Random Comments on the Bible

They exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull, which eats grass. Psalm 106:20 Well when you put it that way. I mean, it would've been one thing if David had written that "They exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull..." and left it at that, but when you tag it with "which eats grass" it makes them look so much more stupid. Um, nah, I'm trying too hard. No matter how you cut it, it sounds pretty pretty dumb to a modern reader. Mabye it would have been different if they'd exchanged their glorious God for power, fortune or fame and not the image of a cud-chewing bovine. Still not right, but much more tragic. That would've been the stuff of a great movie or novel. But wait. Let's not be too hasty in our judgement. I teach high school English and whenever I teach a historical text, I like to introduce my students to the concept of cultural determinism. Ie. "...the belief that the culture in which we are raised det...

http://southridge.cc/message/11980_hell

Great video sermon and follow-up blog from, Mike Krause, the teaching pastor of Southridge Church in St. Catharines, ON, Canada. http://southridge.cc/message/11979_heaven http://southridge.cc/news/post/so-where-do-we-go-when-we-die

I just read the last book of the Bible. I didn't understand a word of it. Okay, that's hyperbolic. I did understand the bit in the beginning about the churches, and some bits and pieces in later chapters made sense. But beast #1 and beast #2, and whoring dragons with a bunch of heads and the thousand years and the 144,000 faithful. Whoa. I did find the ESV introduction very helpful. I didn't know that "Jewish apocalyptic literature flourished in the centuries following the completion of the OT cannon perhaps in part to help the oppressed people of God to find purpose in their suffering and hope for their future in the absence of genuine prophetic words from God." Kinda makes me want to 1) figure out what was going on historical and 2)research apocalypse as a genre. Bucket list.

Is there anyone else out there who finds the Gospel of John kind of funny? I'm not trying to be sacrilegious; I mean, I get that Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice dying for our sins, but the people around him -- both the disciples and the religious leaders -- were, well, kind of funny. I read almost the entire book in one sitting last week and a couple of things jumped out at me. 1) several times during the book, the religious leaders say, Is Jesus saying what we think He's saying? Ya, He is! I think He's saying he's God! And he's healing people -- on the Sabbath! LET'S KILL HIM! But Jesus slips away.(5:18, 10:30-39, 11:45-57). On a serious note -- and let's be clear -- when Jesus knows that the time is right for Him to die, he surrenders Himself willingly. 2) Jesus uses his surrounding and what's going on day-to-day as a means to instruct people -- using figurative language (bread, drink, thirst, sheep, etc). And often it's kind...

2 Kings 17:28-29 " So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the LORD. But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived." When I read Kings and Chronicles, I'm struck by the repeated stories of kings that were bad and had other gods, people that were bad had had other gods (who even sacrificed their children as burnt offerings) and then kings that were good and followed God like David did, oh, but some of those "good" kings still had other gods. And let's not forget the Asherah poles . Lots of Asherah poles that were being erected (bad) or being cut down (good). The above makes me wonder, How much of what I've been taught about "how [I] should fear the Lord" defines who I am and how much is defined by the gods of my history, culture, and ethnic...

1-2 Don't be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life.... 8-9. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! ...10-12My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you? 13-16Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wise...

Psalm 73 An Asaph Psalm 1 No doubt about it! God is good-good to good people, good to the good-hearted.2 But I nearly missed it, missed seeing his goodness.3 I was looking the other way, looking up to the people. Sometimes The Message really nails it! God is good, but I nearly missed seeing it because I was looking the other way -- looking up to people. Maybe I'm taking it out of context -- the Psalmist goes on to say that he's envying people who are wicked -- but I still think it's a good point. How many times is God's goodness staring us in the face but we're looking at people who have things better than us or we're looking to please/impress people?

David foresaw Twitter all those years ago. Imagine that! Check out Psalm 102:7 in Eugene Peterson's The Message : "Insomniac, I twitter away, mournful as a sparrow in the gutter." Crazy huh?

YouVersion If you have an iPad, iPod, Blackberry or any other manner of smart-device, you have to check out the YouVersion app. It has tons of different versions of Bibles in all sorts of different languages -- I'm going to have to listen to the Arabic one sometime! You can download versions for offline reading and you can listen to audio versions. God bless the people at lifechurch.tv -- and/or their patrons -- because the material they're putting on there (free to their users) must be costing a fair bit of money. Cool features on YouVersion is that you can highlight a verse and tweet it or send it to facebook or email it. I just emailed Colossians 4:5-6 to my pastor.

I Kings 12:6-8 Then King Rehoboam discussed the matter with the older men who had counseled his father, Solomon. “What is your advice?” he asked. “How should I answer these people?” The older counselors replied, “If you are willing to be a servant to these people today and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your loyal subjects.” But Rehoboam rejected the advice of the older men and instead asked the opinion of the young men who had grown up with him and were now his advisers. The old men who advised... Solomon. Solomon? The dude who had a worldwide rep of being the wisest man in the known world. That Solomon? And junior goes to his advisers for advice and then? He rejects their advice and asks his buddies whom he grew up with (read between the lines; somehow, I don't think these were buddies he studied the law with) and asks them for advice. Hmm, you gotta wonder if this was the son who Solomon wrote the proverbs for. What's the lesson here? If you have a choic...

I've been blogging for a couple of years now (roccomaiolo.blogspot.com) which, in the e-world we live in, seems like a lifetime. I can't remember which web site (webs or some wiki site) announced its 10 year anniversary! In other worlds, Hollywood for example, if you see a movie listing for 2001, you think, wow, 10 years ago? 2001 doesn't seem that long ago, but I guess, yeah, 10 years is a while. Anyhow, this past summer I tried to read the old testament like a novel -- I didn't quite make it as quickly as I wanted to, but I did get through it in about 3 months. Since January, I've been on one of those Bible-in-a-year reading plans. I've been able to stick with it for the most part. The NT has been better than the OT. For the OT, I find myself falling behind, then listening to the audio version and (not sure if you find this with audio books) minutes later I think, What did I just listen to? So here's the thing: often when I'm reading, esp. the OT, I...