DV8

Kings 21:16 Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end—besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

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The Salvation of the people before Jesus Christ’s incarnation

In Chronicles 33: 12-13 In his distress he sought the favor of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God.

Many people agree with that Manasseh was saved by God, but I don’t agree absolutely. The New Testament is clear that only through the death and resurrection of Christ is there forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. There is no other way to earn salvation. If this were not so, the incarnation and crucifixion would be unnecessary. In Hebrews 12:2 “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith”. The people after Jesus’ death and resurrection are saved through their faith in the Christ who came to the world. And the people before Jesus’ be born were saved through their faith in the Christ who will come. So all the God’s people are saved through Christ, the people before Christ had faith in the coming Christ, but we have faith in the Jesus Christ who has come. Manasseh humbled himself before God, prayed to God, it’s good, and God showed mercy on him, but it is not enough. The Bible don’t tell us he were looking forward to the coming Jesus, just repentance is not enough, repentance cannot save people from sins, God’s people should repent first, but then they must accept Jesus Christ (irrespective He will come, or He has come), as their lord and their savior. Manasseh just repented; he did not know he should believe in the coming Christ. I don’t agree with that he got the salvation, although most of my classmates agree with it.

DV7

2 Kings 2:9 when they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?” “Let me inherit a double portion of your Spirit.” Elisha replied.

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Heroes in God’s kingdom

 

Elisha set up a good example for us. His ambition is rare in God’s kingdom, in our church. If there were an “Elijah”, after many years, we could not find a “Elisha” who can surpass his precursor, some time we are too “humble” that we almost lose the heart of striving for God’s kingdom, we are lazy. We should imitate Elisha’s aspiration. We should have the desire to be exhausted for God’s kingdom. We should try our best completely, so that we have done the best we have done, we cannot do better. In Luke 12:48, From everyone who have been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. So we cannot be lazy, we cannot belittle ourselves. If God has given us much, but we don’t do enough, how can we face the judgments before Him in the future? God is not only love, He is fearful, “Our God is a consuming fire.” It’s necessary that the successor is better than his predecessor in church. The world is advancing quickly everyday, but our church grows so slowly, maybe the reason is the leaders of the church are not better than their predecessors. It’s the leaders’ responsibility to be better than their predecessors. If you don’t have the strong desire to surpass your predecessors, you should not want to be a leader in the church. In 1 Kings 19:4 Elijah’s reason for asking death is unique, from his words we can find his greatness, he said, “I have had enough, Lord, Take my life. I am no better than my ancestors.” Of course, Elijah is a great prophet. But his successor Elisha said “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.” He wanted to be much better than Elijah. In our time, in our church, we need the heroes in God’s kingdom who can surpass the great men of church history. We need them to change our church; we need them to change the evil world. Let us prepare our heart, to strive for God’s kingdom. If we are heroes in God’s kingdom, try to imitate Elisha to “inherit a double portion of your spirit”, if we are not heroes, try our best to assist the heroes. So that we can get the same comments from God: “Well done, my good servant!”

DT8

8. Discuss the relationships of the prophets of Ancient Israel with the throne (government), the temple (religion), and the people (society).

