Shimei said God had given David’s kingdom into the hands of his son Absalom. And David said the things Shimei was saying against him were what God had told him to say. So this statement in favor of Absalom being king seems to be coming from God.
But in the chapter after that, the Bible says God influenced Absalom to listen to bad advice, in order to bring disaster on Absalom. So God doesn’t seem to be in favor of Absalom being king.
Continue reading Did God want Absalom to be king?When a servant failed to do what his master had told him to do, the master beat him a lot. Another servant hadn’t even been told what his master wanted, but the master beat him anyway. But not as much.
Continue reading The Parable of the Uninformed Servant2 Samuel says God incited David against Israel and told him to take a census. (Which God afterward decided was somehow a bad thing for David to have done.)
But then when the same story is retold in 1 Chronicles, this version of the story blames it on Satan. It says Satan incited David to take a census of Israel.
Continue reading Who made David take a census?Judging by what the Bible says about them, it seems God and Satan do a lot of the same things.
God owns and controls the whole world. And so does Satan.
The devil doesn’t want people to do what’s right. And God doesn’t want people to even know what’s right.
The devil is a liar, and the father of lies. So is God, who deceives people all the time. God told the first lie, and he even uses his mind control powers to help Satan lie more effectively.
God made a tree with fruit that could bring death, as well as one with fruit that could bring immortality. And he punished humanity with death when they ate the fruit from the first of those trees. It’s not really clear whether or not he had made humans immortal to begin with, but either way, it is clear that God holds the power of death. And so does the devil. (The devil doesn’t seem to actually do much with that power, though, unlike God, who is the reason people die.)
It’s the devil’s fault that there are evil people in the world. It’s also God’s fault that there are evil people in the world. How could it not be, if God is the ultimate cause of all things in existence? According to God, humans are just evil, and God really never should have made humans in the first place. It was a bad decision, and he regrets it.
When people do evil, it’s often because they are being influenced by the devil. And far more often, it’s because they are being influenced by God. How could it not be, if everything that happens is part of God’s plan?
God ruined Job, a blameless and upright God-fearing man, destroying nearly everything Job had, for no reason. (The devil made him do it!) Then Satan inflicted physical torments on Job. (With God’s permission.) Actually, Satan helped a little when God was wrecking Job’s life. And God helped a lot when Satan was wrecking Job’s body. (Helped Satan, I mean, not helped Job.) Teamwork!
God teaches people not to blaspheme, and so does Satan. Apparently Satan is pretty helpful to Christians that way.
God saves people from hell, and so does Satan. Though the devil also gets in the way of people believing and being saved, and so does God. And Jesus.
Satan induces people to commit adultery, and so does God. Maybe that’s why Jesus thinks you need to ask God not to lead you into temptation.
According to 1 Chronicles, Satan incited David to take a census. And according to the version of that same story in 2 Samuel, God incited David to take a census. Both Satan and God are described as taking action against Israel when they do this. It’s like they’re allies or something.
Some people, particularly prophets, can only do and say what the Lord tells them to. He has taken them captive to do his will. Just like the devil, except with no hope of escape.
Continue reading God and Satan: Not so differentJehoshaphat of Judah joined forces with Joram of Israel and the king of Edom to fight against Moab. The Bible says Jehoshaphat did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but Joram did evil in the eyes of the Lord. So was fighting against Moab the right thing or an evil thing to do, in the eyes of the Lord?
Continue reading Did God want the Israelites to fight the Moabites?A man had 100 sheep, but one of them wandered away. Rather than taking precautions to make sure none of the other sheep would get away too, he abandoned his flock while he looked for the missing sheep, because he cared about the lost one so much more than he cared about the other 99.
The end.
God likes it better when people sin and repent than when they don’t sin and don’t need to repent.
Continue reading The Parable of the Single-Minded ShepherdThere were two sisters named Oholah and Oholibah, who were prostitutes. A man married both of them, even though he thought their prostitution was disgusting. Then the man got all the women’s lovers to come and murder them and their children after cutting off their noses and ears.1
The end.
Don’t marry someone who hates you.
God’s law says you shouldn’t sacrifice your children to Molek, and if you do, you can be stoned to death. It also says not to sacrifice your sons and daughters in the fire at all. Not even as a way of worshiping God, because God hates it when people worship their gods that way. Whenever God’s people and kings do sacrifice their children, the Bible generally says that what they’re doing is detestable and evil and makes God angry.
God told Jeremiah repeatedly that it had never even occurred to him to command people to do such a detestable thing as to burn their children in the fire. God told Ezekiel that his people were defiling themselves with this bloodshed. Hosea says God threatened to destroy his people for sinning by offering human sacrifices. And Micah didn’t seem to think God wanted him to offer his firstborn, or anything else, for that matter. David too claims that God doesn’t desire sacrifices and offerings at all.
But obviously David and Micah were wrong to think that God didn’t want sacrifices. God’s laws demand loads of those. And sometimes he even demands that people sacrifice their children to him.
Continue reading Does God want people to sacrifice their children?Some Canaanites had a baby girl, but they hated her for some reason, so they left her to die in a field. A man found the baby lying there naked, and he magically made her grow up and become beautiful. Then he abandoned her too.
Later, the man came back and noticed that the naked girl was all grown up! She had boobs and everything. So he married her. But this woman had an extremely high sex drive, and her husband couldn’t satisfy her. So she started having sex with her well-endowed Egyptian neighbors, and with every stranger who passed by. She made statues of men and had sex with them, too.
Her husband was furious and called her a whore, even though he knew that she was actually the one paying for all that sex. He tried to punish her by stripping her in front of all her lovers, as if they hadn’t already seen her naked. Then the beautiful woman’s lovers got a mob to come and kill her, for some reason.
The end.
A certain cedar of Lebanon was the biggest and most beautiful tree around, even bigger and more beautiful than the ones in God’s garden. But God thought it was wicked for the cedar to stand so tall and proud, so he let a ruthless emperor cut it down. He warned the other trees not to grow taller than the rest, or they would die too. Then all the other trees in Lebanon died too. (Presumably because there was always a tallest remaining tree.)
The end.
Don’t be tall and beautiful.
Continue reading The Parable of the Big Tree