God Giveth And God Taketh Away-Job Chapters 1-10

Before I read this I hadn’t really thought about what I would be willing to do if I were in their situations. Abraham had a similar effect, though, making me question my own faith and how far it would stand against torments and suffering. God favored Job and boasted about Job’s unmoving faith in God no matter what happened. He gave him everything, land, sheep, food, servants, money, a wife and children. God’s faith in him reached such an extent that God accepted Satan’s request and allowed him to test Job’s faith by destroying everything around “but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”(Job 1:12). Job did as God expected and held fast against the devil’s torments. So the devil requested that he might harm Job and bring upon him disease and sickness. God said, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”(Job 2:6) Job suffered through all the way and almost broke to the devil’s will. On the verge of collapsing and giving in, a man, Eliphaz the Temanite reassured Job of his faith and strengthened his resolve. He told Job, “Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.”(Job 5:17) Surely if me, or anyone I know were submitted to that kind of suffering, we very well might give in and throw God away as well as our faith in him. That just proves our need to strengthen our relationship with God not to just give in since it won’t be enough. When we truly deeply believe in God, we might someday be able to say that we could be as Job, steadfast, enduring, and forever strong in the face of evil and sin and death.

Selling His Soul

The man who delivered Saul’s people from the hands of destruction is the one man Saul hates most. David first came to know Saul through his work. Samuel anointed him with the Holy Spirit, then Saul declared him as his harpist, to sooth his soul since “the spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord had troubled him.”(1 Samuel 16:14) David spent his time defending his sheep from the bears and wolves then playing his harp for the king of the nation. He was still a lowly, humble servant and was of no significance to the king. Although he was not beloved of Saul he found favor in God’s eyes and was given the chance to prove himself a significant character in the history of our world. After that battle and victory for David, Saul came to hate his servant whose only desire was to serve him and the Lord. Saul was “afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul” (1 Samuel 18:12) and he attempted to hide his fear with hatred and jealousy. David was the one man who had been capable of soothing him and lifting the evil spirit from his soul. This man that was so kind and loyal to his king was then betrayed. Saul let in the spirit and let it take control. David was persecuted and hunted down. Eventually Saul’s hatred proved to God his disloyalty and deservedness of destruction.

Barack Obama Acceptance Speech

Ethos:
“These are not whiners. They work hared, and they get back, and they keep going without complaint. These are the Americans I know!”
“These are my heroes, theirs are the stories that shape my life. On their behalf I intend to lead this country as President of the United States.”

Pathos:
“We love this country too much to let the next four years look too much like the last eight years.”
“Its time for us to change America and that’s why I am running for president of the United States.”

Logos:
“The record is clear, John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment. But what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time.
“I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power.”
“I’ll invest 150 billion dollars in affordable, renewable sources of energy, wind power, solar power and a next generation of biofuels an investments that will lead to 5 million new jobs and pay well and can’t be outsourced.

The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall-Samuel Chapters 16-31

Then, Goliath said, “Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us.” (Samuel 17:8-9) The giant had spoken. Towering over any Israelites, he challenged any one of them to present themselves and battle him to the death. Goliath was confident, maybe too confident. David, a humble Shepard, was the only man, not even, the only boy to summon the courage to battle the giant. Armed with only a sling and several stones, he hurled one straight at Goliath and struck him in the forehead. Before he could react Goliath stood struck dead by a stone from a young man, a boy! David took no credit for himself but praised the Lord and credited Him for delivering the Israelites from the hands of the Philistines. This concept of David and Goliath recurs throughout the Bible and literature. Some huge force rises up, casting a shadow upon some small doomed force, but out of certain death they prevail. David and Goliath, the battle of Thermopoly, Israel against the world, all are situations in which a petty force battles with a formidable, gigantesque force and prevails. David, claims to have had the power of God behind him and that, not his own strength is what prevailed. Saul had been the same, a favored one in God’s eyes, he conquered many lands and prevailed through God’s power but when he saw David’s success he became jealous. They sang of it, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”(Samuel 18:7) As his jealousy grew, he separated himself from God and eventually was struck by God himself. In the Bible the protagonists are those who have found favor in God’s eyes. If they keep the covenants with God and keep His commandments they will do well and come to be successful, but as they grow further and further from God the less they will be blessed and eventually lose everything.

