The Book Of Eli - Study The Word Series

We are continuing our discussion about what we call the four core values: worship, discipleship, outreach, and community. This week’s focus is on discipleship. Keep in mind that we are not interested in any type of discipleship, but what I refer to as deep-rooted discipleship. Discipleship that is willing to go deep into God’s word. And if we are interested in deep-rooted discipleship that goes deep into God’s word then that means that our primary tool is the Bible. We are going to see how discipleship and the love of God’s word goes together, and to do that we are going to look at a few particular characters in both Testaments that truly loved to study God’s word. If you have your Bibles, please open up to the book of Eli 7:11.

A little bit of background on Eli. Eli was a priest who lived about the sixth century B.C., before Christ. During that time, the Jewish people, particularly the southern kingdom of Judah, were in captivity with the Babylonians in the city of Babylon. At some point, King Cyrus decided he was going to allow the Jews to go back home to their homeland and reestablish their temple in Jerusalem. This guy Eli was the open responsible not simply for setting up the temple but bringing back the very word of God to bring people back in line with the commands of God. That is who Eli was.

So that is a little background on Eli now let’s dig into the text. And since I usually read the passage I thought to get more participation maybe somebody would go ahead and read it. E Any volunteers to read Eli 7:11? I don’t see any volunteers.

I suspect that no one is volunteering to read it because it is one of those passages that is difficult to find. In fact it is impossible to find it because it is not in the Bible. There is no Book of Eli in the Bible. But there is a movie with the same title starring Denzel Washington. Has anybody seen The Book of Eli? It is a good movie. I don’t want to spoil it for any of you in case you haven’t seen it, but a quick synopsis is that Eli was this guy that was living in they call it a post-nuclear war America. It is kind of an apocalyptic end-of-the-world-type scenario. The movie takes place about 30 years after the nuclear war or whatever happened. Eli, played by Denzel Washington, is on this mission to cross America from the East coast to the West and he is not sure why. It is just that somebody told him, God, a spirit, or somebody, told him that he needs to just travel west. Basically he starts heading west and the only things he takes with him are some minor supplies and minor mementos from the 90s, and a knife, some guns, and some ammunition. In addition to that, he has what is believed to be the last remaining copy of the Bible, particularly the King James Bible.

The move is the unfolding of him walking across America and because it is a movie that is post-nuclear war, there is a lot of chaos going on. I don’t know if you ever saw Road Warrior but it is kind of that type of scenario. He is going through the barren parts of the country encountering all these really rough people that manage to survive but really are up to no good. He encounters these bandits that are trying to take what he has. He encounters people that are trying to kill him. He encounters people that are actually trying to eat him. Remember that scene? It is not a family friendly movie. It is not G-rated. In fact, it is R-rated.

In the middle of that movie, you get introduced to a new character; I think his name is Carnegie. This is a man who has somehow managed to survive in this apocalyptic time and he has decided he wants to set up his own town and hopefully grow into a city and then take over America. He has these bad characters surrounding him, and he has everything he needs to get this new town going except he is missing one thing: the only remaining copy of the King James Bible. The only Bible that exists in America at the time. He is not interested in killing Denzel Washington. He is interested in what he has. He is interested in this Bible that he has because he believes, even though he is evil, he knows that the Bible holds this unique power. He knows that the Bible holds words of wisdom. He knows that the Bible holds the ultimate truth and the ultimate source of life so he does everything he can to get his hands on that Bible. I am going to stop right there in case you decide to watch the movie. I do warn you that it is an R-rated movie. While I don’t make it a habit of going to R-rated movies, it is probably one of the best secular R-rated movies that has a spiritual theme. It is phenomenal because by the end of the movie you can’t help but have an exalted view of God’s word. In fact, that movie motivated me to go back and study the word deeper and actually begin to memorize large chunks of the Bible. So that is the background of the movie The Book of Eli.