Tag Archives: prophecy

The Story of Jonah and the Fish—
It was This Big!

June 9, 2024Bible storiesanimals, coercion, deception, destruction, disasters, emotion, escape, evil, failure, fasting, foolishness, gentiles, god, injustice, judgment, miracles, moral influences, morality, murder, obedience, pointlessness, prayer, prophecy, punishment, rescue, sacrifice, self-defeating, ships, torture, weatherR. A. Absalom

God told a prophet named Jonah to go to the Assyrian city of Nineveh and announce that it would be destroyed soon. But Jonah knew God well enough to know that he wouldn’t actually do what he said he would do. Jonah didn’t think it would be right to deliver a false prophecy, so he ran away from God and hid on a ship that was going somewhere else.¹

But God sent a storm, which nearly wrecked the ship. The sailors found out that Jonah had angered his God and brought a storm on their ship. So Jonah suggested they throw him overboard, to divert God’s wrath away from the ship. But the sailors didn’t want to kill him. They tried to sail back and return him to land, so he could resume his mission.

But God liked Jonah’s idea better, so he made the storm worse and prevented them from getting back to land. So the sailors reluctantly threw Jonah overboard, and the storm stopped. God sent a huge fish, which swallowed Jonah and then threw him up on land three days later.

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The Story of Elisha and the Mean Boys—
God Rescues His Servant From Persecution

May 17, 2024Bible storiesanimals, child abuse, curses, death, disasters, flight, god, hair, heaven, insults, massacres, miracles, overreaction, prophecy, punishment, rescue, violenceR. A. Absalom

The life of Elijah the prophet ended when God took him up to heaven in a whirlwind. He was succeeded by his servant Elisha, who gained the ability to do miracles like Elijah had done. As Elisha was walking along, a bunch of boys saw him and started making fun of him because he was bald. This bothered Elisha, so he stopped to put a curse on them. Then God sent two bears out of the woods to maul the mean little boys, so the bald prophet could continue on his way without anyone reminding him that he was bald.

The end.

The moral of the story

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The Story of the Two Prophets—
An Expensive Meal

April 16, 2024Bible storiesanimals, betrayal, deception, failure, faith, fasting, food, god, injustice, jeroboam, mistakes, moral influences, murder, obedience, overreaction, pointlessness, prophecy, punishment, testsR. A. Absalom

During the reign of Jeroboam, God sent a prophet to deliver a message to the king. After ignoring the prophecy, the king invited the prophet to his home for a meal. But the prophet refused Jeroboam’s offer, because God had told him not to eat or drink until he got back to his own home.

On the way home, the prophet met an old prophet. The old prophet also invited him to have a meal, and the younger prophet explained again that he had to wait till he got home to eat. But the old prophet lied and told him that God wanted him to eat and drink with him. So the younger prophet went to the old prophet’s house and ate and drank. Then the old prophet declared that the younger prophet had disobeyed God and would be punished. The younger prophet tried to go home, but God sent a lion after him, and it killed him.

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The Story of Ahab and Micaiah—
God Admits to Inspiring False Prophecy

March 5, 2024Bible storiesahab, angels, betrayal, censorship, death, deception, failure, foolishness, god, imprisonment, injustice, jehoshaphat, micaiah, mind control, morality, murder, overreaction, prophecy, punishment, warR. A. Absalom

God decided to get King Ahab killed by sending him to war with Aram. He sent a spirit to deceive Ahab’s prophets so they would give him bad advice. Evil Ahab was considering retaking some territory that he had lost to Aram. But his ally, Jehoshaphat the good king of Judah, convinced him to seek advice from God first.

Ahab’s 400 prophets, under the influence of the deceiving spirit from God, told him that he should go fight Aram, and he would be successful. But there was one prophet, Micaiah, who had always prophesied bad things about Ahab, so Ahab hadn’t consulted him this time. But Jehoshaphat said he should.

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Can anyone predict the future?

February 27, 2024ContradictionsprophecyR. A. Absalom

No.

Solomon (the wisest man ever, according to the Bible) says no one knows the future, so no one can tell you what’s to come. Because no one knows what’s coming. No one knows when their own death will come. In fact, no one can discover anything about their future, and no one can tell you what’s going to happen in the world after you die, either.

James agrees. He says you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, so you shouldn’t act like you even have any idea what you’re going to do tomorrow.

That’s settled, then. No one can predict the future. The Bible says so. Who’s going to disagree with the Bible? Oh right, of course… The Bible is going to disagree with the Bible.

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The Story of Elijah’s God Contest—
The Gods Must Be Lazy

February 7, 2024Bible storiesahab, animals, anomalous weather, destruction, elijah, evil, failure, fire, idols, insults, israelites, massacres, miracles, mountains, overreaction, prayer, prophecy, sacrifice, testsR. A. Absalom

During the reign of the evil King Ahab, some of the Israelites began to abandon their God. They started worshiping another god, called Baal. So Elijah, a prophet of God, challenged Ahab and the 450 prophets of Baal. He had them meet him on a mountain in the presence of the people of Israel.

