Saturday, February 6

A good Saturday evening to you.

Reading for February 6
Exodus 23:14-25:40

You know what, I don't think I like reading Exodus very much. It is really making it hard to love God - or at least the God represented in this book. He comes across as so selfish and needy, coming up with seemingly arbitrary rules for his people to follow. I'm not saying the Ten Commandments are arbitrary, but the whole section from yesterday seemed pretty random, and that kind of stuff continues in this section. The one thing that's been bugging me a lot about Exodus is the allowance of slavery. Well not so much the allowance of it, but the fact that God condones the idea that slaves have less rights than non-slaves. And some of the slaves were actually Israeli! It's just strange to me that someone who was once God's beautiful creation can become someone's property to do whatever they want to without consequence - even having their ox gore their slave!

The other thing that's bothering me that I haven't talked about yet is the condoning of war. I know that the Israelites are God's chosen people and that he wants them to prosper, but isn't all of humanity God's creation? What happened to the God in Genesis who was so saddened by the misdeeds of his people. In Exodus he is behaving like a child who suddenly got great power. Wow, when I typed that I got a little scared - maybe that fear of God I'm looking for is kicking in...

Matthew 24:29-51

Scare tactics


This is a section of text that is often quoted when trying to get Christians to behave properly...

⁴² “So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. ⁴³ Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. ⁴⁴ You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected."

I once heard a preacher put it to his congregation this way: A teacher tells her class that she is leaving for some unknown period of time. No one is told when she will come back. She tells her class that the person who has the cleanest desk the day she returns will get a special reward. For the first few days everyone kept their desk clean, then as days turned into weeks, the students begin to not care about keeping their desks clean anymore, except for one boy, who always took an extra five minutes at the end of each school day to clean up his desk. Then one day she came back when no one expected it and everyone's desk was filthy except for this one little boy. And I think he got a lollypop or something...

Anyway, my point here is that while I believe that the rapture (Jesus return and reign over earth) will come one day - I think that this type of teaching is too often blown out of proportion an misinterpreted to mean 'you better follow the rules or God's gonna getcha!' Remember, Jesus just lambasted the Pharisees for like three straight chapters for being too stringent about following the rules. It's all about context, yo.

Psalm 30:1-12


I searched and reread this psalm a couple of times before I found some good meaning in it. This verse in particular stuck out to me:

 ⁸ I cried out to you, O Lord.
      I begged the Lord for mercy, saying,
 ⁹ “What will you gain if I die,
      if I sink into the grave?
   Can my dust praise you?
      Can it tell of your faithfulness?

I think this verse answers the be-all, end-all, 42 million dollar question: "Why are we here?" And the answer this psalm provides us with is this: "To praise God." And that is not, and should not be limited to standing up in church and singing "Lord I Lift Your Name on High" once a week. Praising God can take almost any form. Raising and caring for your kids is praising God. Taking the time to learn a new craft is praising God. Caring for someone who is hurting or sad or poor is praising God. Ultimately - making the earth a better place is praising God. And even if we die, and it turns out that God never existed after all, at least we made this place better for other people.

Proverbs 7:24-27
Again with the warnings against the seductress. I always thought the proverbs were one line of random wisdom after another. Maybe that's how it is later, but man oh man can this guy lay it on thick. I guess the people who need to hear it can't avoid it if it's here over and over.

Man, I gotta be honest here - I am losing motivation already. There are some nights when I'm so tired and I have absolutely no interest in keeping this going. On top of that, I feel like I'm becoming more and more jaded as I continue to read - especially in the Old Testament. My eyes and ears have been more open to discussions and debates about God, Christianity and Spirituality in general, but I'm in a weird place right now in my faith. On one hand I am very proud to be doing this project - it makes me feel good that I am finally learning everything I can possibly learn about God from his word. On the other hand, I feel like its turning me against God - I can't agree with some of the things I'm reading. And I either have to accept the entire thing or dismiss the entire thing. Obviously I'll wait until the end to make that call, but its a scary time. I'm excited and scared to see what the end of this whole thing turns up for me...