Matthew 14-16 O thou of little faith

Matthew 14-16

John the Baptist meets his maker?  Did he accept Jesus as his personal savior before he died or wasn't that an option yet?

Jesus then performs a variation on Elisha's bottemless vessel trick, feeding the multitudes with a couple fish tacos.

I like the symbolism in the Jesus walking on water piece;

14:29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

14:30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

14:31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? I knew Jesus walked on water but the rest of the story is so much more compelling with a great message about having faith in his actions.  Why isn't this more well known? I have to give Jesus and pals a big thumbs down in Chapter 15 for not washing their hands before eating.  Even worse, he goes to great lengths to justify his poor behavior. If Jesus had died of food poisoning, would he still have risen a day and a half later? A great line; 15:14 Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Jesus again does the loaves and fishes bit.  This looks suspiciously like a retelling of the first version in a different location.  Poor editing? Another great line; 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Two important lines finish off chapter 16. 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. This seems to say that God will judge man on what he does, not what he professes.  Do good deeds matter? Atheists like to use this line, indicating that the timeframe given by Jesus for the end days was WAY off. 16:28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Discuss.

2 Kings 11-15 Elisha, We Hardly Knew Ye

2 Kings 11-15

These chapters are mostly a chronology of political upheaval and infighting amongst families.

To bad we don't have the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel for the details.

Elisha and Hazael go to "sleep with their fathers".  Once again I find it odd that major characters are so quickly written out of the story.

A dead body falls on the bones of Elisha and comes back to life in the sepulchre.  One last similarity to our man Jesus.

2 Kings 6-10

2 Kings 6-10

Man, the authors of the OT are just getting lazy.

Some guy loses his axe head and Elisha uses God to retrieve it.

Then we get to 6:8-6:10 "Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp."

and "the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice."

Then, Elisha blinds and spares the soldiers that are ordered to bring him to the king of Syria.  Why does he spare these men when just a few chapters ago, he killed over one hundred men with holy fire because they came to talk to him?

We then get a little story about women eating their kids!  This is straight out of Monty Python and a story worthy of Axe Cop!!!

The book then gives us another one of those condensed histories, with famine and the killing of a king.

Elisha then delivers one of my favorite quotes so far in the OT.

At 9:3 we get  "Then take the box of oil, and pour it on his head, and say, Thus saith the LORD, I have anointed thee king over Israel. Then open the door, and flee, and tarry not."

Tell Jehu that he's the king and then run like hell!!!  Sounds more like a prank from a hidden camera show then the Bible.

The catch is, Jehu has to kill the Family of Ahab.  Jezebel is thrown out a window, trampled by horses and eaten by dogs.  She got off easy if you ask me.

As per God's orders, Jehu kills all seventy (?!?!) of Ahab's sons for the sins of the former king.  That sounds fair.

His bloodlust still in full force, Jehu kills Ahaziah's forty two brothers.

God is very happy with Jehu's slaughter.

Once again I'll point out that these chapters seem to be more a chronicle of politics and war and using "God" as an excuse for murdering your rivals.

What do you think?

2 Kings 1-5 The Revenging!

2 Kings 1-5

The above is a New English Translation version.  If the King James version is making you weep blood, try the more user friendly translation.  I'm forced to stick with the toe-crappity KJV.

Anyway, on to the second book of Kings.

When we last checked in with out hapless kings, they were alternating between worshipping and pissing off the LORD.  I'm guessing that the second book will be exactly the same thing.

Ahaziah, the king of the Moabs falls thru his roof garden (?) and gets hurt.  So, he consults a prophet, but from the wrong god.  He then tries to meet with Elijah and the prophet of the LORD kills over one hundred men because their king consulted with the prophets of Baalzebub first.  The king also dies.

BTW, Beelzebubba is a great album by the Dead Milkmen and everyone should buy it.

Elijah goes up to Heaven in a whirlwind.  Why?  Will he come back?  Very Jesus like.

Elisha is freaked out but carries on his friends work.

2:23 gives us one of those great, bizarre head scratching passages that can only be found in the Bible.

Here is a great reenactment of the event.

The Moabs cause trouble again and the splintered tribes of Israel go to battle once more, but only after Elisha has God water there cattle.

The LORD commands another scorched earth policy, telling the Israelites to kill everyone and everything.  They leave without killing everyone after the king offers his son as a burnt offering.  I'm guessing that, again, God will not be happy with only a partial massacre.

We return to the adventures of Elisha and find him performing acts that Jesus will later add to his own bag o' tricks..

The bottomless vessel of oil, raising the dead and curing leprosy.  Elisha could alos make rotten stew yummy again.

I'm going to try and add more links and videos to these posts.  This monotonous stuff is killing my spirit so I need to juice it up.