« You Can’t Always Get What You Want | Main | Ex-Muslim threatened with Death for His Christian Conversion »
God Did It Because He Loves Us!
By Julie | February 25, 2008
In the Bible, lately I have been reading the first few books. I’ve always heard it said that people have a hard time reading the Bible because they start at Genesis, a book that is really interesting. Then they get to Exodus, it begins with a story of utter oppression and then soars into the freedom and rescue of the Israelites in the middle. But the exciting climax? A bunch of laws? People start to wonder, what’s going on? Where are all the good stories? If you manage to get to Leviticus, it goes ahead and puts you right to sleep. Numbers follows Leviticus, a book I’ve heard called the absolute hardest to get through. Deuteronomy kicks off with the same regulations and “dullness”, but soon it’s resurrected into a few good stories, and once again you’re enjoying yourself. (For a little while, because for some, myself included, Joshua’s a pretty tough book to get through.)
I finally made it through the first books of the Bible last year. I admit, I forced myself through those huge “boring” chunks I’d skipped over before. I mean, it’s just one rule and regulation after another. I found myself thinking, blah blah blah. And I really don’t think it’s a good think to “blah” God. But, when I read, I want a good story, with strong convincing characters, not the number of days old a new born should be before he is circumcised! (It’s 8 days, in case you were wondering.)
This time however, reading the regulations has actually been interesting to me. For the last six weeks, our family has made some major changes to our diets. We have been taking a lot of information out of The Great Physician’s Rx for Health and Wellness, some from various researches, trial and error, and a bit from the Bible. The Great Physician’s RX is a book based upon eating biblically. The main principle from the book and the Bible we are trying to apply is: eat what God made, in the form he made it to be eaten. The more we apply it to our lives, the more improvements we have seen in our health, and our energy.
In fact, Marc and I were just talking about how much better we feel, and we marveled at the Bible. So many people say the Bible is so restrictive, and based upon “fairy tales”. (I can’t figure our why a person who wants to be taken seriously would use such an insulting term to a Christian.) Some say it’s irrelevant, and fiction. So often though, the rules God gives are for our own good. The foods God gave the Israelites concerning their diets were not to restrict them; they were to keep them healthy, vibrant, and disease free. Jewish people, throughout history, have been thought of as very healthy. They may not have understood the health ramifications of their diets, but God did. He gave them rules to protect them, to give them healthy, happy lives.
I’ve heard people say it would be impossible to follow a God who would be “jealous” of a person who innocently worshipped another God.
“…Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death.” – Leviticus 20:2
It is assumed too quickly their worship was “innocent”. When people “gave” their child in worship to Molech, they sacrificed them. Their children were killed as a sacrifice to this Molech. God did not impose a death sentence as cruelty to innocent people simply worshiping another. He imposed the strictest possible deterrent for one of the most heinous acts a person could commit, because back then, they were committing it! He didn’t want his people to murder the children he’d given them as a gift. And if they did, why should an innocent child be tortured to death, and the parents left to live as nothing happened?
The list of laws he gives to the Israelites in the beginning of the Bible he gave, after watching other nations, for hundreds of years break the rules, break hearts, break lives, break their own civilizations. What happened to them? These were whole groups of people that lost every ounce of compassion for those living and working within them. They were destroyed people, determined to destroy.
God gave his rules, not to restrict us, but to give us boundaries for living to our happiest potential. He did it to create equal advantages for everyone, even guiding the rich and the strong, to take care of the weak and the down on their luck. He did it because he loves us, and he wants as much love in this world as is possible from a collectively flawed mass of people. Over and over, law after law, they were for our own good.
Topics: Faith | 1 Comment »
February 25th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Thank you for stopping in at Laced With Grace and leaving a comment. I enjoyed this post. I have recently started reading through the Bible also and those first few books I always found so boring and difficult have actually become interesting.