2025 Bible Study Group
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I find myself more able to engage with God than Christ. I get the idea God has a plan for me. Fate. Destiny and the idea of transforming myself through not sinning. I still struggle to fit Christ into my life. I understand I can get closer to God through prayer. How do I get closer to Christ? I feel the presence of God at times even if it's just something that a psychologist calls 'intuition.' I get a rare glimpse of a world beyond reality. But I just...I don't feel Christ in my life. And just telling myself over and over again he was real, he came, he preached, he died for my sins. I don't...feel it somehow.
It might be my biggest roadblock as a budding Christian. Perhaps I can just read the gospels over and over again but even that creates problems for me because Christ seems like a person to me. I keep getting told he's not. But he says things, does things and honestly the way he speaks responding always with questions sometimes irks me as obtuse reactions.
I think it comes down to the idea that I understand God will grudgingly react to sin or whatever and Christ maybe is maybe longing for me to be some sort of pure being and maybe I can't let go of not being that that.
Adam did this? I thought it was Lot who was sacrificing his daughters to protect the Angels.
Adam doesn't actually sacrifice Eve, but he puts all the blame on her when he gives an account to God in their courtroom scene.
Adam is the guy who'll put all the blame on you to be saved.
Christ is the guy who will take all the blame in order to save you.
Between these two archetypes, the Levite follows the model of Adam, not Christ.
I'd like to close out the year with Hebrews. But before that, I think we have time to do a medium sized book or a few smaller ones.
How about Song of Solomon?
I don't want to do it just yet because I feel like it's too self-explanatory. It's poetry about sex and romance, good things according to the Scripture. If you wanted to get something else out of it then you would have to read it in a highly-allegorical way, which I don't believe in doing.
We have 2 chapters left in Judges. After this, how about Hosea, Jude, then Micah for an immediate lineup?
Judges 20
Continues where last part left off
Basically it's a kind of Game of Thrones style revenge for the brutal acts done previously
Curious as to why it mentions the men being left-handed when describing the Benjamites?
Israelites get taken out a few times and on the THIRD attempt (number 3 all seems so key in the OT) they succeed with God's help.
Interesting specificty of 25,100 Benjamites killed in the final battle?
Seems God doesn't mind pillaging in these times. Why is it that God in this era seems to support massacres?
Continues where last part left off
Basically it's a kind of Game of Thrones style revenge for the brutal acts done previously
Curious as to why it mentions the men being left-handed when describing the Benjamites?
Israelites get taken out a few times and on the THIRD attempt (number 3 all seems so key in the OT) they succeed with God's help.
Interesting specificty of 25,100 Benjamites killed in the final battle?
Seems God doesn't mind pillaging in these times. Why is it that God in this era seems to support massacres?
Judges 21
The Gilead's don't arrive for some sort of important tribal meeting so they decide to slaughter all the women and children. Virgins are spared. Yeah. Sane reaction.
The remaining Benjamites are given the spared virgins but there are not enough to go around (ain't no fun with the homies can't have none)
And then a dastardly plot is conceieved that if they STEAL women from another tribe and give them as wives to the remaining Benjamites THAT tribe won't be guilty of breaking the oath not to give daughters to Benjamites.
It ends with an ominous note:
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit
I think although there's no direct attack on this behaviour there's an implict condemnation on the idea of subverting moral rules by creating crafty work arounds. It's a bit like how someone will say they aren't cheating if they 'only watch pornography' or they aren't stealing if they just 'borrow' something. And I guess this is what happens when moral rules are not clear. Humans will always look for the grey.
The Gilead's don't arrive for some sort of important tribal meeting so they decide to slaughter all the women and children. Virgins are spared. Yeah. Sane reaction.
The remaining Benjamites are given the spared virgins but there are not enough to go around (ain't no fun with the homies can't have none)
And then a dastardly plot is conceieved that if they STEAL women from another tribe and give them as wives to the remaining Benjamites THAT tribe won't be guilty of breaking the oath not to give daughters to Benjamites.
It ends with an ominous note:
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit
I think although there's no direct attack on this behaviour there's an implict condemnation on the idea of subverting moral rules by creating crafty work arounds. It's a bit like how someone will say they aren't cheating if they 'only watch pornography' or they aren't stealing if they just 'borrow' something. And I guess this is what happens when moral rules are not clear. Humans will always look for the grey.
Think of God as the ultimate nationalist. At this point in redemptive history, He only cares for His covenant people, the Mosaic Covenant people, the Hebrews. To break the covenant, as the tribe of Benjamin had done, is to no longer be a part of that covenant people, God would treat you like an enemy combatant. Also remember that God flooded the entire world and only spared 8 people. He was not operating off our modern sensibilities such as massacre = objectively bad, but rather that they could be subjectively good for the people He was brooding over. Even now, that still hasn't really changed, though the scope of His covenant people has broadened.
The Pharisees were people like this. You can still find this unbelieving mindset in many people today. People will argue about how the Bible doesn't apply to them because they "transcend" the Biblical categories somehow. They will say that it doesn't condemn homosexuality, only cult prostitution. That it doesn't condemn images, only worship of other gods. And many other examples such as these. There is no end to the legal workarounds that people can come up with. To be a spiritual person, find how the Bible does apply to you, not how it doesn't apply to you. Finding excuses for how it doesn't apply to you is a dangerous game. But finding how it does apply to you will reveal that you are wicked sinner who is saved by God's grace.
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Judges 20 & 21
The Israelites struck the tribe of Benjamin and defeated them, under God's hand. The Israelites then mourn for the tribe, and find a legal workaround so that they would not be cut off completely. This is the tragedy of Judges: they had started off in unity, with a common purpose, but by the end were on the verge of falling apart and consuming one another through civil war. That perfectly sets the stage for the narrative in 1 & 2 Samuel. After all this, Israel wanted a king to unify them.
The Israelites struck the tribe of Benjamin and defeated them, under God's hand. The Israelites then mourn for the tribe, and find a legal workaround so that they would not be cut off completely. This is the tragedy of Judges: they had started off in unity, with a common purpose, but by the end were on the verge of falling apart and consuming one another through civil war. That perfectly sets the stage for the narrative in 1 & 2 Samuel. After all this, Israel wanted a king to unify them.
But did Israel have no king? They did. It was not that they suffered for lack of a king but they suffered for lack of belief. God had been their King all along, but without faith, they could not see Him or His kingdom. When the time came for them to demand of Samuel to install a king, God called it a rejection of Him as king. Even now, they are many Christians who want an earthly king, another Constantine, or some kind of sacralist system to save them. You do not need this. You may see that Christ is King right now, and that you can live in His kingdom right now, and live out His Law right now. As Christ says, "Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."