Order and Chaos-Chapters 16-22

What civilization can survive without laws? Without rules? No civilization can do so. Without laws and rules there is no order. If we had no laws everything would be chaos. Every culture in history needs some set of rules and laws for their people. If there were no consequences for murder everyone would kill each other. It would be the same with stealing and all sorts of crimes that exist today would be allowed with no consequence. These rules set limitations and boundaries for people so that they know what they can and can’t do. Many of today’s laws come from the laws in the Bible as well as laws from Rome. Do not kill, steal, commit adultery. All are crimes and all have consequences. Cultures and civilizations require some essential parts in order to function. A set of laws is among those things as well as language. The law is what separates us from order and chaos. God gave the Israelites that set of laws. He called them the Ten Commandments. “These are the ordinances that you must set before them.”(Exodus 21:1) He gave laws about slaves, theft, injuries, crop protection, seduction, capital offenses, honesty, justice, laws protecting the vulnerable. He gave the people these laws so that they would follow them and know the difference between right and wrong. If they were to go against these laws they would go against God. Their sins were all punishable and God told them the consequences of each. Even though we know the difference between good and evil, since Adam ate the fruit, we still go against God. We sin and commit these crimes against Him. God knows this and He will not stop us. He gave us free will to do what we think is right and be judged for it in the end.

The Wrath Of God-Exodus Chapters 8-14

There were ten plagues sent to Egypt. The Pharaoh resisted as many as he could but eventually had no choice but to submit to God and to Moses. Throughout the Bible God demonstrates his power and ability. He creates the world, He creates man, He destroys the world, He plagues Egypt with ten terrible famines, diseases, and tormenting creatures. In the Old Testament God really is wrathful. God is not only loving and caring, He can be angry, vengeful, divine, good, loving caring, all are different aspects of the same person. God may destroy the world, then save it. He may rein fire and ash down on a city or He may send His only son, Christ Jesus to die on the cross to save us. Moses learned over time, more and more God’s power and unending capacity for good and the Pharaoh learned it the hard way. This nature can only be described as divine. Many polytheistic religions have one God to represent different aspects of nature, emotions, places, ideas. In Christianity, though, God represents each and every one of the aspects. He created everything, He is in everything.

The Burning Bush-Exodus Chapters 1-7

Faith is a topic most people try and avoid. As many have said, it is impossible to prove God exists. Is it not, also impossible to disprove His existence? Faith is the belief in an idea that may or may not be true. The pharaoh did not have faith in Moses or in God. The “Pharaoh’s heart hardened, and he did not listen to them”(Exodus 7:13) Moses also did not have faith in God, he asked if Aaron could speak in his stead, where he should have trusted God would attend to that problem as well. In Egypt Moses’ faith was well tested by the pharaoh and by his own people. They did not have faith in God and attacked Moses. They said, “May the lord take note of you and judge.”(Exodus 5:21) In the Latin bible Paul refers to the word “apologia”. What he meant by this was not that Christians would have to apologize for their faith but that we must defend it. He tells Christians to be ready whenever and wherever to defend your faith and defend God. Moses had to be ready, he displayed God’s power to the pharaoh who only countered with arcane magic. The pharaoh was ready to attack Moses as Moses was ready to defend it. When God appeared to Moses as the burning bush, Moses had an overwhelming feeling that told him it was divine. He had no way of proving the feeling but had to have faith in the Lord. Much of the arguments made against Christianity are aggressive, testing your own knowledge of the bible. It is always easier to attack something to defend it. Sometimes you may simply not know the answer, we cannot know God’s will nor His intentions. But we can support our faith with arguments countering the opponent’s. Atheists claim that to have faith in God is to have no reason. Faith is insanity some say. Then one could counter, to believe in Atheism one must believe that everything comes from nothing, intelligent beings can come from non-intelligent cells, information can come from randomness. In the end one may give in, like the pharaoh. Moses eventually displayed God’s awesome power and saved His people from their imprisonment.

