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Are you a good fish or a bad fish?

September 22, 2011 in Bible with 0 Comments



Matthew 13:47-49

 47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. 49So it will be at the close of the age.

What’s the difference between a good fish and a bad fish? Well, in the eyes of a Jewish fisherman, there were only two types of fish: those that that Law of God said they could eat, and those that the Law prohibited. Leviticus 11:9-12 taught that fish with scales and fins were clean, and therefore edible, but fish without scales, like eels and catfish, were unclean and could not be eaten.

So those were the rules, but how to catch them?

One form of fishing was using a dragnet. The net was as long as a football field, twelve feet high with weights on the bottom and cork on the top. One group stayed near the shore with one end of the net while another boat sailed out, dropping the net as they went until it stretched tight.  Then they sailed back to land, and “drew it ashore,” eagerly anticipating their catch of fish. At this point, the good fins-and-scales fish (sardines, carp and musht) were sorted into containers, while the bad (eels, catfish, etc.) were thrown away.

Obviously we aren’t fish, but Jesus used this image of sorting to paint a vivid picture for his listeners about what it would be like at the end of time; blessing for the righteous, while the wicked will be thrown away into punishment.

Are you a good fish or a bad fish?

 

Reference: http://www.americancatholic.org/newsletters/sfs/an0704.asp

 

Turkey vs. Mini-Van

September 12, 2011 in Bible with 0 Comments



Yesterday I hit a turkey. Or perhaps I should say the turkey hit us.

We were driving home from church when a turkey strutted out of the ditch and proceeded to fly straight into the side of the van. It sounded like someone had thrown a bowling ball at the driver’s window and I thought for sure it was going to shatter in on me, but it didn’t. The smashed side mirror was the only casualty, that is, except for the bird.

We could see him flopping around in a stand of sumac, so we turned around, thinking perhaps we should put him out of his misery. But before we got to the sumac, another van had stopped and an older Hmong couple got out. The husband ran down into the sumac and came back holding the struggling turkey upside down by the legs. They didn’t speak any English, but it was obvious they were offering the turkey to us, since, after all, we were the ones who had put the turkey in the ditch in the first place. I smiled and pointed to them, saying, “No, you take it, you take it.” So they did, probably gratefully anticipating an unexpected turkey dinner.

As we drove away I couldn’t help but think about the turkey and 1 Peter 5:8.

“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

We’re a bunch of turkeys (have you ever been told that before?), and the devil would love nothing more than to eat us for lunch. So we must always be on the alert, always aware of the lies being thrown at us, evaluating what’s going on around us and we move through life so we don’t get blasted by a speeding mini-van of deceit driven by the master deceiver himself. If we don’t, we’ll get blindsided by lies and thrown into a spiritual ditch, where we’ll flop around until we either come to our senses and move past the lies or get picked up by the legs and devoured by the devil.

Keep your eyes open. I’m sure we’d both prefer it if the devil went hungry.

Bible in the Dirt: Ancient New York in the Bible

August 31, 2011 in Bible with 0 Comments

Why would a young woman go into a field and sleep on the feet of a man she hardly knew? And where did people go to the bathroom? And why would anyone want oil poured on their head? Good questions that require some digging. Lots of different ancient cultures collide in Scripture, and that’s what we explore on Wednesdays. Because your understanding of history affects how well you understand the Bible. So let’s dig in. 

Genesis 11:31
“Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan.”


Abraham came from a city in southern Iraq called Ur of the Chaldeans. Not a very elegant name, sounds more like a backwater town than a thriving New York-type place. But the truth is that it was an ancient New York. They certainly lacked nothing when it came to style. To the right is the headdress worn by Queen Pu-abi around 2550 BC. Lady GaGa would feel right at home in a hat like that.

 

And they weren’t slackers about art either. Below is The Standard of Ur. Not only does it show us the beauty of their art, but it gives us a glimpse into life in ancient Ur. It has two sides, one for peace and one for war. The peace side has performing musicians, livestock and fish, and people bringing gifts to the king. The men are all bare-chested and wear something akin to a kilt; some are bald, some have long hair.

 

The war side (that’s the side you can see below) shows elegant chariots being pulled by noble donkeys (we normally think of donkeys as meek little animals, but they weren’t) and soldiers headed for battle.

 

 

Then there was the town’s main attraction: the Ziggurat of Ur (below). Almost sounds German, but it isn’t. A ziggurat is a huge temple made of mud bricks for the purpose of worshiping the gods, and the ziggurat in Ur of the Chaldees was first-rate. It was dedicated to the moon goddess, Nanna (no, not Nanna from Peter Pan).

