The Book of Eli: The Bible As A Weapon

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

"It's not just a book-It's a weapon. "

-Carnegie (Gary Oldman) from The Book Of Eli

The Book Of Eli amazed me this weekend. This movie was not just a great film, but it was also an amazing example of what happens when a man literally stores the Word of God in his heart. I'm not going to ruin the movie for you so you're going to have to go see the movie to get the full effect of it. What I want to talk about are the above quotes.

In this movie Eli, played by Denzel Washington, is a man who has a divine mission to take the last surviving Bible West to an unknown destination through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Eli had survived through many battles when he came to a small town ruled by a ruthless man named Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman, who is doing anything to find a certain book, which just so happens to be the Bible that Eli has in his possession. Eli was able to take out most of Carnegie's men to protect his book and when the leader of his militia asked him what was so important about a book, Carnegie responded with the quote above.

As a Christian, I had heard the Bible verse many times but I guess I had never really realized what it was saying until I heard this quote come out of a man who's idea of the Bible was a tool to use to command all of humanity to obtain his greedy purposes. Carnegie says that he needs the words from the Bible to inspire the people in the town so he wouldn't have to do the terrible things that he does for his authority. That if he only had the right words then his town would be a better place. Eli knows that all Carnegie will do is bring a distorted since of religion to the town and use it for his own greedy purposes so he does not give Carnegie the book.

I think this is what it means when the Bible is called a weapon. If someone knew the true meanings and really took it to heart they could do some amazing good in the world, and if someone really knew what it meant and how to use it, they could twist and distort it and do some terrible damage. The most disturbing part is that Satan knows that God's Word is the most powerful weapon of all and he will do all he can to distort the Word to you and he will succeed if you don't study the word yourself and really take it's meanings to heart.

So what can we do to effectively utilize this amazing weapon that God has given us? We read it, we study it, we pray about it, and we bury the message in a hearts and we use what we learn in real life. The Bible is The ultimate weapon, all we need to do is learn to use it and guard our hearts from the distortions of the ultimate evil.