The Chosen

Ummmm.... I am not sure how to say this so I guess I will just say this. God is acting a bit like Hitler or maybe Hitler acted a little like God? Either way God is doing some serious ethnic cleansing in the latest readings. He is taking out everyone except the Israelites and in some gruesome ways. Sarah said it is because they were worshipping other Gods but the chosen ones kept doing that too and then bad things happened to them and then they would cry out "God help us!" and he would send a prophet to save them.

They didn't even have to ask for forgiveness. They whole thing seems shady to me. I don't get it. I guess I am glad I am I live in a post New Testament world and Jesus has saved me from God's wrath.

I promise I will never compare God and Hitler again.

Angela

Gideon

I have to say I relate quite a bit to this fellow Gideon:
"But sir," Gideon replied, "if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?" (Judges 6:13)

And as I read I was comforted by how the Lord built Gideon up. Sometimes I wish God would just come down here and have a conversation with me, you know? Sometimes I wish I could just speak to Him face-to-face. Do you ever wonder why we can't?

~ Sarah

Friendship

Proverbs 12:26
A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.
(Footnotes: Proverbs 12:26 - Or man is a guide to his neighbor).

This passage left me curious last night. "Is cautious in friendship" - what do you think that means? At first thought I guess it means you choose your friends caferfully, with, obviously, caution. But when I went online today I saw the footnotes for this passage and that got me wondering again. So are we supposed to set a good example? Is that what it means? What do y'all think?

Hope it's going well - I'm doing much better reading each passage on it's assigned day this week:-) It's a start!

~ Sarah

New Testement Query

All along I thought it would be the Old Testament that would give me the most to think about having studied the New testament the most. But today I have a question about the New Testament reading. When Jesus and the disciples were in the boat and Jesus was sleeping and the storm comes up....we all know the story. The boys get scared, they wake Jesus up and he calms the storm down, and he says - you of little faith. Today when I was reading that (I was a little behind) I started to think, would they have been ok if Jesus hadn't been woken up? Would the storm have gone away and everything been fine on its own? Now I realize that would not have been a story for the Bible but I was wondering. Were the disciples making a mountain out of a mole hill. Is that what Jesus was telling them, telling us? Is that a given and it just went over my head all the other times I heard it? Just curious.

Also - in regard Deuteronomy 15:16-17 If the servant does not want to leave after seven years the master is to take and awl and push it through his ear lobe into the door, and he will become a servant for life. What on earth is an awl????

Thanks, Angela