Star Wars - Good Versus Evil

Star Wars, Episode One has been a great commercial success. What is the secret of this success? What is the formula? Well obviously the special effects played their part, and also the Characters. Yet the prime factor is likely to be that the film tells the age-old story of Good versus Evil. Evil is defeated and the world can breathe a sigh of relief.

This battle is one that every one can relate to, whatever culture they belong to; north, south, east, west, white, black, brown, yellow, rich or poor; we all understand this battle. When we watch the News or read the papers, the battle is there for us to see, yet identifying Good and Evil is not always clear-cut. In Westerns, the Baddies wore black hats and Goodies wore white. The difference was plain.

Of course, life is not that simple and in many ways, Star Wars reflects that. Han Solo, although a "Goodie", is not without his flaws (a little smuggling, for example). Darth Vader, came good at the end of his life, by saving his son, Luke from the evil emperor. We learn also that Anakin (as he once was) was essentially good, yet had a capacity to go either way (the Force Light Side or the Dark Side). Luke, being only good, was a much less believable character as a result.

There are no Good people or Bad people. All of us are a mixture or both. Some are more good than others, that is all.

Those of us who wish to be better people then have a battle on our hands, the battle between Good and Evil going on in our hearts. This battle is described by someone called Paul (a real-life Obi Wan Kenobi, perhaps?):

Romans 7:19-25 19 For the good that I wish I do not do, but the bad that I do not wish is what I practice. 20 If, now, what I do not wish is what I do, the one working it out is no longer I, but the sin dwelling in me.
21 I find, then, this law in my case: that when I wish to do what is right, what is bad is present with me. 22 I really delight in the law of God according to the man I am within, 23 but I behold in my members another law warring against the law of my mind and leading me captive to sin’s law that is in my members. 24 Miserable man that I am! Who will rescue me from the body undergoing this death? 25 Thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So, then, with [my] mind I myself am a slave to God’s law, but with [my] flesh to sin’s law.


There is a real-life battle between Good and Evil, not only going on inside us, but also in the World around us.


We cannot totally defeat evil within us, let alone in the World at large, but ultimately, Good will prevail. The only truly good man the world has ever seen will return to establish a state of peace that will last forever.