How to Deal With a Rebellious Son – City Elders

Who needs juvie when you have rocks?

If a man have stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Moral: “so shalt thou put evil away from among you”

Ref: Deuteronomy 21:18-21

The Guardian Legend – Stopping the God of Sin

Nintendo games are often a guide to greater truth

The New Testament teaches us the God is not the source of sin (James 1:13). This is a little weird because sin exists and God made everything, right? Well, sorta. God made the angels and they were free to make their own choices. They could love God or hate Him. They could choose to sin (2 Peter 2:4). There was even a war in heaven where the sin angels and righteous angels fought (Revelation 12). The losers were cast into hell (2 Peter 2:4). The leader of the sin angels was the greatest among God’s children: Satan, the Dragon, Lucifer, and the Morning Star. He is also known as the God of This World (John 14:30 & 2 Corinthians 4:4). Jesus himself was good enough to warn us that the God of Sin was coming (John 14:30). 



The Fall of the Rebel Angels - Pieter Brueghel the Elder - 1562

  This is all very gloomy. However, I learned hope by playing The Guardian Legend on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

In The Guardian Legend, a large planet-like object named Naju was hurtling toward Earth. It was full of all sorts of powerful creatures that I can only assume were fallen angels, physically distorted by their dedication to sin. "Naju" MUST be how angels say "hell," and is where all the sin angels were sent after they lost the War in Heaven.  

Fortunately for the people on Earth, an earlier attempt to stop Naju left it equiped with a self-destruct sequence that had the potential to keep the God of Sin from reaching our planet.

Additionally, Earth was fortunate to have a sexy lady that was part machine and could transform into a spaceship. Her name was “the Guardian.”

After lots of wandering through Naju trying to increase her battle power, and ten flying sequences, the Guardian finally arrived at the core, where she was able to confront to God of Sin.

It was a tough fight, especially because the God of Sin’s hands did an unbelievable amount of damage when they hit the poor little Guardian. Fortunately for those of us on Earth, she was successful and was able to activate the self-destruct system.

Moral: Always make sure you have a sexy, part-human transformer that can fly through space on your side.

Lessons Learned From Masada – A failed uprising rarely goes well for the insurgents

Now, was Jesus really a threat to the safety of the Jewish people?

Roman occupied Israel was a politically volatile place. As soon as Israel was officially absorbed by the Roman Empire around the year 6 AD, the first significant uprising took place, led by Judas of Galilee. Apparently it was ok to be a semi-independent kingdom, but once people had to pay taxes to Rome, there was an immediate movement to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Holy Land. This movement was called Zealotry.

 

A second insurrection started in 46 AD, once again, in Galilee. This one was called the Jacob and Simon uprising. It lasted two years before the Romans were able to squash it and execute the brothers, Jacob and Simon.

It was between these two rebellions that Jesus was wandering around performing miracles on the Sabbath and preaching all sorts of radical ideas like “love thy neighbor as thyself,” and “it’s more important to forgive than follow the law.” Hell, Jesus’ apostles didn’t even wash their hands. This sort of behavior was clearly leading the people toward revolt! In John 11:47-53 we learn that military action by the Romans was foremost in the minds of the Jewish leadership when they put together their plan to have Jesus executed. They didn’t want him to incite the people to rebellion because they were smart enough to know what would happen to the Jews in open combat against the Roman Empire. Eventually millions of Jews would be killed in rebellions against the Roman Empire, and the entire race was almost wiped out. The Jewish leaders were smart to want to avoid the destruction of their people, and they saw Jesus as a direct threat to the survival of their race.

With the gift of hindsight we can tell that it didn’t do that much good to get rid of Jesus, but it may have delayed the inevitable. In 66 AD, tensions between the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans led to major unrest in Jerusalem and the Romans sent in the troops. This served to organize the rebellious spirit and kicked off seven years of combat action. The Jews did fairly well for themselves and had several surprisingly successful victories.

However, the Jews were unable to last forever against the might of the Roman Empire and after four years of fighting, the bulk of the Jewish resistance was besieged in Jerusalem. It took the Romans seven months to break Jerusalem, and I think it would have taken much longer if the Jews inside hadn’t been fighting among themselves. For example: a group of zealots in the city set fire to the dry food stores to entice the defenders to fight against the Romans, rather than starve. Yeah. That was probably a bad move.

Now we finally get to Masada. It was a roman fortress that was taken by a group of Jewish rebels called the Sicarii in 66 AD. In 70 AD, this group was joined by other Sicarii who managed to flee the destruction of Jerusalem. Masada was an imposing fortress and there was a lot of other work to do in the Holy Land, destroying the pockets of resistance that weren’t wiped out at Jerusalem. It wasn’t until 73 AD that the Roman governor got around to laying siege to Masada.

Masada is built on an isolated plateau. The cliffs on the East side are about 1,300 feet high, but the West side only has a 300 foot drop: child’s play for the Roman legionnaires. A force of 15,000 converged on Masada to lay siege. These fellows didn’t just sit there and try to starve out the defenders, oh no. They spent three months building a ramp to the top of the plateau. Once the ramp was completed, the Romans broke through the wall and found multiple buildings in flames and only two women and five children alive. Everyone else had either committed suicide or killed each other. It was a nasty mess.

Later uprisings in 117 AD and 132 AD resulted in an almost complete genocide of the Jews and the renaming of the region from Judea to Palaestina.

Morals: Don’t mess with the Romans, and not everyone wants a war.

