"...they aren't ready for heaven; we are."

Marc Newman of MovieMinistry.com has written an excellent article on the value of the new film End of the Spear. He writes:
"What makes the deaths of the five missionaries in End of the Spear so remarkable -- particularly by gun-slinging western standards -- is that they didn't have to die. In the back of their airplane were multiple rifles. On the hip of one missionary sat a pistol. And while some of the missionaries attempted to restrain the Waodani from killing their colleagues, they were unwilling to use lethal force. As Nate Saint explains to his young son before he leaves for the fateful trip, Nate cannot shoot the Waodani, even in self-defense, because they "aren't ready for heaven; we are."
"The attack is unprovoked. A generation raised on the cowboys-and-Indians western expects the missionaries to exercise their "right" to self-defense. That these men choose to literally lay down their lives for their enemies is startling. The Apostle Paul explains, "For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:7-8). Prepare to be challenged and moved.
"If the story ended there it likely would have led to someone building a monument to which faithful pilgrims could flock and mourn. But Rachel Saint (Nate's sister), and Elisabeth Elliot (Jim's widow) were not looking to place a marker, they wanted to bring the Messiah. Led by a Waodani woman, Dayumae, who they had befriended years before, they leave their homes behind to give their lives to the Waodani.
"In the west, we are accustomed to deriving tension in films from the anticipation of a violent conflict between the "good guys" and the "bad guys." Normal expectations are that the heroes will decimate the evil-doers in a climactic battle and justice will be served. There is plenty of dramatic tension in End of the Spear. But the source of it -- women willingly putting their lives, and the lives of their own children, in peril in order to save the people who killed their loved ones -- is more thought provoking than any cathartic shoot-'em-up movie. The living sacrifice stuns us almost as much as it does the Waodani. It also sparks within each viewer the noble hope that in similar circumstances that kind of sacrifice could be repeated. We can't all be William Wallace, but each of us can choose the path of self-sacrifice for others. Each of us can choose to be a Saint or an Elliot by imitating them as they imitated Christ." (Click here to read the full essay.)