Tuesday, May 25

Yo dogs.

Reading for May 25
2 Samuel 7:1-8:18
Pretty great stuff here. God makes a promise to David that his offspring will produce great people, specifically, one of the people in the line of David is Jesus. God says:

'The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: ¹² When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴ I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.

Pretty crazy how this was planned already - likely somewhere around 1000 years before Jesus came into existence. So God is knowing of certain future events such as who will be born and how many people will be born in a specific family tree. But perhaps he can't know what those people will do or who they will become because we have free will.

The next section gives specific details about the different armies and nations that were defeated under David's leadership of Israel.  One of these was cited in that scene from God on Trial - when the Moabites were defeated, David made them lie facedown on the ground and selected two to die and one to live on to be enslaved by the Jews. The Rabbi in that scene from God on Trial likened that action to the situation they were in at Auschwitz where some had been selected to live to work for the Nazis while others would be killed.

This brings me back to the issue I can't seem to escape - is God good? Surely looking at a scene where someone who is appointed by God chooses to murder two people for every one he enslaves does not put a tick mark in the "yes" column to that question. But thinking back to some of the worst atrocities in the Old Testament so far, specifically the genocide of the Midianites, God was not involved at all. The direction to be so ruthless against Israel's enemies came from Moses and Samuel and other Judges. Many times God isn't involved at all. Other times, however, he is involved and still other times he is fully responsible for the devastation and pain caused.

OK - let me ask this question to see if  I am completely off base. And please respond in the comments to this: If the New Testament did not exist, and you were not Jewish, what impression would you get of God in reading the Old Testament? (New thing - if I'm looking for a response to a specific question in the comments, it will appear in orange)

John 14:15-31
Jesus here promises to give his followers the Holy Spirit to watch over them after he dies. So that begs the question "what is the Holy Spirit?" Did it exist before the death of Jesus? Is the Spirit even of Jesus? Does it look like a ghost with two eye holes cut out?

There is also a double mention of the idea that if you love Jesus, you will follow his commands. It's not if you love me, you should follow or it will be easier to follow - It's you will follow his commands. And I think that is pretty telling of what it means to love Jesus. Loving him involves taking action. Loving him includes following a set of rules - but not because you have to or even want to, but when you love Jesus you are mentally compelled to follow his teachings. It's not something you think about or cross off a checklist - it's something that becomes a natural part of who you are. It's a cool concept, no doubt.

Psalm 119:33-48
Here's a nice little tie-in to what Jesus was saying:
 ⁴⁶ I will speak of your statutes before kings
       and will not be put to shame,
 ⁴⁷ for I delight in your commands
       because I love them.
 ⁴⁸ I lift up my hands to ^[b] your commands, which I love,
       and I meditate on your decrees.

This guy loves to follow God's commands. It's like his favorite thing to do. Like:

"Hey man, you wanna come over later and follow some of God's commands?"
"Why don't you come over my place? I just got a couple new commands we could follow together?"
"Sweet! Which ones? What color did you get??"

By the way, looking at that conversation now, it looks completely sexual, which wasn't my intention. My intention was the idea that people can get really excited about the law of the  Old Testament.

Proverbs 15:33
³³ The fear of the LORD teaches a man wisdom, ^[a]
       and humility comes before honor.

Tired. night.