Mrs. Richardson, Miss Richardson, and I went and saw the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie today.  It was really very good.

One of the characters in the movie is a young missionary who has been taken captive by Blackbeard.  To my utter astonishment, the missionary is articulate, good, noble, faithful, strong, and is held up as an admirable character.  (One would expect a movie depiction of a missionary to be decidedly much more negative.)

Anyhoo, in one scene Captain Jack Sparrow comes to him to discuss his own eternal salvation.  Below is my own paraphrase.  I haven’t seen the exact wording of the exchange, and I’m doing this from memory, but it’s pretty close to what was said:

Jack Sparrow:  Listen, I just wanted to tell you that I’m willing to believe in whatever I need to believe in to get to go where all the goody-goodies go when they die.

Missionary:  There’s a word for that, Jack.  You can “convert.”

Jack Sparrow:  I was thinking of it more in terms of an “as needed” basis.

It was humorous but it got me to thinking.  In reality, many people do want Jesus around on an “as needed” basis.  Unfortunately for those who do, Jesus came to possess the hearts and minds of men and women totally and to draw them ever deeper into fellowship with himself.

As I say, a humorous moment…but I only laughed for a few moments.

Something to ponder.