A Promise is a Promise-Chapter 17-24

Throughout the Bible we can see how God interacts with mankind, unlike many other religion’s gods. In the story of Noah and the ark, God makes a covenant with Noah never to flood the Earth or wipe it out again. He used the rainbow as a sign of the covenant. “My covenant with you that never again will all the flesh be wiped out by the waters of a deluge; there will never again be a deluge to destroy the earth.”(Genesis 9:11)Then again we can see another covenant with Abraham. “This is My covenant, which you are to keep, between Me and you and your offspring after you: Every one of your males must be circumcised.”(Genesis 17:10) After these God makes more promises with mankind and man begins to do the same amongst each other. Abraham and Abilemech make a covenant. Abraham is given money, land, flock and Abraham blesses Abilemech’s household. No one can say they have kept every promise they have made, but God can. We can be absolutely sure of his honesty and fulfillment in his part of the bargain. Today many people form a sort of covenant although we call them simply a promise. Most cases one of the two people break their end of the bargain and end up paying for it. Throughout the bible God keeps his promises but it is us, mankind that breaks it. In Sodom and Gomorrah we became violent and evil, not even ten innocent, blameless people could be found. Later Moses goes up the mountain to speak with God and when he returns he find the people he just saved from slavery and imprisonment worshipping a golden calf instead of God who delivered them from their previous situation. We should learn from these examples that God keeps his promise with man no matter what. When we make a promise it is our responsibility to hold it up and keep it.

Its For Your Own Good- Genesis chapters 10-16

When all the people came together in the valley of Shinar they made an attempt to build “a city and a tower with its top in the sky.” (Genesis 11:4) At this time all the people of the world spoke the same language with the same vocabulary the same alphabet. God saw their attempt to create this obelisk and He decided it was better to stop their endeavor. He changed each of their languages confusing and scattering them throughout the world. Their progress halted and they were sent back to the beginning in which everyone now had their own culture with its own language. It divided the people and caused feuds between the people. When God scattered the world into groups, all with different languages, He did so for our own good. If they created this immense structure, man would have become arrogant and in their arrogance they would become corrupt and evil. This would eventually lead to our downfall or a war between proud people defending their own pride and nothing else. God kept His covenant with Noah and restrained himself from annihilating mankind as He had done before. Instead He separated us and caused our division. Many times parents tell their children things that are for their own good in the end. Most children have a different perspective and believe it is only against them and not possibly helping. If the parents had not done what they had the children might have been hurt or caused someone else to be hurt. This was the case for the tower of Babylon and God intervened for our own good.

The Fall of Man- Genesis Chapters 3-9

The fall of man is perhaps one of the most important events that recurs throughout literature. Of course most people do not believe in such things literally, as some others do, but it has influenced literature and culture in many ways. Before the fall, man was pure, innocent and without awareness of right and wrong. After the fall we knew the difference between the two and yet we continued on our path of sin. Even though Cain knew murder to be a sin, he slew his own brother in cold blood. Many pieces of literature such as Shakespeare or Gilgamesh, have references to the Bible and events that occurred even though they are not entirely believed in. Enkidu is a character who represented man before the fall, innocent and blind to right and wrong. Once he was introduced to the temple harlot he was changed. This event represented a version of the fall of man. In the bible man “ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked.”(Genesis 3:6) Once again man grew in arrogance and believed himself all powerful. As I said in my past blog, Power Corrupts, man became engulfed in his own pride and arrogance and became corrupt. Men took whichever and any number of wives that pleased them. They slew one another and stole and lied and broke everything that God stood for. This angered God because man was meant to be in the image of Him and ended up corrupt and evil. He destroyed what he had created only sparing Noah who was innocent compared to his fellow man. Along with man God sent all the animals of the world, in pairs, on the ark. This he did so that man would once again start anew and become what God had originally intended. He made the covenant with Noah not to destroy man or the world as he did again. If He had not made that promise we probably wouldn’t be here today. We are all corrupted nowadays. None of us have claim of innocence except babies who do not know any better. But it is God’s covenant with Noah that keeps us safe even though maybe we deserve his judgment.

