I’m a little tired right now, probably because I got up late and thus finished my weekly quiet time and my readings later than usual. So my comments will be terse.
1. For my weekly quiet time, I studied II Kings 21, which is about the reign of King Manasseh of Judah. Manasseh instituted pagan worship practices and shed innocent blood. According to traditions, he killed prophets, including Isaiah (whom he sawed in two while Isaiah was in a tree).
Manasseh killing people was wrong. But guess what? In Deuteronomy 18, we see that the group that produced Deuteronomy favored killing prophets whom it didn’t like—just because they didn’t believe in the group’s religious ideology. I’ve talked about this before in my study of I-II Kings: yes, Jezebel killed the prophets of the LORD, but Elijah and Jehu killed the prophets of Baal. Both sides didn’t seem to care for freedom of religion.
But at least the Deuteronomist didn’t believe in passing children through fire!
I usually want my weekly quiet time posts to affirm the text and to draw inspiring, edifying lessons from it. This one doesn’t. I hope I’m not on a downward trend!
2. In Bringing the Hidden to Light, Alan Cooper talks about medieval Jews who disliked the study of philosophy, viewing it as a harlot that leads people away from Judaism.
Why do some Christians treat Christianity as if it’s a fragile vase—oh, you don’t want to study this, because you may have doubts and ditch the faith! Shouldn’t the faith be stronger than that?
3. I’m continuing my way through Henri Blocher’s In the Beginning. In the chapter that I read today, Blocher discusses the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, going through various ideas as to what that was all about. The position at which he arrives is that Adam and Eve, by eating from the tree, were trying to exercise autonomy in moral matters rather than being subservient to God. Such autonomy belongs only to God. (Does this explain why God can order mass genocide, while we’re supposed to view murder as immoral—God’s not subservient to the moral rules that he imposes on others?) But what’s ironic, according to Blocher, is that we think we’re autonomous, when actually we’re subservient to sin.
Personally, I have issues when certain good principles are made into a law, for then I fall short, or feel guilty because I don’t measure up, or feel proud when I do. I’m not talking so much about reasonable rules, such as those against murder or theft. I’m talking about, say, the Christian rule that I should be cheerful and happy, and draw others to Christ through my cheerfulness and happiness. I feel better when I’m not strapped by an iron-clad rule.