Another post on religion?
Yeah, and if you read it, you may be surprised.
Sara Jean and I are proud to say we are Christians.
I think Christianity has been a tremendous force for good in the world.
I know, individual Christians can be pompous, self absorbed, and holier-than-thou......
Thank God, most are not.
We used to attend Church regularly. Lately, we've fallen off the wagon.
We're kinda rudderless right now... not because we have doubts, but because we're looking for a certain kind of Church.
We realize we are never going to find a Church full of perfect people.
We'd just like to find a Church that teaches the Bible...
All of it.
From the first page to the last.
A couple years ago, we were attending a Church with a vibrant,
story telling Pastor.
We loved the Pastor, but Sunday School was drop-dead boring.
The problem is programmed learning, brainwashing, selective teaching, whatever you want to call it.
Sunday School lessons were distributed in the form of "Quarterlies"...
booklets
sent out every three months that prompted you on what to study each
Sunday, including questions so you would get the theme of each suggested
reading.
Why is this a problem?
Following these "Quarterlies", you never read the whole Bible.
Areas of the Bible that are considered controversial are avoided like the plague.
We never strayed from the quarterlies.
In all my years as a Christian,
no Church has ever guided me to read "Songs of Solomon".
Do you know why?
In a previous post I said "Peyton Place" has nothing on the Bible...
Turn with me now to "Songs of Solomon" and get your brains blown out!
Songs of Solomon is a wild love story.
Dana Carvey's "The Church Lady" would get the vapors!
Then there's the story about Moses I previously mentioned.
Remember I said Moses' wife did something interesting to keep God from killing her husband?
What she did was... use a sharp stone to cut the foreskin from her son, and spread the blood on Moses' feet.
Moses' FEET!
Keep that in mind, please.
The Book of Ruth...
Ruth was a comely lass. She was attractive enough to draw the attention of Boaz,
a rich property owner who owned the fields that Ruth
and her Mom-in-law, Naomi, were gleaning.
Ruth was recently widowed, and wanted to get closer to Boaz.
Naomi gave Ruth this advice...
"Bathe. Put on something that smells nice. Then go observe Boaz, and when he goes to sleep, go over and uncover his FEET.
He will tell you what to do.
Huh?
Moses' wife spreads the blood from her son's foreskin on his "feet",
and it convinces the Lord to not kill him?
Comely Ruth uncovers Boaz' "feet", and he tells her what to do?
What's goin' on here?
I
don't care who or how attractive you are, if you come just after I've
gone to sleep and uncover my feet, I'm not gonna be a happy camper!
You be the judge.
I know what I believe...
In the Bible, "feet"are mighty interesting!
I think if more adults were exposed to stories like this and the questions they motivate,
more of them would be likely to attend Sunday School...
maybe they'd even stay awake during Church services.
How about an an eye opener?
In
the book of Matthew, in all those "begats", the ancestors that lead to
the birth of Jesus Christ, there are only four or so women mentioned...
by name or indirectly.
Do yourself a favor, and research the history of all those gals.
Believe me, their stories are extraordinary!
Mary was a Virgin... an innocent, and worthy of respect.
Many of Christ's other female forebears could be the subject of an "R" rated movie!
5 comments:
Boring? Not hardly. It's funny that you posted this today, because, by chance, I found myself engaged in a conversation with a good friend about religion, and we never discuss religion. It became rather spirited and as these conversations usually go, there was no clear conclusion. Just more questions.
When this happens, I say it all involves a concept of "faith" and if you have no "faith" then there's no reason for us to continue. "Faith" is everything.
Jeez, this is a continual source of heated debate in teh land of infinitegtr... born into a Catholic home, raised by a town of Baptist n'er do-wells, Wife #1 is Baptist, Wife #2 is Assembly of God, and good friend from high school is Mormon. With all that, I don't know what any of them really stand for or believe in, and in most instances I don't think they do either.
My oldest children, avowedly brain-washed Baptists, get extremely uneasy when I start talking about Constantine and Nycea.
Other than undergraduate courses, I have never seen anyone holding themselves out as Christian get real excited about discussing the Apocryphal (sic?) Texts.
You are 100% spot on that the entire Bible ought to be studied, especially by those church leaders who say the entire Bible is divine and entirely accurate.
Faith is a great thing. As I tell my kids though, if you don't know the basis of what you have faith in, or why you have faith in it, faith can be preyed on and abused.
Study on sir...
The link opened this time. I am about to leave so I will get back to you this afternoon. This requires a little background in "shame and honor" socities.
So, apparently, your question centers upon why Zipporah placed the foreskin of her son on Moses' FEET (Exodus 4:24-26). So let me answer this first and then we'll briefly look at this confusing passage.
ANS- To show respect for her husband Moses and to not appear to take his authority and responsibility before God. EX: The lowest servant cleaned the feet of houseguests. One would greet another of higher position by bowing toward their feet or by even kissing their feet.
EXPLAIN- This passage is difficult to understand for two reasons- it is quite different from our modern experience and it lacks sufficient background information for us to decipher what is going on. Basic underlying idea- God is upset that Moses has not circumcised his son by his Gentile wife as was required for any who would belong to Israel. It is also possible that Zipporah herself was reluctant have her son circumcised due to his age or her own lack of faith and therefore she felt responsible for the issue.
(Some interpreters have suggested that "feet" here is a euphemism for groin and that she had placed the foreskin there to cover Moses lack of circumcision. This is based upon the possibility that since he was brought up in Pharaoh's house he wasn't circumcised. I consider this explanation unlikely.)
Okay Toby. And thank you.
That makes EXACTLY my point.
"Feet" may not mean "Feet".
And that was my point to Cary.
Distortion?
I think it's a matter of definition, and cannot be defined precisely over a couple thousand years.
Thanks again.
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