Cautions are shared, today, about academic instruction and secular study of the Bible. Often, those who hold seats as college and university faculty are called upon to give instruction regarding doctrine and teachings from the Bible, however, because of the values for their discipline and field of inquiry, what they actually present to their students are arrogance, counterfeit righteousness, ignorance of sacred knowledge, pride and unbelief. While many on our campuses now openly declare themselves to be atheist, it remains that, disbelief and doubt are more in the nature of incompleteness and pseudo-intellectualism than legitimate levels of intellect and genuine achievement. Students are to be alert for those who presume to attack religion as the source of spiritual confusion and fanaticism, for by the standards given followers of Jesus Christ such persons are spiritually immature; therefore, they also foolishly accuse and condemn divinity as the cause of all cruelty, death, human error, malice, murder, suffering, viciousness, and violence. The writer at “Yahoo! Answers” using the ID “Addison Mckinley” (Level 5 with 5,754 points, a member since December 23, 2010) posted the following:
Help with Judges!?
Hi everyone!
So in my theology class we will be discussing Judges starting next week. My teacher handed out a list of two questions to think about as we read Judges and discuss this particular section of the Bible. There are the two questions:
1. The Book of Judges is filled with excessive violence through the various stories. How are these stories intended to illustrate the beauty of God's covenant with Israel, which supposedly should override the violence of the story.
2. Compare and contrast violent stories in Judges with any other story in the Old Testament in order to show any similarities or critical differences.
I just want to sort of have a better understanding of Judges before we actually start reading it next week.
Thanks!
THE GOLDEN ARROW: The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it. And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave their testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will. Of this man’s seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus: (Acts 13: 17-23, KJV)
THE DOUBLE DAGGER: The Right Place to Get Knowledge? (02/17/2014); Arguing Against the Bible in Church? (02/18/2014); Snake Handling? (02/19/2014); That We Might Know (01/07/2014); Why So Much Murder? (01/12/2013); Confusion 2013 (01/13/2013); GOD in Schools? (12/20/2012); Naaman the Leper (12/21/2012)
“Addison Mckinley”, because your teacher’s approach shown in the questions for discussion centers upon violence in the holy writings—rather than the character and nature of divinity, or the place of divine law, holy love, and judgment within the full process of divine revelation—the instruction you are likely to receive probably will not acknowledge the Book of Judges as a written history of sacred not secular events (i.e., actions taken by divinity; miracles), and the word of GOD. Nowadays, it is not inappropriate, as class begins to ask your instructors to state their personal belief regarding the Bible, for it will alert their students to any possible assumptions (statements taken to be truth for the sake of discussion that may remain unchallenged, undocumented, and unsubstantiated), bias, subtleties (barely visible differences; hidden shifts in meaning and value) as well as unintended emphases that might later appear. Often, teachers unknowingly operate as if speaking to unbelievers only.
Academicians repeatedly insist upon a neutrality and “objectivity” that allows dismissing the Scriptures as, themselves, a peculiar appearance of Deity. The divine mind and an eternal perspective are shared using thousands of events occurring within thousands of lives, over the course of thousands of years providing a base of sacred knowledge. Study using tools for literary criticism and scholarly examination of the Scriptures often foster the idea that there is no spirit aspect of mankind that requires continuous cleansing, correction, guidance, healing, management, and nourishment by a sovereign Creator. More than this, many maliciously seek to condemn and deny divinity as cruel, heartless, and inhuman.
Even without the simple, yet, profound problem of sin, divine intent and eternal purpose require that finite created beings and living creatures must acquire correct knowledge of divinity through experiences of intimate relationship that are at once extreme and sublime (we say, asocial, non-material, supernatural). Oral history and knowledge maintained by Adam (who lived nearly 1,000 years, a millennium, upon a pollution-free earth) and the other Patriarchs was amplified through covenant, and written law received and recorded by Moses. A broad range of other divine responses have been provided including confession, contemplation, imparting spirit content through baptism, incarnation, praise, prayer, rebirth, resurrection from the dead, and sanctification.
Once within the Promised Land, following the death of Joshua, the manifest rule of GOD as King among believers was to be through the priests of the tabernacle, and the system of judges over 10s, 50s, 100s, etc. Disobedience, idolatry, pride and the breakdown of the earlier mechanisms for discipline of the nation, called forth new roles as deliverer-judge, and judge-spokesperson (prophet). This would finally result in the miraculous birth of Samuel, who is called the last of the Judges, and the first of the line of Old Testament prophets modeled after Moses and Joshua.
There is far more to be said, correctly applied, and spiritually apprehended. (For example, one important approach to study from the Book of Judges is to respect the entire Bible as documenting a priesthood upon the earth patterned after that in the heaven. Thereby, believers are able to grasp that Jesus Christ is installed as an High Priest to carry out the offering of gifts and sacrifices to GOD as well as performing atonement for the sin among believers. The exceeding damage, filthiness and ugliness of sin against heaven is made clear by its appearance in the earth as habitual and repeated human error.) Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful. Be it unto you according to your faith.
THE BLACK PHOENIX
Washington, DC
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