Tag Archives: punishment

The Story of Ananias and Sapphira—
The Communist Cult

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The disciples of Jesus were given the ability to perform miracles better than Jesus, and they convinced thousands of people to join their new religion. The members of this original Christian church didn’t keep any personal property; they shared everything they had. Everything they earned had to be brought to their leaders to be distributed among the community according to their needs.

The goal was for everyone to be equally well off, with no one having too little or too much. Everyone was to be paid the same regardless of how much or how little work they did, just as Jesus (and his ancestor David) had taught.

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The Communist Cult →
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God has no excuse for punishing people

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When the Bible describes God “punishing” people, most of the time he’s actually harming innocent people instead of the person who actually did something wrong. But even when he does manage to target the right person, is it right for him to be harming people?

If you’re going to be inflicting harm on people, you’d better have a very good reason to do it. There are several purposes that punishment is meant to accomplish, that are said to justify the practice of punishing people. But those justifications are questionable, and particularly if you’re God, none of the justifications apply. God has no excuse for ever punishing anyone.

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The Story of Queen Esther—
A Leisurely-Delivered Urgent Message

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An ineffective feminist, a beauty queen, and a genocidal anti-Semite

Xerxes king of Persia (the grandson of Cyrus) held a banquet. He showed off his vast wealth to his nobles and officials and subjects there. He wanted to show off his beautiful wife Vashti too, but she refused to come. The king consulted seven wise men, and they said he should divorce Vashti. That way, all the women in his kingdom wouldn’t think they could get away with disobeying their husbands. So he divorced her.

Now the king needed to find a new wife. So he had lots of beautiful young women from all over the kingdom brought into his harem, so he could try them out. After four years of this, the king found that a girl named Esther was the most attractive. And he made her his new queen.

King Xerxes’ top official was Haman, a descendant of Agag the Amalekite and enemy of the Jews. The king commanded everyone to kneel before Haman, but Esther’s cousin, Mordecai the Jew, refused to do so. This made Haman very angry. So he convinced the king to have all the Jews in the kingdom killed at the end of the year. The king was happy to issue this decree. (He didn’t realize that his wife Esther was Jewish, since she had never told him.)

Esther tries to waste her opportunities

When Mordecai heard about what was happening, he told Esther she should talk to her husband about it. But Esther said no one was allowed to approach the king without being summoned. Anyone who did was usually killed. And the king hadn’t called for her in a month. But Mordecai said if Esther didn’t go to the king, she would be killed anyway, because she was Jewish. So Esther decided to go ask the king for help.

The king was happy to see his beautiful wife, and decided not to kill her for entering his presence. He asked her what she wanted. But instead of telling him, she asked him and Haman to attend a banquet with her. At the banquet, the king asked Esther what she wanted again. But instead of telling him, she asked him and Haman to attend another banquet with her the next day.

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A Leisurely-Delivered Urgent Message →
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The Story of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel—
Daniel in the Lions' Den

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Fake fortune tellers exposed

After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon captured Jehoiakim (the third-to-last king of Judah), the four smartest aristocratic young men in Judah were brought to Babylon to be Nebuchadnezzar’s advisers. Their names were Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and Daniel, but king Nebuchadnezzar renamed them Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Belteshazzar. (Apparently one of those new names wasn’t so catchy.)

Nebuchadnezzar had a troubling dream about a big statue being smashed by a rock, which then became a huge mountain. He decided to see if his magicians could tell him what it meant. To make sure they were really capable of interpreting it, instead of telling them what he had dreamed about, he demanded that they tell him first. The magicians said that was impossible; only a god could do that. Since they couldn’t read his mind, the king decided to have all the wise men in Babylon killed for being frauds.

But the king’s wise adviser Daniel said that wouldn’t be necessary, because his God could help him do what the king demanded. Daniel described the dream and said it was a prediction about the kingdoms that would come after Nebuchadnezzar’s. The king was very impressed, and he promoted Daniel and his friends to high positions.

