You might recognize the phrase “Lost Horizon”. It is the title of a 1933 novel by James Hilton which was turned into a movie of the same name, directed by Frank Capra. It is a story about the utopia, Shangri-La. It is a fictional Paradise on Earth, where people age extremely slowly. The Gospel tells us about another place or state in which we will never age, it calls it eternal life.

In one of my favorite movies of all time, “The Princess bride”, Vizzini, the Sicilian, keeps using the exclamation, “inconceivable”, over and over again.  And finally, Iñigo Montoya, the swordsman, tells him: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Have you ever had to take the long way around to get to your destination? Maybe it was because there was construction going on in the normal route or just because at that time of day the traffic was awful in some parts of the route. Whatever the reason, you finally got where you were going. But to someone who doesn’t have that context, if he looked on a map at the path you took, he’d be scratching his head.

I was taught a long time ago that whenever I have to write a paper or a report, I should leave writing the Introduction for the end. Why? Because often it takes going through the whole analysis and argument to figure out exactly what I have accomplished. I don’t really know what my story is until I have told it. After I am done, then I can write an Introduction that prepares the reader to see what I mean, even foreshadow the concepts that I want that reader to get. And, certainly, then I can write a conclusion.

Jesus said that whoever sins enslaves himself to sin. That means that we enslave ourselves by our own choice, a choice we make using our free will. But how free were we in the first place, if the choice we make is to be enslaved? Sounds like a paradox, doesn’t it?

N. T. Wright is fond of saying that Jesus’ coming finally taught us and enabled us to be truly human. To be what we were created to be. I have reached the conclusion that Jesus’ revelation to Paul finally taught him what it really meant to be a Jew, chosen by God to bless the whole world.