Paul told his Corinthian followers that in order to persuade people who were under the law, he would sometimes act as if he was under the law. But he said he wasn’t actually under the law.
Then he said in order to persuade people who weren’t under the law, he would sometimes act as if he was not under the law. But he said he actually was under God’s law, and not free from it. Which is just the opposite of what he just said in the previous verse.
Continue reading Was Paul under the law?When the Israelites were about to enter the promised land, Joshua told them that God was certainly going to drive out the nations that were already living there, including the Jebusites.
But later in the book of Joshua, it says the tribe of Judah failed to make the Jebusites leave Jerusalem. Instead, they have had to live alongside them “to this day”. Later, the book of Judges says the Benjamites weren’t able to drive out the Jebusites either. And again, it says they still live there together “to this day”.
Continue reading Were the Jebusites driven out?God watches everything humans do, and there’s nowhere they can hide from him. Their sin and guilt aren’t hidden from him, either. Everything you do that you think is hidden, God will bring into judgment.
People are foolish to think they can hide what they’re doing from God, no matter how hard they try. You can’t get away from God. God is everywhere, so there’s no secret place you can go where he won’t see you. God has eyes everywhere, keeping watch on both the wicked and the good. No matter where you go, God will be there. If you think you’re hidden in the dark, God will still be able to see you like it’s light.
The elders of Israel thought God wouldn’t see what they were doing in the darkness, because God had abandoned the land. But God showed them to Ezekiel in a vision, so he clearly was aware of what they were doing. In fact, nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Cain said his banishment would cause him to be hidden from God, but God said it was not so. Though I can’t really tell if he meant that part was not so, or just what Cain said after that…
Sometimes God intentionally lets things be hidden from him. God commanded his people to bury their poop, to make sure he would never have to see it. God also told his people to put their idols out of his sight, which would be an impossible demand if nothing could be hidden from God.
Habakkuk says God’s eyes are too pure to look at evil, so that means all evil things are hidden from God! Isaiah says God hides himself from sinful people and doesn’t hear them.1 God also told Isaiah that “the past troubles” would be hidden from his eyes.
When God decided to stop inspiring prophecies but the prophets didn’t get the memo and continued prophesying anyway, God said he would cast them out of his presence and forget about them. When Jonah was swallowed by a fish, he said he had been banished from God’s sight.
Continue reading Is anything hidden from God?The Bible says Eve “would become the mother of all the living“. I take that to mean that everyone who has ever lived, or ever will live, is a descendant of Eve.
But the Bible also says there was a guy named Melchizedek who had no ancestors at all. He was “without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life”. If that’s true, he certainly didn’t descend from Eve. He didn’t descend from anybody!
Oh, and there’s also Adam. He didn’t descend from Eve either.
Continue reading Did everyone descend from Eve?God told Moses to tell Aaron to bring a plague on the waters of Egypt, turning all the water into blood. God said blood would be everywhere in Egypt. All the natural bodies of water would be full of blood, and any containers people had been keeping water in would also be full of blood. The Bible says Moses and Aaron did just what God had said, and all the water was changed into blood, and blood was everywhere in Egypt.
After that happened, it says the Nile smelled so bad that the Egyptians couldn’t drink its water. What water? Why would it say that if there wasn’t any water anymore? It sounds like the river was just full of stinky water, not blood.
Continue reading Did all the water in Egypt turn into blood?Moses told his people that when they attacked a city, they shouldn’t cut down the city’s trees. Or at least not the fruit trees. That would be silly; the trees aren’t your enemies. Trees are useful, and fruit trees in particular are most useful when they haven’t been cut down.
God punished Jeremiah’s enemies when they called him a fruit tree and plotted to cut him off and destroy him.
Jesus told a parable where he seemed to approve of a man deciding not to cut down a fig tree even though it hadn’t produced any fruit for three years. (That man Jesus approved of was open to cutting the tree down if it was still unproductive after another year of special care, though…)
The prophet Elisha encouraged the king of Israel and his allies, telling them that with God’s help, they would successfully overthrow their Moabite enemies. He said they would stop up all the Moabites’ springs, ruin all their good fields, and cut down all their good trees. Apparently God thinks spitefully cutting down the enemy’s trees is a good thing now.
Continue reading Should fruit trees be destroyed?The Bible says Hezekiah king of Judah was successful in everything he undertook, because God was with him. The next thing it mentions is that he rebelled against the king of Assyria. How do you suppose that went for him? The kingdom of Israel had been completely conquered by Assyria at that time. But Hezekiah of Judah must have had nothing but success, right?
Continue reading Was Hezekiah successful in everything?Nobody’s perfect, but it would be good if they were… right?
God seems to think so. He tells people they need to be blameless. Eliphaz claimed that it wouldn’t make any difference to God whether someone was blameless, but Eliphaz did not speak the truth about God.
God’s ways are perfect, so we should follow his example and be perfect ourselves. Jesus said so.
Paul told his followers how they could become blameless and pure, and he encouraged them to perfect their holiness. He prayed for them to be pure and blameless, because that’s how he wanted them to be when Jesus returned. Peter, too, told his followers to make every effort to be found spotless and blameless.
In the book of Revelation, Jesus says he’s unhappy with a certain church because those people are neither very good nor very bad. Jesus would prefer it if they were either one of those, but they’re just… in between. Jesus can’t stand that.
Solomon, on the other hand, wisely advises you to be neither very good nor very bad. He says it’s best to avoid any extremes, and to stay in between the two, right where Jesus can’t stand you. And don’t bother trying to avoid doing things you know God won’t like. Solomon wisely says you should just follow your heart and your eyes wherever they take you, even though you know you’ll be bringing judgment on yourself.
Continue reading Should people be perfect?2 Kings tells about Jehoiachin, one of the last kings of Judah. It says Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon besieged Jerusalem until Jehoiachin surrendered. Then Nebuchadnezzar took him to Babylon as a prisoner, and made Jehoiachin’s uncle king of Judah instead.
37 years later, Nebuchadnezzar’s son Awel-Marduk became king of Babylon, and he was nicer to Jehoiachin. He released Jehoiachin from prison on the 27th day of the 12th month.
Continue reading When was Jehoiachin released from prison?According to 1 Kings, King Abijah’s mother Maakah was the daughter of Abishalom. Then in 2 Chronicles, it says she was the daughter of Absalom. That’s probably supposed to be the same name, just written a little differently.
(From the context, it sounds like that likely means David’s son Absalom. That would mean Abijah’s father Rehoboam married his cousin, which might seem weird and unlikely to some people, but note that there are two more first cousin marriages mentioned right there in that same passage. Absalom’s mother was also named Maakah, so maybe he named his daughter after her.)
Two chapters later, though, it says Maakah was the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. That doesn’t sound like the same person at all. Absalom was born in Hebron, not Gibeah.
Continue reading Who was Maakah’s father?