At our church, for Christmas, they gave each family a ""Read the Bible in One Year Bible" - each day has passages to read, that, when followed, we will have covered the entire Bible in one year. My wife and I have been reading it together each night before bedtime.
These first five days have been passages from Genesis, Matthew, Psalms, and Proverbs, which I consider to be possible the four most well-known of the books of the Bible, even if other people may have others that are more favored (a lot of people like Romans, for example. Logical people like John, or Paul's letters. Kinky people like the Song of Solomon. Depressives enjoy Ecclesiastes. And the same type of people who try to convince you that they've read Finnegans Wake are those who say their favorite book is Revelation)...
But I digress. There is something that I've noticed in these first five days of reading these books:
There is a lot of talk from God about humanity's violence.
And God ... well, He's rather against it.
First up - Cain kills Abel. God says that's wrong. Then Cain says, "If you send me out, then all these others evil people are going to kill me." So God puts a mark on Cain to tell everyone, "You humans are not to hurt this guy, he's Mine!"
Then the Psalms are all about "don't sit with violent people" and "Why is everyone so angry?" "Why is everyone out to harm me, God? Take care of this, why don'tcha?" Note that the Psalms are acknowledging violence in humanity but asking GOD to take care of it.
Then, Noah ... God says, "Whoa, these humans are out of control" and specifically mentions VIOLENCE. So, God wipes everyone out.
Because humans were VIOLENT.
And the first thing God says to Noah after the flood ... (well, OK, the second thing. First thing is "Go do it like bunnies and pop out babies) is that NO ONE SHOULD KILL ANYONE ELSE.
God specifically mandates that if an animal kills a human, animal dies. If a human kills a human, then the community HAS to come together and kill the killer. (That's pro-Capital Punishment, for all you squeamish out there)
And then there is Jesus Himself, Sermon on the Mount, after his intro saying that peaceful humble gentle snowflakes get to Heaven, the FIRST main out of his mouth is that "I know you were told that if you kill someone, you have to die, but I'm taking it a step further to say, if you even THINK something bad about someone, then you can't get right with God. Not now. Not ever. Not until you fix it."
You know what I have NOT seen in these first five days?
Anti-gayness.
Yup, that's right.
Now, before the LGBTQ folk start shooting off their hoo-hah rainbow fireworks, just know that the Bible does frown on the pollution of the body (remember, God said to hump away to make babies ... yeah, the Catholics are actually right about that, but we'll get to that later). So yes, there are other parts of the Bible where God is saying, "Don't be gay."
But I'm saying, right here, right now, these FIRST FIVE DAYS, God is focused on the primary, numero uno, main problem with humans: our propensity to murder each other.
So let's wrap this post up, shall we ... in our culture today, when we wring our hands over drag queens reading books to kindergartners and at the same time allowing Kyle Rittenhouse to run around quoting Bible verses and being some sort of Republican wet dream, we are so far from God that He is saying, "Wait, where'd everybody go?"
Because in truth, these Bibles verses, if taken literally, means that Rittenhouse should have been given a lethal injection.
That's the word of God.
Food for thought.
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