repentance

1 Kings 21:41-42 Ahab was judged for not killing God's enemy the rival king. God gave him the total victory but Ahab spared the king. So a prophet tells him he will be cut off instead of the king God wanted him to kill.

Rather than acting on the information Ahab goes away and sulks. His sulking got him into more trouble as we see in chapter 22. So much of the time we do the same thing. But in times like this we are to repent and ask God's forgiveness.

We have the example of the Ninevites in Jonah, David, Job, the Centurion when Peter spoke to him, and others. God loves to change his mind when we are repentant and change our behavior in response to his correction.

Let us learn to repent and not sulk.

1 Kings 22:27-29 Ahab does humble himself in the sight of God after the murder of Naboth. And God responds by repenting of his first curse against Ahab.

But we are not told that Elijah goes to inform him of that. I wonder if he did. God decides to lesson the curse but he does not totally eliminate it.

We do not get a prophet to speak to us but we do have the Bible and the Holy Spirit teaching us. Lord help us to have a heart that is soft and willing to be taught and to repent when we do fall into temptation and sin.

Barack Obama and Tiger Woods - which is black?

Taken from an op/ed piece in the WSJ from Friday April 9, 2010 by Abigail Thernstrom.

Barak Obama has checked the race box "black" instead of describing himself as multiracial. This despite the fact that his mother is white and he was raised by his maternal grandparents. He has hardly ever seen his black father.

Yet he describes himself as black because it is politically expedient. Yet it seems cynical at best. To call himself black falls back on the racist notions of many people that anyone with any black blood in them is black.

Contrast that to Tiger Woods, who without a racial constituency to placate, used the option to identify all the races in his ancestry. He listed himself as Caucasian, black, Indian, and Asian. That sounds much more honest.

Woods has never encouraged fans to see him as the "first black golfer" as Obama pitches himself as "the first black president". Woods, it seems, is much most honest, at least about his heritage.

Israel Finkelstein - controversial?

You are probably not as interested in this as I am. Israel Finkelstein is normally classified as a pretty radical Biblical minimalist. He thinks pretty much all of Exodus did not happen. He basically thinks David might have existed as a simple Bedouin tribal chief and that a century later than most suppose.

As an anthropology major and BAR reader of many years I find this very interesting.

Whatever Finkelstein says being controversial makes him important and gets him fame, money, and tenure. It works to his advantage. Being likable also helps a lot.

Here is a link to an interview with editor of BAR Hershel Franks. Franks also is happy to be considered a bit controversial himself. So this interview is a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours endeavor".

If you are at all interested in how modern science of archaeology meets the search for Biblical dating read this interview.

Read any Leibniz lately?

Gottfried Leibniz wrote the book "Theodicy" exactly three hundred years ago this year. In it he tried to prove the goodness and justice of God amidst what is a world (cosmos?) full of evil.

He claimed that this world was the best world that God could have made so don't complain. What do you think of that claim?

This is based on an article on the Op/Ed section of the WSJ for April 9. Yes I often go back and read old WSJs that I did not get to the day they came to the house.

The writer, Samuel Newlands starts by quoting Pat Robertson as stating that the earthquake in Haiti was God's judgment for a 200 year old secret pact with the devil. Preachers attributed the hurricane destruction in New Orleans the same way.

He states this is not abnormal. What is new is how many people today rush to dismiss such proclamations. Gottfried Leibniz was one of the first to make the claim that God does not punish people for their sins like that.

Leibniz claimed that natural evils like earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes are not intended to be punishments. Leibniz reasoned that a world with simple natural laws and no natural disasters was not as perfect as the present world.

Leibniz attempted to harmonize natural and theological explanations, reason and faith. It is an effort still ongoing.

Many may know Gottfried Leibniz, as I do, mostly for his scientific achievements. He is credited, along with Isaac Newton with the development of calculus. It is interested that both of these wrote much on theology, attempting to understand God. Both of these men thought their best work was in the area of theology but today their science is most known and admired.