Elijah had a bull killed and put it on an altar to sacrifice it to God, but didn’t set it on fire. The prophets of Baal did the same for their god. The prophets kept calling to Baal all day, asking him to prove his existence by setting his bull on fire himself, but Baal didn’t respond. Elijah suggested shouting louder, in case Baal was asleep or something, but that didn’t help.

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Was there another prophet like Moses?

January 30, 2024Contradictionsmoses, prophecyR. A. Absalom

The book of Deuteronomy concludes by stating that since then, there has never been another prophet like Moses—no one who knew God the way Moses did, and could do the miracles Moses did.

But earlier in Deuteronomy, Moses says God is planning to send another prophet like him. Who would that be? The New Testament claims that Moses was talking about Jesus, and Jesus was greater than Moses. If that was really who Moses meant, then I guess that wouldn’t really contradict Deuteronomy saying there hadn’t been another prophet like Moses, since Deuteronomy was definitely written before Jesus.

But is that really what Moses meant when he said there would be another prophet like him? Looking at the context, it seems Moses was talking about a prophet who the Israelites could consult when they moved into the promised land, so they wouldn’t have to resort to other kinds of divination that God didn’t approve of.

Moses was clearly not talking about a prophet who wouldn’t come till hundreds of years after Israel had already disobeyed God in that way so thoroughly that God put an end to their kingdom. More likely, Moses was talking about his immediate successor, Joshua.

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The Story of Rehoboam and Jeroboam—
The Kingdom Splits in Two

January 6, 2024Bible storiesbaasha, betrayal, death, escape, evil, failure, foolishness, god, idols, injustice, israelites, jeroboam, jews, massacres, mind control, murder, obedience, prophecy, punishment, rebellion, rehoboam, reputation, scapegoating, self-defeating, slavery, solomon, suicide, temple, torture, wisdom, workR. A. Absalom

God wanted to punish King Solomon for worshiping other gods. But he liked Solomon’s dead father too much to do that. So he decided to wait until Solomon was dead and punish his son instead.

A prophet announced that God was going to let most of Israel be taken over by Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s officials. Solomon wisely attempted to hinder God’s plan by killing Jeroboam. But before he could, Jeroboam fled to Egypt, where he waited for Solomon to die. Solomon was succeeded by his son Rehoboam.

The people of Israel told Rehoboam they would serve him, but only if he didn’t make them work as hard as his father had. Rehoboam wasn’t sure how to answer them, so he asked for advice. The elders he asked said he should give the people what they wanted. But the young men he asked said he should make the people work even harder. While torturing them with scorpions.

To punish Rehoboam for what his dead father had done, God made Rehoboam decide to follow the bad advice of the young men. This caused most of the Israelites to turn against him. Israel made Jeroboam their king instead of Rehoboam, but the tribes of Judah and Benjamin seceded from Israel. They became the kingdom of Judah, and kept Rehoboam as their king.

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The Story of the Witch of Endor—
The Fall of Tall Saul

March 10, 2023Bible storiesdavid, death, execution, failure, false accusation, foolishness, god, ingratitude, injustice, judgment, law, mistakes, morality, murder, overreaction, philistines, prophecy, punishment, resurrection, samuel, saul, secrets, suicide, torture, warR. A. Absalom

The Philistines came to attack Israel, and King Saul was afraid. Despite what had happened the last time he had sought God’s help, he asked God for advice, but God wouldn’t answer him. (Maybe God was deep in thought, or busy, or traveling, or sleeping…)

Saul wanted to ask God’s prophet Samuel for advice, but by this time Samuel was dead. Saul decided to ask Samuel for advice anyway. So he found a witch and got her to resurrect the spirit of Samuel. He promised her that she would not be punished for what she was doing, which was against God’s law.

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The Story of the Hunt for David—
David Joins Israel's Enemies

January 8, 2023Bible storiesbetrayal, caves, david, deception, destruction, escape, failure, foolishness, forgiveness, god, insanity, israelites, massacres, morality, philistines, pointlessness, prophecy, reputation, revenge, saul, secrets, sleep, theft, warR. A. Absalom

David went to the Philistine city of Gath to escape from Saul. But the people there thought they recognized him as a notorious Philistine slaughterer. So David pretended he was insane,¹ and then he ran away and hid in a cave.

Then he went into a city and fought the Philistines who were attacking it. But God told him that Saul was coming, and that the people of the city would hand him over to Saul to keep him from destroying their city. So David left the city, and what God predicted didn’t happen.

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Reductio Ad Absalom

For the message of the cross is foolishness.

Tag Archives: prophecy

The Story of Jonah and the Fish—
It was This Big!

The Story of Elisha and the Mean Boys—
God Rescues His Servant From Persecution

The moral of the story

The Story of the Two Prophets—
An Expensive Meal

The Story of Ahab and Micaiah—
God Admits to Inspiring False Prophecy

Can anyone predict the future?

No.

The Story of Elijah’s God Contest—
The Gods Must Be Lazy

Was there another prophet like Moses?

The Story of Rehoboam and Jeroboam—
The Kingdom Splits in Two

The Story of the Witch of Endor—
The Fall of Tall Saul

The Story of the Hunt for David—
David Joins Israel's Enemies