Tuesday, May 11

Hey. I feel like crap.

Reading for May 11
1 Samuel 10:1-11:15
In this section, Saul is chosen as king. Although when they decide to officially announce him as king, he is hiding behind all the luggage the people had brought to the location. He had no desire to be king at all, it appears.

Now Israel was in a conflict with the Ammonites. They had seven days to reach an agreement or the leader of the Ammonites got to gouge out the right eye of every Israelite in existence. When Saul heard about this he cut 2 oxen into many pieces and sent the pieces to the twelve tribes of Israel, saying "This is what will happen to you if you don't follow God's teachings". This was done to rile them up and get them enticed to go to battle - similar to what happened to that man's wife that got raped - he cut her into pieces and sent the pieces around to Israel to inspire them to battle.


Well, Saul's tactic works and 300,000 Israelites turn out to fight and completely destroy the Ammonites. Yes!

John 6:43-71
Wow - people actually bailed on Jesus. So continuing on this whole bread analogy, Jesus now says that the people must eat his flesh and drink his blood to have eternal life. I completely didn't even think about this in yesterday's post, but yeah the bread of life is obviously the sacrament/communion deal. Now, today our understanding is that we take bread and drink wine on Sunday's at church to symbolize the eating of Jesus' flesh and blood. But think about hearing that for the first time...

Jesus: "You should give to the poor!"
People: "YAYY!!"
Jesus: "You should be kind to your enemies"
People: "YEAHHH!!!"
Jesus: "You should eat my skin and drink my blood..."
People: "YE-...eughh...Ahh...we're gonna go see what Mohamed's doing"

Well this is sorta what happened...Jesus' followers abandoned him because they didn't understand this analogy. They thought it was too weird to keep following him, although his core twelve  disciples remained with him.

Psalm 107:1-43
Again the analogy of having your hunger filled and your thirst quenched

 ⁹ for he satisfies the thirsty
       and fills the hungry with good things.

I suppose living in ancient times when there wasn't the food surplus that we have in this country today, the analogy of being full when one is hungry was a powerful image since I would imagine many knew what it was like to be be starving to death. And to be able to experience fullness and satisfaction would be a beautiful thing to experience. 

Proverbs 15:1-3

 ¹ A gentle answer turns away wrath,
       but a harsh word stirs up anger.
 ² The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,
       but the mouth of the fool gushes folly.
 ³ The eyes of the LORD are everywhere,
       keeping watch on the wicked and the good.

I think verse 1 there is a fairly popular proverb, but it's certainly one I live by.

OK - time for sick sleep. Love you, dudes.