Reading from Tuesday, June 15

Hey hey hey. So that "good news" I kept alluding to a couple weeks ago will finally be revealed on Friday. I'm very excited about it, but just to confirm - it is NOT that we are having a baby. That is still years off.

Reading for June 15
1 Kings 14:1-15:24

So remember that the people of Israel are divided into two kingdoms: Israel and Judah. Here's a map to make it a little easier to grasp:

Israel is ruled by Jeroboam (whom we are calling Jerry) and Judah is ruled by the grandson of King David, Rehoboam (whom we are calling Randy)

Chapter 14 opens with Jerry's son being very sick. He instructs his wife to go and visit the prophet Ahijah to ask him what will happen to Jerry's son. Jerry's wife goes to visit Ahijah and he lays down the LORD Hammer with a pretty intense message.

¹⁰ " 'Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel—slave or free. I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone. ¹¹ Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country. The LORD has spoken!'

Before I get into the nitty gritty details of what happens here, I want to point out something really funny. God ends this speech (spoken through Ahijah) with "The LORD has spoken!" I love that. I imagine God in a rap battle with someone like in 8 Mile, and he closes his sweet flow with this final line:

"You got nothin, son. Your raps is broken. Now get the f*%^ off my stage - The LORD has spoken!" 

Then he totally spikes his mic on the floor. Then everyone would be all like

"OHHHHH!!! Oh Snap, yo" 

OK. Back to serious. So regardless of how much of a rap star as God might be, he certainly has a thing for punishing kids for the sins of their fathers. In addition to the quote above, God goes on to say that Jerry's son will die because Jerry's sins were greater than all of the other previous kings combined.

What is the deal with God killing children because the adults were terrible people? I mean, maybe its something we can't possibly understand, but again I want to refer back to that scene from God on Trial. At the end of the speech,  the rabbi says

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

It raises an interesting question between our understanding of justice and God's understanding of justice...God's justice is often referred to as perfect. Perfectly loving and perfectly just. But again, where is the justice for the mothers of the children God decided to destroy? Where is the justice for the innocent ones who suffered for the guilty. I mean, there's some symbolism there for the completely perfect and innocent Jesus, being murdered for we, the guilty...but why would God kill children just to make some vague symbolic point? That's the kind of stuff that crazy serial killers do...

Oh man! Moment of complete realization! Have you ever heard the quote:

"The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son a thousand times"?

Think about that from a God the Father, Jesus the Son perspective. Every despicable thing that God did to his people from the beginning of time until the birth of Jesus was absorbed by Jesus. I have theorized before on this blog that Jesus' death not only redeemed humanity, but also redeemed God with his people. And while I realize that the idea of God sinning is blasphemous and extremely controversial, the idea of Gods sins being visited upon Jesus is one that could make the whole "OT God vs NT God" thing a little clearer.

Acts 10:1-23
I have referenced this scripture several times throughout the progress of this blog, and now it's here. Peter has a dream/vision/trip out trance where this happens:

¹¹He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. ¹²It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. ¹³Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."

 ¹⁴"Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean."
 ¹⁵The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

So on the surface of this vision, God is saying that it is now OK to eat pork and whatever else. On a deeper level, I believe this scripture is meant to say that everyone is worthy of God's love, not just the Jews. The language here though is great, and something I didn't pick up on the first time I read through.

Peter is taken aback when God commands him to eat animals that were classified as unclean based on the laws in Leviticus. God corrects him by saying that nothing is  unclean that the LORD has made clean. So here is evidence to the contrary of my prevalent suspicion that God changed between the OT and NT.  The people who were considered unclean or unworthy of God's love in the OT were "made clean" through the sacrifice of Jesus.  God seems almost proud in the way he says that everything is  now clean in his sight. Like a proud parent who is so pleased with the way their  child has turned out, defending the honor and character of their child, God was now, for the first time ever, defending and protecting the entirety of his creation and not just a small section of the entire world.

Gosh the ideas are flowing this evening. I don't feel comfortable saying "I feel like the spirit is moving in me" but I imagine that is the correct way to pronounce this feeling...

Psalm 133:1-3
 ¹ How good and pleasant it is
       when brothers live together in unity!

It's nice to see something like that in the Bible. Especially in the OT where everything is so violent and awful. After a while you start to believe that God prefers his people to be at war and always killing and pillaging and destroying. While he punishes and kills and destroys on top of their work. "How good and pleasant it is when brothers  live together  in unity" reads like a breath of the freshest air you  could breathe. I could sit and read and reread that verse over and over for at least five minutes.

Proverbs 17:7-8
 ⁷ Arrogant ^[a] lips are unsuited to a fool—
       how much worse lying lips to a ruler!
 ⁸ A bribe is a charm to the one who gives it;
       wherever he turns, he succeeds.

Yeah. Some good stuff coming out this evening. I am pleased as punch.