Reading from Thursday, October 7

Just had a great Sunday. We went apple picking today and I just found something so simple, but so cool in that. While we were picking apples, I just took one off the tree and ate it. Aside from the fact that I was technically stealing, there was something so spiritual about that act. Maybe spiritual isn't the right word. It was just like the purest form of enjoying God's creation without human intervention or interpretation or whatever else people can do to warp God's love. It was one of his creations (me) enjoying another one of his creations (an apple). I just kinda liked that.

Reading for October 7
Jeremiah 8:8-9:26
So again, God continues his punishy punishy stuff here, but I think there are some really good nuggets of wisdom within that. Firstly, this image of the tongue being a weapon is repeated twice within the first few verses of Chapter 9:

³ "They make ready their tongue
       like a bow, to shoot lies; 

⁸ Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
       it speaks with deceit.
       With his mouth each speaks cordially to his neighbor,
       but in his heart he sets a trap for him.

To these verses, God's response is pretty heavy. And there is also some insight into his thought pattern about the idea of sin in general.

 ⁹ Should I not punish them for this?"
       declares the LORD.
       "Should I not avenge myself
       on such a nation as this?"

The words "avenge myself" are what I'm particularly interested in. Avenging oneself means that someone did something to you personally that offended, upset or hurt you.  The key word there being 'personally'. So that means that sin is something that God takes as a personal insult and offense against him. But when you think about the majority of sins, especially the deceit and lying sins that God calls out here, they are actually personal offenses against other people. So if you extrapolate that a little bit, you would arrive at the conclusion that God is hurt and offended when we are hurt and offended by others. Or in short - God hurts when we hurt.

Also it's worth noting the action he chose to avenge himself. To come into the world as a human and live the life of a poor nomad and die the death of a sinner. That was his vengeance.

Colossians 3:1-17
There is a paragraph that comes across as a bit of a downer in here, but then it's immediately followed by one of the most inspirational paragraphs in the Bible. If you don't mind, I'ma post bof of dem. Here's the first:

⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.^{[b] 7}You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

This adds to that "Christian Straight Edge" ideology I was talking about a few nights ago, and I agree that it seems like Paul is restricting us from all the fun things in life. It is interesting though that lying is mentioned again in this chunk of text considering what we just saw in Jeremiah. God really doesn't like liars. As Todd Flanders said "Lies make Baby Jesus cry."

The paragraph immediately following this one though is the inspirational one. Check it:

 ¹²Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

There is so much goodness in these three verses that I don't even know where to start. First off Paul tells us to clothe ourselves with five things. Five virtues that seem easy enough to practice, but are actually fairly difficult to get into a regular rotation of our emotions. Also, I love the idea of clothing myself with those things. It means that I'm wearing them. They are not only affixed to my body, but they are visible to others - they are outward statements of my belief in a God who practices these same things. Another thing to add to the analogy is that clothes cover up our nakedness, which was associated with the fall of man. So, again, doing a little linear reasoning, you could say that compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience are at the very least a band-aid on sin, and at the very most a complete antidote to sin.

Of course, I can't write about this and not mention the last verse. Over every one of these virtues, we should put on love. I would imagine that the virtues are like parts of your regular outfit, while love is the huge comfortable coat that you wear over everything. Without your coat of love, the coldness of the world will render your other garments of kindess and humility and the others ineffective. You will begin to shed those in place of other thing in an attempt to stay warm. But with a coat of love you will have ample energy and happiness to share those with others.

Hopefully I didn't beat that analogy into the ground...

Psalm 78:32-55
A reminder that for all the times God was vengeful, he was probably merciful 9 other times.

 ³⁶ But then they would flatter him with their mouths,
       lying to him with their tongues;
 ³⁷ their hearts were not loyal to him,
       they were not faithful to his covenant.
 ³⁸ Yet he was merciful;
       he forgave their iniquities
       and did not destroy them.
       Time after time he restrained his anger
       and did not stir up his full wrath.
 ³⁹ He remembered that they were but flesh,
       a passing breeze that does not return.

It's just not as interesting to read about a time when God didn't freak out and kill everyone. And those times were probably not worth writing about. If they were written I would imagine they would look something like this:

"Today we were totally telling dirty jokes and cursing and smoking and nothing happened. Maybe God's on vacation."

Proverbs 24:27
One of the more unrelateable proverbs.

 ²⁷ Finish your outdoor work
       and get your fields ready;
       after that, build your house.

I'll get right on that.