If you read my last post, you know how unexcited I felt about seeing the newly released The Emoji Movie. However, there is a movie coming out this summer that I have really been wanting to see: Birth of the Dragon. I loved Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and most have seen the classic Bruce starred in himself Enter the Dragon where he fights the American version of himself, Chuck Norris!
But if all you know of Bruce is his fighting side, then you don’t know Bruce. Bruce was just as much of a philosopher as he was a fighter. Lee, claimed by many to be the father of mixed martial arts, had a method behind his madness. Bruce never let a crystallized style determine his fighting substance. He was ever-evolving so that he could take on and defeat any art form. Some of Bruce’s greatest teachings relate to this belief such as “become like water” and “using no way as (the) way, having no limitation as limitation.”
Bruce is what I call a master teacher. With school starting back up for most of the next generation (unless your school-round, etc.), teachers are beginning to get back into gear. However, most school teachers couldn’t hold a candle to Bruce’s teaching. I find Bruce to be one of the greatest teachers from the 20th century. He lived what he taught and practiced what he preached.
But whereas Bruce was a great teacher; Jesus was the best teacher! Jesus had some sayings that were similar in wording to Bruce’s teachings, but as different from night is to day in meaning. Bruce said no way was the way. In other words, any religion will do. In fact, mix all religions together and that will work just as well. Just never claim that you have it all figured out. Jesus said the polar opposite in John 14:6 when Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.”
When it comes to water, Jesus says in John 4:14, “but whoever drinks of this water that I give will never be thirsty again.” When it comes to limits, the Lord says he is the beginning and the end (Revelation 1:8).
No one taught like Jesus, not even Bruce Lee. Jesus never said you needed a lot of faith to do great things. Jesus just said you needed faith (“as small as a mustard seed”-Luke 17:6). Jesus said the first would be last and the last would be first (he went as far to say that one must be a slave to all in order to be first) and that no one could receive his kingdom until they first became like a child (he wasn’t talking about one’s maturity level).[1] Like Bruce, Jesus was very methodical in his teaching. Both were great teachers. I would love to take a martial-arts lesson from the master. But when it comes to matters dealing with eternity and how to live life, I choose the Master every time.
[1] James C. Wilhoit, Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered, 143-44.