Between the Panels

If you are into Role-Playing Games (RPGs), you most likely have heard the phrase " Make a perception check! " from your Game Master's mouth.  For those of you who are not accustomed to this phrase, allow me to explain. A perception check in these types of games are for your character to be able to assess what is going on around them.  This is likely to see if there are any threats that might be an issue or to get a better understanding of what is going on in the environment around the player. It is often used to try and find details in the world so that the player is able to advance not just themselves, but their team on quests. How does this connect to the Bible you may ask? When we read about Jesus in His ministry, there are these strange moments where he would reveal a great truth to the crowd around him, but it was in the form of parables (stories with a lesson in them). In Matthew 13:9 Jesus shares a parable and follows it up by saying, " Anyone with ears to he...

Now you may be looking at this and say to yourself..."What on earth is this thing?" This my friend is a 20 sided die or more often called a "D20" within the nerd world.  A D20 can be used in a variety of ways, but its most common use is determining if a character makes a successful action during a role-play game. For example: If you were a character in a game and you wanted to see if you could lift a heavy object (say a table), you would have to roll a D20 to determine how well or poorly you do this. And if you do very poorly there might be some consequences to your decision (character might get injured). In life we may not be making decisions or determine how well we do something via a dice roll, but we do feel the sting of failure.  Everyday can feel like we are constantly being asked to roll the die to see how well our efforts impact the world around us.  However, the Bible says that we are already at a failing roll or a critical fail (Romans 3:23) and that impac...