Live Life to Its Fullest-God’s Secretaries Chapter 11

John Bois was a man who did not try or want to interact with society. He went his early life with his father learning Greek or Hebrew and in school where he continued his lessons. In his free time he wrote in Greek. Bois was so caught up in writings, in literature, and studies that he became a man that was unknown by most and alone. In his later years he eventually, had children two of which lived. “This perhaps someone you might admire; it is not a man you would love.” (p. 207 God’s Secretaries) Bois loved his work and enjoyed boasting about his collection of books. He worked to help translators who took all the credit for the work he had done for them. He was a strange man and on his death bed cried out “Oh my torment! my torment! my torment!”(p. 215 God’s Secretaries) He held these words inside for so long and they eventually burst from inside him. Sometimes we get caught up in work and things that we loose sight of the important things. We forget about life. We forget about family, about love, about happiness. Bois was a good man and his children loved him but he never really understood how to live. He spent all his life in an office looking at literature, writings, and scripture. He obviously lived in the literal sense but could he say he lived life to its fullest?

The Word of God-God’s Secretaries Chapter 10

In 1521 Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for refusing to submit to the authority of the Emperor. At this time the people began to learn how to read and write instead of the church leaders being the only ones who had such knowledge. One of the first writings was the Bible so the people read it by themselves as well as listening to the church preach it. At this time many of these people such as Martin Luther began to question the church’s honesty and loyalty to God. What the people heard in the preaching was not consistent and had no support from the Bible. Where in the Bible did it say to pray to Mary, or to the saints? Where does the Bible tell us that we may be forgiven by a priest? Martin Luther made a list of 95 Theses and nailed them to the door. All were examples of the Catholic Church’s corruption and their attempt to empower the church and take advantage of the people. Some priests began to tell the people that if they gave the church money they would get a free ticket to heaven. Many Catholics believe that it is your acts that God uses to decide your place in the afterlife whereas the Scrooby Separatists and many Protestants believe differently. They say to “listen to the words of the Bible and you will be saved. Nothing else is necessary.”(p. 175 God’s Secretaries) These beliefs began to overthrow the Catholic Church and many of their people were lost to them. So the Church acted with violence to keep the Separatist groups from rising to power. They prohibited the preaching of their beliefs. The Separatists were persecuted and had three options if found guilty, “subscription to the rule of the church, imprisonment, of exile.”(p. 177 God’s Secretaries) These acts of violence have been sewn into the history of mankind and of the church, a major argument between Christians and Atheists. No one has all the answers and no one can know God’s will but I believe that corruption and self empowerment is definitely not what God intended for us to do.

Adolescent Students 1

In dealing with students on the high-school level - that is, the second, third, and fourth year of high school - we must bear in mind that to some degree they are at a difficult psychological stage, generally called adolescence. Students at this level are likely to be confused mentally, to be subject to involuntary distractions and romantic dreaminess. They are basically timid or self-conscious, they lack frankness and are usually very sensitive but hate to admit it. They are motivated either by great ambition, probably out of all proportion to their capabilities, or by extreme laziness caused by the fear of not succeeding or attaining their objectives. Fundamentally they want to be kept busy but they refuse to admit it. They are frequently the victims of earlier poor training, and this makes every effort doubly hard. They are usually willing to work, but they hate to work without obtaining the results they think they should obtain. Their critical faculties are beginning to develop and they are critical of their instructors and of the materials they are given to learn. They are beginning to feel the pressure of time; and although they seldom say so, they really want to be consulted and given an opportunity to direct their own affairs, but they need considerable guidance.

Why Am I Guilty? Chapter 6 Gods Secretaries

In this chapter of God’s secretaries we can see how King James handles the problem of the government versus religion. Many of the Catholics disagreed with most aspects of James’ government and started to rebel against it. King James handled it well. He did not respond in an aggressive manner, but in a way that would ensure as little violence as possible. Somewhat ineffective, since acts of terrorism and uprisings did occur. James’ attempted this peaceful manner which showed the people a side of their king, one who would protect them in the best ways possible. Sometimes it is not always best to use aggression to make a point. This can lead to a rule of fear and some would say tyranny. In these situations the worst that could happen is that people die and grudges are held against each other.Many of the Catholics were being held suspect with no evidence whatsoever to back the case up. The man accused of the crime was obviously not guilty but the death sentence was carried out in any case. The judge knew this man was “a good man killed for no reason.” (p. 116) These scenarios are very difficult to handle but must be dealt with anyhow.