Reading from Thursday, July 15

Yo yo. We just got back from a wedding. It was mad fun - I wasn't the average demographic of person there, so many were entertained by my ORB Wedding Dance Style. Also, they had Newcastle on tap which is one of my favorite things in the world.

Anyway, it's late and I'm fairly exhausted, so let's hit the good book.

Reading from July 15
1 Chronicles 19:1-21:30
The continues the recap of the story of David. There is one detail confirmed in here that was speculated about back when reading 2 Samuel. Remember when David takes a census of the people and then feels guilty about it? Then God gives him a choice for his punishment? I was confused about why there was guilt for taking a census - but it's clarified here that the Devil ordered David to take the census.

I'm not sure what the Devil's intentions were, or why taking a census would make someone feel guilty - it's a pretty benign thing to do. Like, would you feel guilty if Satan told you to eat a chicken sandwich? I wouldn't. Chicken Sandwiches are delicious - and as long as there's no curse or evilness associated with the Chx Sand I would gladly enjoy it.

Romans 2:25-3:8
Before I jump back into the text here, I want to point out that the comments on the previous few days readings have been really insightful. I've gotten views from almost every side of the spectrum, from non believers to conservative Christians to liberal Christians. Everyone has really offered me a unique viewpoint, and I agree with some of the point from everyone, but I also disagree with some points from everyone. As I said a few days ago, I want to develop my own unique understanding of the text. Obviously, insight from other people is incredibly helpful to do so - especially non believers, so please don't take that as a request to stop commenting. But through my own interpretations, mixed with a little of everyone elses, I hope to have a fresh, personal perspective on the story of God.

OK, on to Romans.

There is an extremely provacative passage here that sort of sounds like something I would ask. You may have to read this a couple times to really get it, but here it is:

⁷Someone might argue, "If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?" ⁸Why not say—as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say—"Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is deserved.

The idea here is that God has grace on the sinner. Some would argue, by presumably taking advantage of the system, that by sinning they allow God's grace on them to increase. Or by doing bad, God will make something good out of it.

This is kind of what I have been thinking about around the idea of the Jews condemning Jesus to death. I have written a couple times about how although the Jews are penned as the villains of the Gospel, they were responsible for the greatest human act of all time. Through their evil, good resulted. Now they weren't thinking that at the time, but perhaps people during Paul's time made the connection that something wonderful came from something so awful and thought, hey, maybe if I go around killing Christians they'll all rise from the dead too.

I don't know if this is a problem today or not. I've never heard of anyone trying to be bad on purpose to make God's goodness flow more freely, if not its a neat little window into the toddlerhood of Christianity.

Psalm 11:1-7
Don't these two consecutive verses contradict themselves?

 ⁵ The LORD examines the righteous,
       but the wicked ^[b] and those who love violence
       his soul hates.
 ⁶ On the wicked he will rain
       fiery coals and burning sulfur;
       a scorching wind will be their lot.

He hates those who love violence, but he will burn those people alive. That's like someone picketing outside an abortion clinic and killing a mother who is leaving. Protesting against violence and then committing it yourself.

My friend from high school sent me a great email about some of my running questions and about God's "morality" in general. He said this:

For a human being to accuse God of "doing something wrong" is to childishly impose our standard of morality, which comes from our own habits of life or from our own imaginations, on God.

It's true that we as humans have a generally accepted standard of morality. On this list we have killing people, kicking people while they're down, hurting children or animals, being honest about our money, etc. Most people with a moral center will try to avoid these things, or if not, will at least feel some guilt about committing these types of things. But where does this moral center come from? My first thought would be God, but so many of our ideas of justice don't line up, in fact they are the exact opposite sometimes. I'll concede that we will never fully know the reasons God does anything, but when we see something that plainly opposes something that "feels right" in our hearts, we stand up and say - that's wrong. Even David did it. He was pissed at God for killing that dude because he accidentally touched the ark of the covenant. Or my recent beef with God "sicking homosexuality" on the human race. If he is a God that desires nothing else but to be loved by his creation, why would he make it so difficult for some people to do so? Why put roadblocks up? Especially when he punishes those who don't love him? It just doesn't line up for me.

Again, I come back to that speech from God on Trial.

"When God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham should have said 'No!' We should have stood up to him. We should have taught God the justice which was in our hearts!"

It's a compelling statement - especially when you realize that there is such a stark disconnect between God's idea of justice and ours.

See it's these types of questions that make it easy for me to see why people lost faith after reading the Bible.


Proverbs 19:10-12
 ¹⁰ It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury—
       how much worse for a slave to rule over princes!
 ¹¹ A man's wisdom gives him patience;
       it is to his glory to overlook an offense.
 ¹² A king's rage is like the roar of a lion,
       but his favor is like dew on the grass.

And I'm tired. Good night, friends.