- @Stage&Story
Solo: You Cannot Serve Two Masters
(There are no plot spoilers in this post.)
I watched Solo: A Star Wars Story primarily because my wife and children love the Star Wars franchise. Personally, I could take it or leave as far as movie franchises are concerned. I am, however, interested in the impact on the culture that the Star Wars universe has had.
There are plenty of ideas and perspectives in the Star Wars universe that don’t affirm the Christian faith. (Check out JT Wynn’s excellent article today at Stand to Reason -- “Obi-Wan Kenobi: Great Jedi Master, Terrible Philosopher”).
With that said, I am also fascinated by the numerous gospel allusions that can be found if one knows where to look.
Solo, a movie that offers the backstory of the beloved Han Solo, a smuggler best known for making the Kessel run in 12 parsecs, offers one of these gospel allusions.
Qi’ra, the main female character tells Han at one point, “We all serve someone.” There it was. The line for which I was seeking. This sentence served as my space port helping me to connect Solo to the gospel.
Though the worldview of the Star Wars franchise is flawed in many areas, it is right at least on this one point. Qi’ra is absolutely correct. We all serve someone. The Bible makes this very clear in Romans 6.
In verse 15, Paul anticipates the pressing question, “Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace?” Don’t look for hesitation in his answer. “By no means!”
“Do you not know,” he writes, “that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? Having been set free from sin, [you] have become slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:16, 18, ESV).
According to Paul, we are either bound to sin or to righteousness. Or, “We all serve sin or righteousness.”
Today, most everyone likes to believe they are autonomous and independent and in service to no one. This pervasive mentality makes Qi’ra’s statement, even in the context of Star Wars, so startling. For many, the comment wouldn’t even register except as a plot twist. For the Christian, this gives us a platform to drive home the biblical truth that we indeed serve someone and it is not the Force or some other immaterial entity.
Rather, it is a spiritual truth with eternal consequences. If you continue in this life to serve “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) you will find yourself for all eternity in hell. If, however, you find that you “have been called out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9, ESV), you will find yourself living for all eternity in the presence of God in heaven.
In other words, the phrase “we all serve someone” is one of the most theologically accurate sentences ever uttered in the Star Wars movie franchise.
Will you as a Christian, use the opportunity afforded by Solo: A Star Wars Story to proclaim the gospel and watch as God uses Hollywood to nudge those who have yet called upon Christ for salvation closer to their ultimate destiny? After all, “you cannot serve two masters, for either [you] will hate the one and love the other, or [you] will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matthew 6:22, ESV).
Terry Delaney (@ChristBookNotes) has reviewed over 1,000+ books for Christian Book Notes from an Evangelical perspective. He is also a professional reviewer for AudioFile Magazine. Terry is an ordained minister and will be graduating from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity in 2019.