Reading from Wednesday, July 14

Hello. I just returned from a delicious dinner with friends cooked by my friend Lucas (what up, son?)
Lucas refers to me and Jilly as "Team Christ" because we are the resident Christians in that group of folks. It's nice to be known as "the Christian guy" or "the Christian couple" every once in a while.

Bible time, yo.

Reading for July 14
1 Chronicles 16:37-18:17
Lots of recappy stuff going on here from the story of David, a lot of it is pretty dull, but something huge hit me while reading this. The writer here describes a conversation between God and David where God says that he selected David out of his humble job as a sheep herder and made him King over Israel. At the same time, by association, God also chose Judah to be the tribe from which all Israeli kings would come from that point forward.

What if in the same way, but on a much larger scale, God chose Israel from their humble beginnings to mold and shape and teach, knowing that at some point, Jesus would come from that group of people? I mean that raises all sorts of circular questions about why God would bother to create the other nations in the first place, but it's at least a somewhat redeeming way to look at the violence condoned and committed by our great deity.

Romans 2:1-24
OK, wow. A whole lot of stuff going on here. First off, let me sort through some of the comments I got from my last post about Paul condemning homosexuality. One of my friends suggested that Paul himself was a closeted homosexual - which certainly could be possible. He would write such harsh language about it to condemn himself; which segues nicely into my first point about this reading. After the listing of the "evilness of people" in the last chapter, Paul then counters that by saying everyone is guilty of sin, therefore you should not judge others.

¹ You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things.

So, Westboro Baptist Church - take notice. Your ways are not Godly.

There was another comment from my friend Pete about why God would create non believers. This was in response to my frustration with the idea that God led people to be homosexuals as a punishment for mankind's wickedness. This got into the whole discussion of the Philosopher's God and the Christian God and the differences between them, when my friend Henry so beautifully summed up the difference:

The Philosopher's God is all powerful and all knowing. The Christian's God is one who suffers and dies.  

That wasn't related to this reading as much as it was the last reading, but I just wanted to make sure I addressed that.

OK, back to this chapter. Now, Paul refers to this "day of judgment" which has been mentioned a couple of times now in the New Testament. This, as I understand it, is when God's patience with humanity runs out and the ruthless judgment that was present in his character in the Old Testament will once again return and everyone who's on the naughty list will get coal in their stockings so to speak. But wait a minute, based on the previous paragraph, Paul declared everyone guilty. So what is the criteria for passing God's judgment on that terrible day? Repentance? I think by definition, repentance means turning away from sin and asking forgiveness, but we can never fully turn from sin. We are sinful by nature.

Now this is really very interesting. Check it:

¹⁴ Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. ¹⁵ They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.

This basically says that people who "behave", essentially, are living according to God's law. So if you have a strong conscience and often take heed to your conscience, then you are following God's law by default. Here's my issue with that: most laws of the Old Testament go against my instinctual conscience, as you may remember my freak out episodes from a few months back.

Now, if we are talking about the normal human conscience of helping others and being kind to people then would that mean that people like Gandhi would indeed go to Heaven? Was Tony Campollo right when he said "I don't care who you worship, as long as you're doing good"? This seems to say that's true. Meaning you don't need the close personal relationship with Jesus Christ to be accepted into heaven. You could be a Christian and not even know it. Hm...

Psalm 10:16-18
This sort of covers the entire spectrum

 ¹⁶ The Lord is king forever and ever!
      The godless nations will vanish from the land.
 ¹⁷ Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless.
      Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.
 ¹⁸ You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed,
      so mere people can no longer terrify them.

In three verses, the author (David I presume) damns the non Jew/Christian and yet redeems the orphans, oppressed and helpless. Which one to believe? Which way to follow?

Proverbs 19:8-9
Back to the Wisdom

 ⁸ To acquire wisdom is to love oneself;
      people who cherish understanding will prosper.
 ⁹ A false witness will not go unpunished,
      and a liar will be destroyed.

As I get older I start to see how valuable wisdom is. If I went back to school at this age, I would soak up every bit of information I could...in theory of course...

OK - epic post, yo. Have a good night.