Reading from Tuesday, August 3

Ding dong man. Ding dong. Ding dong yo.

Reading for August 3
2 Chronicles 33:14-34:33
Three more kings are discussed in this reading. Two of them continue in the tradition of the wicked kings before them but the third continues in the tradition of David. His name is Josiah and he decides to worship God as his fathers had done. Then, when he sends some of his servants to clean up the temple, they find the book of law that had been handed down to Moses.

Josiah reads the words and freaks the heck out because he realizes all of the awful things that his people had done in the past, and knew the punishment which was due to him and the rest of his people. Upon coming to this realization, he weeps and tears his clothes and prays earnestly to God for grace and mercy. God answers him though a prophet saying that he will indeed bring destruction to the land, but because of this Josiah's prayer and faith, God will cause these events to occur after the Jo has died.

King Jo then brought the book of law before an assembly of the entire nation, read the laws to them and had everyone commit to following it.

As I approach the end of perhaps the most boring book in the Bible, I am starting to find a message hidden throughout it. The kings and people of Judah went through cycles of being faithful and obedient and being rebellious and awful. In the same way, we as Christians will go through the same cycles. There are times of great faith and belief and then there are times when we are about as far away from God as we can get. Granted we may not be as schizophrenic as Judah, but I think the message we should take away from this flip-flopping is that we will experience it in the same way, and in the end, God will still be on our side and waiting for us. 

Romans 16:10-27
Paul closes his letter with a few more personal salutations and then goes out with a huge philosophical message of faith:

²⁵Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, ²⁶but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him— ²⁷to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

In this statement, Paul has done two things:

1. Stated that the Bible is the direct word of God
2. Everyone on earth should have the same faith in Jesus that we do. 

I heard a story on NPR today about an indie movie that had just come out called "Holy War". It's a documentary where the filmmaker followed around an Evangelical Christian Missionary and a Muslim Priest who was heavily involved with in Jihad. The striking thing about the interview with the filmmaker was when he commented on how similar both men were, and how both men sought their religion to be administered to every man woman and child on this planet. How are either of us to accomplish that objective when you have people like that who are so strongly fighting for opposite causes.

A few other shocking things:

• In Muslim extremist countries, converting to Christianity is a crime punishable by death. For both the convertee and convertor. 
• The Christian missionary believed that 9/11 was an event sent by God so Christians could witness to Muslim countries. 
• The Muslim extremist saw 9/11 as a defensive measure for the thousands of Muslims America had killed in the past. 

And yet, when Paul talks about it converting the world, it comes off as so non-confrontational. More as a fact than an opinion - and not out of any desire to be right or to make others look foolish, but it appears to me that Paul wants everyone on Earth to believe in this faith because he believes in the deepest part of his body that it is good for them to do that. 

Romans (is unfortunately) complete.

Psalm 26:1-12
My, how things change:

 ² Test me, O LORD, and try me,
       examine my heart and my mind;
  ⁴ I do not sit with deceitful men,
       nor do I consort with hypocrites;
 ⁵ I abhor the assembly of evildoers
       and refuse to sit with the wicked.

That is David talking, but those three verses I pasted are things that stuck out because of their stark contrast to how Jesus did things.

Jesus did not put his God to the test (even though David is asking God to test him)
Jesus sat with sinners and hypocrites. He criticized them for it, but he loved them.
Jesus sat with the wicked. He had dinner with Judas who, only hours later would sell him out to the Roman guards for a small bag of money.

Again I am convinced that the Old Testament is only a tool for us to realize how different things are now, and how lucky we are to be living in a time after Jesus has died for us.

Proverbs 20:19
 ¹⁹ A gossip betrays a confidence;
       so avoid a man who talks too much.


Pretty simple advice. Pretty simple advice indeed.