Ref: John 11:47-53

Note: Because the Americans lanched a preemptive strike against Iraq in 2003 to "save lives," they shouldn't have a problem with the Jewish leadership launching a preemptive strike against Jesus to save lives.  

Eglon the Obese and Ehud the Crafty – Doing the work of God

Jehovah picks the winner, but the mortals do the work

Back when Eglon was the King of Moab, the Israelites went back to their old tricks. You know, intermarrying with the locals and worshiping local gods. This brings up an interesting point. What was so awesome about these other gods that made them so attractive to the Israelites? I mean seriously, it’s like every forty years that everyone forgets about Jehovah and starts back into polytheism.

Jehovah doesn’t like god-swapping OR interracial marriage, so He made Eglon and the Moabites strong. With this new help from Jehovah, the Moabites were able to conquer the Israelites and force them into slavery. After 18 years, the Israelites figured out polytheism was a bad move and started to pray to Jehovah again.

Jehovah was happy with the attention, so He went ahead and made a deliverer: Ehud the Left-Handed. The Israelites put together a ridiculously large gift for Eglon and gave it to Ehud for delivery. Ehud made a dagger, strapped it to his thigh, and went to see Eglon.

Once Ehud got to the king’s house, he sent away his slaves that carried the present and said to the king, “I have a secret message for you.” King Eglon loved secrets, so he sent away his guards and slaves. Once they were alone, Ehud said “It’s a message from God!” Then Ehud pulled the dagger off his thigh and made a brave left-handed thrust at Eglon.

The dagger easily pierced Eglon’s fat belly, and Ehud’s thrust was so strong and so true, that the dagger was buried past the hilt and could not be removed.

Because nobody was there to witness the murder, Ehud easily escaped and ran to find the Israelite army he left hidden on Mount Ephraim. This army attacked King Eglon’s people and pretty much wiped them out.

Moral: Jehovah helps strangers when the Israelites are bad; but when the Israelites pray, Jehovah helps them do the killing.

Ref: Judges 3:12-30

Mary’s Teaching Moment – Gender roles among Christ’s disciples

So, was Mary Magdalene a hottie, or a “sweet spirit?”

One day Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ apostles were hanging out, sharing their grief over the Savior’s death when suddenly, Jesus appeared before them: like magic. Jesus took this opportunity to do some teaching about nature, answer a few questions about sin, and demand those present go out and preach the gospel. Then Jesus magically disappeared.

No sooner had Jesus departed than the disciples began to cry. They said, “Oh no! How can we possible preach to the gentiles? If they killed Jesus, they are sure to kill us as well!” Good thing Mary was there. She immediately reprimanded the cry-babies by saying, “Stop being such wimps! Christ’s grace will be with you and will protect you. Instead of crying you should be praising His greatness for making you men.”

This speech turned the hearts of the disciples toward good, and they began to calmly discuss Christ and his teachings again. Peter then said to Mary, “We all know that Jesus loved you more than any other woman. Please tell something Jesus taught you that we have never heard.”

This seemed good to Mary so she told the disciples about a vision she received from Christ. This vision was a lesson about the nature of spirit and overcoming wickedness and went on for several pages. However, because the entire text of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene did not survive, we only have fragments of this important vision.

After Mary finished speaking, Andrew piped up saying, “Ok, you all can think whatever you want about the stuff Mary has been saying, but I personally do not believe Jesus said any of it.” Peter piled on by asking the other men, “Do you all really think Jesus spoke to a woman, and not to us? Why would we listen to her? Did Jesus really love her more than us?”

Things were starting to look bad for Mary, but then, Levi spoke up. He said, “Peter, you’ve always been a hot-tempered bastard, and now I see you fighting against Christ’s woman just like one of God’s adversaries. We all know that Christ chose her above all others. Who are you to reject her? Surely the savior knew her well, and for this reason loved her more than any of us. Let us all grow up a little, set aside our jealousy and shame, and go preach the gospel as our Lord commands.”

Then, finally, Jesus’ disciples went out and started to preach the gospel to the world.

Ref: Gospel of Mary Magdalene: Chapters 4-5 & 8-9

Tamar's Twins - Reminding us that babies are miraculous

In the olden days it was cool for religious leaders to get prostitutes

Once upon a time, Israel's son Judah knocked up his daughter-in-law. The word "Jew" comes from Judah. The Jews are Judah's descendents. It might help to review the story of Tamer's pregnancy.

After Judah had sex with his daughter-in-law, she became pregnant with twins whom she named Zerah and Perez. I don’t know how common twins are when the Father of the Jews gets his dead son’s wife pregnant, but I assume it’s still fairly rare. It must just have been a sign of how special Judah and Tamar’s relationship really was.

When Tamar was delivering the babies, Zarah reached his arm out through his mother’s vagina. The midwife saw it and tied a red piece of string around Zarah’s wrist and said, “This one came out first.”

After the whole wrist incident, Perez was delivered first, then Zerah. However, because Zerah had the red string around his wrist, he got to be the official “first born.”

When I first though about this, I thought there was no way an infant’s arm would be long enough to accomplish Zerah’s feat. However, I checked and among modern, average size people, a newborn’s arms should be around six inches long, and the distance from the cervical opening to the entrance of the vagina is around four inches. That’s totally long enough for Zerah to stick out his hand.

The thing is, there’s not a lot of extra room in your average uterus for a lot of messing around.

 

It's even worse with twins in there.

 

 Unless of course, Tamar had some sort of super-uterus.

 

 I that case, I'm sure Zerah and Perez would have been able to work something out.

Moral: not all uteruses are equal.

Ref: Genesis 38:27-30