We have lots and lots of studies on God's love. But I've never seen a Bible study that sought to answer the question of why God ordered the wholesale slaughter of the Amalekites. I've never seen one that addresses the various endings of Mark, or the various interpretations of the Sons of God in Gen 6 and their relation to the flood. What about contradictions and codes? Is evil an argument against Christianity? In what ways can our our primary loyalty to Christ be undercut by the Red, White, and Blue?
So if you were going to create a Red Meat for Men bible study, what would be in it? What parts of the Bible get short shrift, why do you think that is, and why do you think it ought to be different?
* Good Hater will get published as soon as I figure out a painless way to make an index, plus I'm working on some other stuff, but it's all hobby now. 118/70, FTW!
** That's Heb 5:12-14 for those following along at home.
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I would check out pretty much anything by Arnold Fruchtenbaum.
what gets short shrift? heck, practically ANYTHING that doesn't imply that God is nothing but warm fuzziness these days.
there are MORE instances of God being referred to as "just, vengeful, angry, jealous, etc" than there are of Him being referred too as "loving, tender mercies, charitable, etc".
not that i want a doctrine with nothing but fire and brimstone but to go to such an extreme of portraying God as some kind of femme isn't just annoying. it also introduces logical incoherencies.
It reminds me of the pair of theologians from Lewis' Great Divorce. Upon hearing the other state that certain errors, while being sincere, are not innocent, the 'liberal'* complained that his friend would be justifying the Inquisition in a moment.
"Why?" the conservative replied, "Just because the Middle Ages erred in one direction, does it follow that there is no error in the opposite direction?"
There has perhaps been in the American experience too much fire and brimstone, and the complete lack of it today could be a reaction taken to the erroneous extreme.
More likely, however, is that a soft age demands a soft theology; we are happy with ourselves and see no reason why God ought not share that opinion. We don't have a father God, but a grandfather God, who wants nothing more than to see young people enjoying themselves.
One more reason to enjoy history, I suppose. While other ages had their own problems, I am certainly not enamored of our own.
* for lack of a better word.
but a grandfather God, who wants nothing more than to see young people enjoying themselves
..which is to say: spoiled rotten, while the g'parents bear and suffer none of the consequences of said human behavior and results/outcome, while believing, erroneously, that they are 'loving' - they are simply loving themselves..or attempting (falsely to)
Gen6 does indeed - from my studies - explain the "vengeful, murderous God", and therefore the Amalekites (etal) of the OT..Mike Heiser (and others) has the score on that one..following the exegesis, there is no doubt about what Gen6 is saying happened, and the NT gives witness to it..
The Astronaut-theory-alien-seeded-thingy is but a counterfeit (which, by definition, looks like the real thing), which is what the Lie must be in order to be sold and bought...close to the real thing. What else would the Father of Lies produce? Do we pretend that he sucks at his essence?
Hey, ElBo, I have a $4 bill to sell you - What will you give me for it?.
Why did CliveStaplesLewis believe that all of the "dying god" stories of old should be a buttress for and testimony to the Truth?? Because One of the stories was very likely the True One. It "rang true" because it was indeed true. So the question is: which one was it??
Humanity, until very recently, has always believed in "the gods" and creation, etal..most still do, in one form or other.
I said all of that ($10 Cabernet riddled jibberish) to say this:
Bring it On. We should be MeatEaters.
These blogs ARE my Church, and for Good Reason..
"Where 2 or 3 are Gathered...
And I have come to this blog in particular - from thousands of other possibilities - for 5 plus years, for a reason as well..
The day I read BH mention that his child might as well "drink alcohol" with him vs. with damn, predatory strangers...
I knew that most of "Churchianity" had no idea what the f*&k he was saying...but I recognized it.
Immediately. (As an aside - though not irrelevantly - I have a Southern Baptist family member who "hid" drinking from 2 children for 18 Yrs!! Sweet Yeshua!)
That...and BH could shoot his own damn dog when it was time...
Damn. (I wondered if I could..By the way - I couldn't, and didn't , when it came time)
I would be humbled to hear - and Believe to the best of my ability -the Word exposed in this place...
Let us be about the business...no matter where it leads us..
"Lord I believe, help thou..."
I don't think I'm qualified to make suggestions but that has never stopped me before.
I think we are starting to wake up from the feminist haze in this country. I hope we are. So it would be good, I think, to channel this energy so that men learn what God's biblical role for them is, and what it looks like in action.
We need to get away from the churchianity version anyway.
There are a lot of men that grew up in families where mom ran the show. They don't know how to be the head of the household because they have never seen what that looks like.
And the argument from evil is just stupid.
Start with the manliness of Jesus.
I think the last two comments are the most relevant if you're going to teach. Teach how to be head of household and do with the manliness of Jesus as head of the church, ie body of believers not an individual building.
The Bible Study I attend is going to start a video study of the Holy Spirit on the 13th if you want to sit and absorb (like we'd let you actually just do that) for a few weeks while you ponder.
I like straightforward walk through a book Bible study. Start and John 1 and work your way through.
Josh Hunt
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