The prophets of Ancient Israel were the “spokesmen” of God. By God’s power, they spoke God’s words according to God’s commands. Prophets were very important; the destiny of the Israelites was decided by how they listened to the prophets, their reflection of God’s words. God spoke to the Ancient Israelites through the prophets. God permitted the Israelites (people) to know what He has prepared for human beings, the grace to complete the people. The prophets declared the people’s descent, corruption. They spread the message that the people needed to repent. The prophets rebuked the people according to The Law. When the prophets saw the Israelites worship idols, commit sins; they blamed them including the rulers (government) bravely. The purpose of God’s giving The Law to Israelites is to tell them they have committed sins, but the people didn’t recognize their sins, they violated knowingly. And they were pride because they had The Law other nations didn’t have. So God blamed them through prophets. The most important message of the prophets is to prophesy Jesus Christ’ coming to settle the problem of man’s sins. So the religion should point to the coming Savior: Jesus Christ. But the Israelites made a serious mistake, their ideas about the coming messiah are wrong, they limited God’s plan to their narrow nationalism. Until today the Jewish people believe The Law can save them. Of course The Law is God’s unchangeable words, but the function of The Law is not to save people from their sins; but to tell them they have committed sins, and lead them the Savior: Jesus Christ, so it is almost impossible for Jewish people to believe in Jesus Christ. So the prophets’ words is one of the two foundations of the only true religion: Christianity. From Bible, we can find, if the kings (government) committed sins, the prophets would rebuke them; they spoke with the authority from God, although they didn’t have military, political power, they rebuked the people, the government, the religion in God’s name bravely. The prophets of Ancient Israel was the spokesmen of God to tell God’s words to the throne (government), the temple (religion), and the people (society).

DT6

 

6. Read Dr. Isbell’s article “History and Writing.” According to him, what is the biblical text disclosing? What is the relationship of the Bible with History?

According to Dr. Isbell, the biblical disclosing:

The biblical narrative is not the kind of historical evidence we would use to prove OR disprove such things. The Bibleis less concerned to be used as a source of historythan it is to offer a prophetic, a moral, a Yahwistic interpretation of the true meaning of history! Whenever we encounter biblical stories clothed in the format of historical narrative, this prophetic or interpretative perspective of the Bible can never be overlooked, just as it is essential to know the perspective of the author of any book.

The relationship of the Bible with History:

Certain biblical data are dry facts and figures, at least some of which can be checked and cross-referenced. Thus, the dates of a king’s rule may be synchronized with Babylonian or Assyrian sources, and Isaiah’s account of the siege of Sennacherib can be compared with the Assyrian view of the same incident.

the authors and editors of Scripture did not intend to write what we define as history. If the Bible is read only as a search for facts,then most of its message will be lost, for the authors of the Bible were not interested in gust the facts. which they assumed true influenced people to live. That is why the Bible is so difficult to read and understand. We want to know facts of a kind that the Bible most often does not give. But it does not follow that because their interest in historywas different from ours we may pronounce them at fault, even less that we may accuse them of twisting the truth to create out of whole cloth a piece of writing they themselves knew to be false and did not believe. We may be so arrogant as to assume that we know better than they did what they should have put in their Bible. But I doubt that they were so arrogant as to presume readers would be so gullible that both their present and all later generations [including us] could be fooled by ideas they themselves knew fully well to be mere fiction.

 

DT7

7. Choose a king from the North. Summarize his reign and the evaluation of it. What could have he done different in order to have a positive evaluation from God?

Ahab

According to 1 Kings 16–22

In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two year. Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.

If Ahab wanted to have a positive evaluation from God, he should have a fearful heart before the Lord, he should do what was right in eyes of the Lord his God. He should not marry Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians. From Bible, Jezebel was more evil than her husband, 18:4 “While Jezebel was killing off the Lord’s prophets”, 21:25-26, There was never a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife. He behaved in the vilest manner by going after idols, like the Amorites the Lord drove out before Israel. And in Chapter 21, Jezebel used a trap to plunder Naboth’s vineyard by kill him for her husband. She also persecuted Elijah. So Ahab should not marry Jezebel, he should marry a woman who feared God as his queen.

He should fear God, obeyed God’s commandments. And although he married the evil woman, he was the king, he should not be impacted by his evil wife, he should lived a righteous life to affect his wife.