Newlands suggests that a corollary of Leibniz's ideas is that God's plans and purposes are not as human centered as we like to think. These natural disasters are really not a way for God to be involved in the workings of his world. They are simply natural and relatively random though perhaps predictable.

Going away from this article I do think that God's love is shown in his willingness to correct his people. To agree with Leibniz shows a less involved God than the bible tells us He is. Leibniz is right to ask the question and struggle with the answer. But he has come to the wrong conclusion.

I have trouble making specific pronouncements about individual disasters. I think it is up the people affected to hear from God about what he is saying. The problem is so many people refuse to listen to God. If he is correcting you it means he loves you and still has hope for you. Correction and punishment is no fun but it does have a silver lining.

Glass Key by Dashell Hammett and now The Thin Man

The Glass Key is a pretty good potboiler. It is short, a fast read. Ned Beaumont is a slightly shady political adviser to a machine boss. But he is a bit more honest than he likes people to know. It has a ending which is not particularly tied up.

So I checked out The Thins Man. I have read a few pages. It looks like the movie. But I do not think Hammett wrote any sequels. I think the movie producers did their own sequels. Hammett missed a bet, it seems.

1 Kings 17:18 and John 2:4

Jesus is more or less "forced" to do a miracle by his mother at a wedding. He is quoted as saying, "What do I have to do with you, woman?" In Greek it says, "What is me to you?" That is some kind of idiomatic expression and it does not mean anything literally. Now Jesus did not speak Greek. His words were translated. So there is a good chance the Greek is an attempt to get an Aramaic expression as close as possible.

So I came upon 1 Kings 17:18. The situation is a bit opposite but the expression is about the same. Again it is about a "forced" miracle. Only the man of God, Elijah is not the one who said the expression. However I think Jesus, who knew all things, was aware of Elijah when he addressed his mother.

The widow say to Elijah, "What do I have to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance, and to put my son to death!"

In a sense the woman demands a sign. But the son of a widow is her only chance to live well. When he is an adult he will likely be able to take care of her by working. He can take over her ancestral lands. He will be a legal person and can protect her rights. He is her hope to take the place of her dead husband. Since she has been obedient to God and taken in the man of God. She showed great faith. She had a point and Elijah knew it.

That expression only slightly mean something in English. I guess you can say it is poetic, it makes you think. I like that.

Jesus' first miracle was brought on by the faith of his mom. She knew he could do it. After his protest that "my hour has not come" she orders the servants to do whatever he tells them.

This is Elijah's first, well OK second miracle. His first was to make her food and oil not run out for over three years. So when her son dies she knows he can do this thing. She has the faith that he can do or rather God can do it through him. I'm not sure Elijah is quite as sure. But he knows she is right. He appeals to God that this will bring Him glory. To now save her son after saving her from death for three years would be shameful.

The widow sort of forces the miracle too. Well she appeals to him in no uncertain terms. She demands it of him.

Perhaps someone else can see other parallels. I do believe Jesus was aware of Elijah's story when he said the words. When thrust into a surprising situation I rarely say anything coherent. But Jesus knew his role in God's universe. He was excellent on his feet in spontaneous situations.

What do you think?

Moishe's Musings

I was struck by this article a few weeks ago. Moishe Rosen is a man I have never met but I greatly respect his writing and his manner. He was the creator of Jews for Jesus but he seems to have little feeling of ownership. Others with successful ministries get a bit of a big head.

I guess I should not name names. No purpose would be served by doing that. His daughter has been taking over a part of the newsletter up until now called "Moishe's Musings". This is the April article.

Moishe has been failing for a while. This is the first time he was too sick to actually have a column and his daughter did it. Actually I think there were times that they reprinted old columns.

Moishe has been sick almost to death several times but has recovered. He will be missed when he is gone.