This week is a very teachable moment. It's a teachable moment on a whole host of issues.

The picture here is a painting of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, a mass killing of French Protestants by Romanists in 1572 by François Dubois, a Huguenot [Protestant] painter who fled France after the massacre.

Although it is not known whether Dubois witnessed the event, he depicts Admiral Coligny's body hanging out of a window at the rear to the right. To the left rear, Catherine de' Medici is shown emerging from the Louvre Palace to inspect a heap of bodies (Wikipedia)

Good News of the Gospel

This week is a teachable moment regarding the good news of the gospel. The good news of the grace of God in Jesus Christ is so grand that even those who have the most disdain and evil intents towards Jesus are the very targets of Jesus' affection. The very ones who seek to mock most earnestly Jesus Christ are those for whom Jesus willingly died for to secure new life. I know this because I am the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:12-17)! Yet the son of God died for me! His death paid for all my sins. There is no more wrath awaiting me thanks to Christ (Romans 8:1) and because of his glorious resurrection, I know that sin and death have been defeated (1 Corinthians 15). This isn't just my "personal truth". This is the truth of all those who have been saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and it's true for all those who will come to saving faith in the future!

Prejudice

This week is a teachable moment regarding prejudice. Many comments about "French" people doing such and such. Many words have been spoken revealing hearts that are quick to dismiss whole huge populations of human beings. 500 years ago France was a hotbed for pockets of Christians, many of whom were martyred for their faith. Now in France around 2% of the population are protestant Christians. France is a place that needs prayer, and missionaries (just like my own country of the United States!). France doesn't need to "clean up its act" because of its culture, or the opening ceremonies. A very moral and visibly decent France, if it has no faith in Jesus Christ is just as in danger of eternal wrath as a mocking secularist France! France is just like every other place on the planet inhabited by sinful humans, the solution for sin is only found in Jesus Christ!

Lord’s Table

This week is a teachable moment regarding the Lord's Table. While there was one event that was televised for many to see at the Olympic opening games, there are tens of thousands of events throughout the globe that are of an even more despicable and disgusting nature. These events of great perverse regularity and frequency are those Roman Priestly "Mass" ceremonies, in which the Lord Jesus Christ is falsely ceremoniously sacrificed through the words and deeds of the Pope's henchmen. We who are protestants need to take whatever anger, outrage, sadness, or "energy" we have in response and let that be fuel for our prayers and conversations with those in our local communities who engage in disdainful mockery of the Lord Jesus Christ through the false ritual of the "mass". You most likely won't get a chance to speak with the Olympic organizers and share Christ with them. You will however most likely get a chance to speak with your Romanist family member, friend, co-worker, neighbor, or fellow student. While the Olympic mockery was "out in the open", the scriptures speak of how slyly the evil one operates, often appearing as an angel of light. In the perverse ritual of the mass, under the guise of honoring God, there is a satanic ritual that enslaves and ensnares those who would otherwise embrace the gospel of Christ's once-for-all, all death (1 Peter 3:18). Come out of that false Roman cult all those who would love and follow Christ!

God’s Triune Character

This week is a teachable moment regarding God's triune character. There are no gods of rivers, gods of wine, gods of feasts, or gods of pleasure. There is One God (Deuteronomy 6:4). There are not three Gods, there is only One God, and that One God has revealed himself in three persons who are distinct and also unified. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all One God. God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7), that includes all three persons of the Trinity.

Images of God

This week is a teachable moment regarding images of God. We are not to make images or visible portrayals of God, period (Exodus 20:4-6). Whether in satire or in attempts at reverence. Whether it's MASH, the Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, The Passion, the Chosen, Da Vinci, or via an Olympic stage. The outrage about Christ being "mocked" ought to run far deeper than simply due to one instance of a televised event. Even attempts to use images as "reverent" "educational" or "evangelistic" are to be rejected and rebuked. Faith comes by hearing and hearing from the Word of God (Romans 10:14-17). As the Heidelberg Catechism states in Q&A # 98 "Q. But may not images be permitted in churches in place of books for the unlearned? A. No, we should not try to be wiser than God. God wants the Christian community instructed by the living preaching of his Word not by idols that cannot even talk". From the Bible's perspective, attempts to depict God in reverence are as gross and despicable as the most grotesque and heinous religious satire ever conceived. God cannot be depicted, God alone reveals himself and dictates how he is known. I've seen some say they will "boycott viewing" the Olympics. That's fine if the Lord has convicted you to do so. Has the Lord also convicted you to "boycott" other such horrendous attempts at depicting our God? Are you zealously working in your local church to remove those attempts to depict God? Who gets to set the rules for what is, and is not an appropriate depiction of the Almighty? Is it only a problem when the French do it? Is it only a problem when unbelievers do it? Or is it a problem because God has said how he is to be worshipped and has expressively forbidden the making and use of images of himself? Are we genuinely repulsed by evil because of its offense to God, or are we repulsed due to an offense against ourselves?

Righteous Anger

This week is a teachable moment regarding righteous anger. When we are rightly angered on God's behalf, we ought to be zealous for the Lord in our responses and endeavors. Rather than "keeping quiet", we ought to speak when given the opportunity of the great graciousness of our God and victorious conquest of our God over his enemies. Learn from this week to seize the opportunities God presents and places you in to speak about who Christ Jesus is and why he matters.

I am thrilled and strengthened by the reality that our God uses all things for his good and glorious purposes. He is so mighty and supreme that even those things that are intended to be slight will be repurposed for his glory as sinners come to faith. Whether the events be a massacre of God's people, or a mockery of the person and work of Jesus Christ, God is sovereign.

The hub-ba-ba-loo about the opening ceremonies will die down. The next "big drama" is only a moment away. The news cycle will continue. The seasons will still change. The grass will wither, and the flowers will fall, but the Word of our God endures forever (Isaiah 40:8).