
All the stuff we/them value, brains or money, is not important - this is all about belief against rejection.
Jesus just took Nicodemus’ midnight to-do and turned it into a full lecture on life, death, and everything in between.
John 2: 1-25
John 2 is big on 2 things: Jesus is not interested in being ordinary, and that He definitely is not down with people turning faith into a business.
John 2:1-12
The First Sign: Turning Water into Wine
2 On the third day a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’s mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding as well. 3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’s mother told him, “They don’t have any wine.”
4 “What has this concern of yours to do with me,[a] woman?” Jesus asked. “My hour has not yet come.”
5 “Do whatever he tells you,” his mother told the servants.
6 Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification. Each contained twenty or thirty gallons.[b]
7 “Fill the jars with water,” Jesus told them. So they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the headwaiter.”[c] And they did.
9 When the headwaiter tasted the water (after it had become wine), he did not know where it came from—though the servants who had drawn the water knew. He called the groom 10 and told him, “Everyone sets out the fine wine first, then, after people are drunk, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now.”
11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this, he went down to Capernaum, together with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they stayed there only a few days.
Here is another little thing explaining why Jesus did what He did.
They annoy me in the middle with doing a “subscribe to me” thing, but…
Cleansing the Temple
13 The Jewish Passover was near, and so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple, he found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and he also found the money changers sitting there. 15 After making a whip out of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple with their sheep and oxen. He also poured out the money changers’ coins and overturned the tables. 16 He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”[d]
17 And his disciples remembered that it is written: Zeal for your house will consume me.[e]
18 So the Jews replied to him, “What sign will you show us for doing these things?”
19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple,[f] and I will raise it up in three days.”
20 Therefore the Jews said, “This temple took forty-six years to build,[g] and will you raise it up in three days?”
21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the statement Jesus had made.
23 While he was in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival, many believed in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. 24 Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them, since he knew them all 25 and because he did not need anyone to testify about man; for he himself knew what was in man.
The Big Idea
There are clearly two sides of Jesus:
At the wedding, He brings joy, abundance, and blessing.
At the Temple, He gets after corruption and hypocrisy.
One moment He's rescuing a wedding reception; the next He's flipping tables in the Temple.
It is simple - He can fill what is empty and demonstrate that things are not as they are supposed to be.
If you are expecting Him to fit into neat little assumptions about how He should act, it is pretty clear Jesus won’t.
John 1: 1-51
John the Apostle was a Galilean fisherman, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of James. As one of Jesus' closest inner circle, he is famously referred to in the Gospels as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." He authored five New Testament books: the Gospel of John, three epistles, and Revelation. (Wikipedia)
The Book of John is basically the Gospel that walks into the room, waits for everyone to settle down, and says, "In case there was any confusion, Jesus is the Son of God."
While the other Gospels spend a lot of time telling you what happened, John seems determined to make sure you understand who Jesus is. Along the way, you get water turned into wine, a guy raised from the dead, blind people seeing, and enough miracles that most people would have stopped asking for proof somewhere around Chapter 6.
John also gives us the famous "I am" statements, where Jesus essentially says, "Let me explain this one more time," using bread, light, shepherds, doors, vines, and resurrection as visual aids.
The whole book can be summed up like this: John watched people repeatedly miss the point, so he wrote a 21-chapter reminder that Jesus is the Messiah and that maybe—just maybe—we should pay attention this time.
THIS BIT ABOUT THE WORD IS CONFUSING!
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life,[a] and that life was the light of men. 5 That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome[b] it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.[c] 8 He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.[d]
10 He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be[e] children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 who were born, not of natural descent,[f] or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man,[g] but of God.
14 The Word became flesh and dwelt[h] among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son[i] from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified concerning him and exclaimed, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’”) 16 Indeed, we have all received grace upon[j] grace from his fullness, 17 for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side[k]—he has revealed him.
John 1:19-51 (according to me)
Everyone is trying to figure out who Jesus is - John keeps saying, “It’s not me.”
Religious leaders show up, and they ask John if he is the Messiah - he is basically like, “Nope. Not Elijah. Not the prophet - I am just the dude telling everyone to get ready”
Jesus shows up, and John points him out, saying, “The Lamb of God.” He makes it clear that Jesus is the man and that he is just the supporting cast.
Some people decide to follow Jesus to see who He is. Jesus asks them, “What do you want?” They end up deciding that he is the Messiah.
They go and tell their friends, and this is where the “Can anything cool come out of Nazareth?” line comes to be.
Nathanael gets schooled when Jesus tells him things He shouldn’t be able to know and he goes from skeptic to believer real fast.
Jesus says, “Just wait - I am going to do way cooler stuff than that.”
John the Baptist’s Testimony
19 This was John’s testimony when the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?”
20 He didn’t deny it but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 “What then?” they asked him. “Are you Elijah?”
“I am not,” he said.
“Are you the Prophet?”
“No,” he answered.
22 “Who are you, then?” they asked. “We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What can you tell us about yourself?”
23 He said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord[l]—just as Isaiah the prophet said.”
24 Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25 So they asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?”
26 “I baptize with[m] water,” John answered them. “Someone stands among you, but you don’t know him. 27 He is the one coming after me,[n] whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to untie.” 28 All this happened in Bethany[o] across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The Lamb of God
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I told you about: ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ 31 I didn’t know him, but I came baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him. 33 I didn’t know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on—he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”[p]
35 The next day, John was standing with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
37 The two disciples heard him say this and followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and noticed them following him, he asked them, “What are you looking for?”
They said to him, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
39 “Come and you’ll see,” he replied. So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon.[q]
40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard John and followed him. 41 He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah”[r] (which is translated “the Christ”), 42 and he brought Simon to Jesus.
When Jesus saw him, he said, “You are Simon, son of John.[s] You will be called Cephas” (which is translated “Peter”[t]).
Philip and Nathanael
43 The next day Jesus[u] decided to leave for Galilee. He found Philip and told him, “Follow me.”
44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law (and so did the prophets): Jesus the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”
46 “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael asked him.
“Come and see,” Philip answered.
47 Then Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.
“Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you,” Jesus answered.
49 “Rabbi,” Nathanael replied, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!”
50 Jesus responded to him, “Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” 51 Then he said, “Truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Daisy’s World
This dog is the biggest pain in the ass, I can’t even tell you how much. From the incessant cat chasing and barking to losing her mind when she hears a Life 360 alert go off - she is in perpetual motion and constant noise. Rare is the moment when one does not know where she is; it’s not hard, as ebullient as she is. When she cannot be found, it creates worry because there is worry about what she is getting into.
But she absolutely loves with her whole heart. I try to keep this in mind when she is driving me crazy, barking at animals when they cross the TV screen.
Create
I love making videos, and I have several cameras; nice ones. The problem with them is that they have one of two problems, or both. They are either too big, which makes it a pain to take them places, or they are so expensive that I don’t dare take them all over for fear of them being damaged. (Yes, I have also asked myself why I even have them too, but they do get a lot of good use in my studio at school and such)
With all of that in mind, I recently purchased a DJI Osmo Action 6. It is a sweet little unit that takes pretty good video, is small enough to carry anywhere, robust enough to take underwater (don’t know if I will ever do that), and inexpensive, so I won’t worry about it.
I know how zero excuses about making videos. That and summer is here, so I am gonna get to creating.
Below is video #1. Daisy is cool enough to have a post of her own, so you will see it in two places on this site.