 

So Ur of the Chaldeans was a thriving culture in Mesopotamia, which means that when God told Abraham to leave Ur and go to the place God would show him, he wasn’t giving up a dusty plot of dirt somewhere in Hickville; he was leaving New York to go into the unknown.

 What would you have done if you were Abraham?

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bible in the Dirt Wednesday: Did Scripture authors copycat their cultures in dealing with demons?

August 24, 2011 in Bible with 0 Comments

Amulet against Lamashtu Throughout history, people have been dealing with evil spirits, and it is no different in the pages of Scripture. Some would say that the writers of the Bible were merely mirroring their culture in the way that they dealt with demons.

Not true.

Ancient Near Eastern texts contain a multitude of incantations and magical spells whose sole purpose was to protect a person from evil spirits. These types of spells are called “apotropaic spells.” For example, in the Assyrian culture, a demon named Lamashtu was thought to attack pregnant women and kidnap babies as they breastfed. To protect themselves, women would wear a special amulet (see picture above) with a pendant of the god Pazuzu.

The famous Egyptian Book of the Dead contained almost 200 spells to be used in the underworld to protect oneself from demons, monsters and traps. These spells were crucial in helping a person attain immortality.

Demons were also present in non-biblical Jewish literature. In the apocryphal book of Tobit, a woman named Sarah is plagued by a demon named Asmodeus. Seven time she marries , only to be robbed of her husband on her wedding night – Asmodeus kills each of them. In the meantime, a man named Tobias has a foot almost eaten by a fish in the Tigris River. The angel Raphael tells him to catch the fish and take out its gall, heart and liver. If he burns the heart and liver in the presence of someone afflicted by a demon, the person will go free. Raphael then tells Tobias to marry Sarah. I’m sure Tobias wasn’t too keen on the idea, but Raphael assures him that he can overcome the demon with the fish heart and liver.

So Tobias marries Sarah, burns the fish liver and heart, beats the demon and they live happily ever after. Not only that, but Tobias uses the fish gall to cure his father’s blindness. The End.

Next up is the Testament of Solomon. This is a part of something called the Pseudepigrapha [soo-deh-pig-rafa], which is a fancy way of categorizing a story supposedly written by a famous Old Testament person, but in reality written by someone else. The Testament of Solomon was written around the third century. In the story, the angel Michael gives King Solomon a magical ring to control evil spirits and deliver people from affliction. With the ring, Solomon enslaves a demon named Lix Tetrax and forces him to throw rocks up to the workers in the temple.

Any of these stories would fit very well in a Harry Potter book, but would be ill at ease in the Bible because when we look at the way the authors of Scripture handle demons, it is completely different. Demons are not warded off by magic, nor are they utilized for work. They are overcome through the power of Christ.

In Matthew 8, Jesus casts a horde of demons out of two men and into a herd of pigs just by commanding them to go. Two chapters later, Jesus sends his disciples out into the countryside to preach the good news that the kingdom of heaven was near. They were to heal the sick, raise the dead and drive out demons.

And even though the Seven Son of Sceva (Acts 19) utilized Jesus’ name in their failed attempt to cast out a demon, it doesn’t appear that they were followers of Christ, therefore they had no connection to God’s power.

The authors of Scripture did not rely on the traditions of their cultures as they wrote about overcoming demons. They had experienced something totally new and all-consuming: the power of Jesus.

 

“Demons and Bible” (2005) in NIV Archaeological Study Bible (p. 1572). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan

http://www.king-tut.org.uk/egyptian-mummies/ancient-egyptian-magic.htm

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveSolIntro.html

http://heritage-key.com/world/amulet-used-protection-against-lamashtu-demon

 

 

 

Hell Study #1: Final Judgment?

March 10, 2011 in Bible with 8 Comments

Hey Philip, Dave, Matt, Tim and anyone else who wants to join us,

For the past almost 30 years I’ve been wrestling with the a slough of questions that revolve around Final Judgment. Questions such as why is it that God has to punish people in hell for their sin? What is intrinsic to human sin that requires punishment? What is intrinsic to God’s character that requires punishment? If God made up the rules for righteousness, why can’t he change the rules? Why is it that a blood sacrifice of Christ can take our sin away? Etc., etc., etc. The answers that I’ve been coming up with from Scripture are re-shaping my view of God’s greatness, his love for humankind, and his ache for Paradise.

I have two goals in doing this study with you:
1. That we can together find in Scripture what is true about our Father and eternal judgment.
2. To have you help me think critically about the conclusions I have come to.

Since we are spread out all over the country, I think the best way to do this is via my website, www.bighungryplanet.com. I will post questions/thoughts/resources there, and then you can all respond. This will also open it up for others to be a part of our journey. There’s a lot of material to cover; I am looking forward to it!

First question: When and where does final judgment of both the righteous and the wicked take place?

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