Daniel obeys the king

After he had a dream about a huge statue, Nebuchadnezzar decided to make a huge statue. He decreed that everyone had to worship the statue or die. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to worship it, so the king had them tied up and thrown into a furnace. Daniel didn’t get thrown into the furnace, so apparently he was willing to worship the king’s idol.

God sent an angel to protect Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and they came out of the furnace unharmed. The king was very impressed, and he promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to high positions.

God continues to communicate badly

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Daniel in the Lions’ Den →
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The Story of the Exile of Israel and Judah—
The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms

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Where the Samaritans came from, according to the Jews

Jotham’s son Ahaz was an evil king of Judah, so God sent the kings of Israel and Aram to fight against him and defeat him after God had promised they wouldn’t defeat him.1 After God predicted Assyria would destroy Judah, Ahaz got the king of Assyria to instead help him attack Israel, by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God.

Hoshea, the next king of Israel, was an evil traitor. When the king of Assyria found that out, he took Hoshea prisoner and conquered his country, putting an end to the kingdom of Israel. The people of Israel were exiled to Assyria, becoming the Ten Lost Tribes. The king of Assyria sent foreign pagans to settle in the former land of Israel, becoming Samaritans.

How Hezekiah used the gift of success

Ahaz’s son Hezekiah was the most righteous king Judah ever had. So God made him successful at everything. Hezekiah successfully convinced God to let his people break God’s law by celebrating the Passover in any way they wanted.

He successfully rebelled against the king of Assyria, so God told the king of Assyria to destroy Judah. But righteous Hezekiah kept the king of Assyria from conquering Judah by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God (which his father had already given to the king of Assyria). After Hezekiah successfully convinced the king of Assyria not to conquer Judah, the king of Assyria continued to try to conquer Judah, as God had commanded him, until God got him killed.

Hezekiah got sick, and God sent a prophet to tell him that he would never recover. But Hezekiah successfully convinced the never-changing God to change his mind, and so he recovered anyway.

Men from Babylon came to visit Hezekiah, and he showed them all the treasure and stuff he owned. The prophet told Hezekiah that now that the Babylonians knew about all that treasure, they were going to steal it all some day. And they would kidnap and castrate some of Hezekiah’s descendants. Righteous Hezekiah said he didn’t mind that, since he wouldn’t be around when it happened.

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The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms →
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The Story of the Good Kings of Judah—
No Rest for the Righteous

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After Queen Athaliah was murdered, she was replaced by the seven-year-old king Joash. He reigned for 40 years, doing what was right. Joash had two wives, and he wouldn’t worship God or listen to his prophets. God got Joash severely wounded in battle, and then his own officials murdered him.

Joash was succeeded by his son Amaziah, who killed his father’s murderers. He reigned for 29 years, doing what was right. Just like his father, Amaziah wouldn’t worship God or listen to his prophets. So God got the king of Israel to attack Judah, and then Amaziah got murdered, too.

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No Rest for the Righteous →
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The Story of the Evil Kings of Judah—
David's Dynasty Starts to Approach Hitler Levels of Evil

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Rehoboam, the first king of Judah, was evil. He and his cousin Maakah had a son named Abijah, who succeeded him as king and was also evil. With God’s help, Abijah killed half a million Israelites.2

The next king of Judah was Abijah’s son Asa, and he always did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Asa brutally oppressed his own people, led them to steal building materials from the king of Israel, and imprisoned people when they criticized him. He took money from God’s treasury and used it to pay the king of Aram to fight against God’s people Israel. God was displeased with this, because he had wanted to fight against Israel himself. So then Asa developed a severe foot disease, and he died two years later.

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David’s Dynasty Starts to Approach Hitler Levels of Evil →
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The Story of Jonah and the Fish—
It was This Big!

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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.3

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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It was This Big! →
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The Story of Elisha and the Mean Boys—
God Rescues His Servant From Persecution

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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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God Rescues His Servant From Persecution →
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The Story of the Two Prophets—
An Expensive Meal

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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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An Expensive Meal →
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