 

Dv6

1 kings 19:10, 14, He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your convenent,  broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too. 16, Also , anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 18, Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel–all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/413286898_a14acd65d8_m.jpgThe attitude of God’s servants
God’s plan will never change. No one can change God’s plan. No one was so important that if he don’t serve God, God’s work will be stopped or collapsed. Of course, Elijah is a great servant of God, a great prophet; but in 19:10,14, he looked himself too high, he said the words, just like he was the only one who can serve God, if he didn’t serve God, or he was killed, God’s work should be stopped. But this is his own wrong opinion. In 18, God told him to response his wrong viewpoints. I reserve seven thousand in Israel all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him. And probably because of Elijah’s pride. God raised up Elisha to replace him. Nowadays, every servent of God should understand, you are not so important that you cannot be replaced. It’s God’s mercy and grace that we can be his servants and take part in His eternal plan. We should be fearful before him because the grace is not the one we deserve. If we don’t serve God. God’s plan or God’s work abosulately will not be impacted, he will raise up other people to continue his work. So if we don’t serve God. It’s not God’s loss, God will loss nothing. But we will loss the treasure in heaven, forever! God is everything, we are nothing, I cannot understand the mystery that why God permit we to take part in His eternal love. So we should be thankful, worship God with awe and reverence, May God use us, because we absolutely don’t deserve being used by Him. It’s His great mercy and grace.

DV5

2 Samuel 13: 1-2 In the course of time, Ammon son of David fell in love with Tarmar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David. Ammon became frustrated to the point of illness on account of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her. 14-15 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her. The Ammon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Ammon said to her, “Get up and get out!”

 

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Holy Love

Men are false, only our God is faithful. Men know us by our appearance, but the Lord knows our heart. In verse 1-2, Ammon fell in love with Tamar, it is normal. But from the continued verses we can find that Ammon was only a lustful person, he was only interested in Tamar’s beauty, he just wanted to fulfill his own prurience by having sexual intercourse with Tamar. So he set a trap and raped Tamar. after his lust being fulfilled, he didn’t want to be with responsibility to what he had done. In the beginning, he fell in love with Tamar and hated her more than he had loved her. God is love, His love is absolutely different with the love of human’s. His love is holy, only his love never changes. His love is for the benefit of anyone else who cannot be helpful or useful to him. Of course, we are the creation who has the image of God, we have feelings , one of them is love. But we should get rid of the fleshly love, because it is always ignorable, superficial, selfish and impermanent. We should aspire and try our best to establish a love just like Jesus Christ. We should love other people, even though they are not lovable, they are not beautiful, they have no possibility to benefit us. we love them just becaue it’s God’s order: You should love your neighbors, just like love yourself. And all of us are not lovable before God.We should love people, just because they are the creations who have the image of God. Let our wandering feeliings go back to the Holy love of God. This is the way through which God is pleasure with us.

DT5

Is David the first King of Israel? why or why not?

David is the first king of Israel.

Saul,first “king” of Israel (c. 1021¨C1000 BC). According to the biblical account found mainly in I Samuel, Saul was chosen king both by the judge Samuel and by public acclamation. Saul was similar to the charismatic judges who preceded him in the role of governing; his chief contribution, however, was to defend Israel against its many enemies, especially the Philistines.

David,second of the Israelite kings (after Saul), reigning c. 1000 to c. 962 BC, who established a united kingdom over all Israel, with Jerusalem as its capital. In Jewish tradition he became the ideal king, the founder of an enduring dynasty, around whose figure and reign clustered messianic expectations of the people of Israel. He was a symbol of fulfillment in the future.

So David is the first real King of Israel, He establish a kingdom, and his government had a good organization. This is the symbol of a real kingdom, in 2 Samuel 8:15-18 David reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people. Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were priests; Seraiah was over the Kerethites and Pelethites; and David’s sons were royal advisers.

Saul, only he was called a king, but he was not a real king. he was similar to a judge, his “kingdom” didn’t have organization, just like 1 Samuel 13:1-2 Saul was thirty years old when he became king and he reigned over Israel forty two years. Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Micmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest of the men he sent back to their homes. He has no officialism, he was more like a tribe leader than a king. so he was not a real king, just was called a king.

Reference:Bible;Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

DT4

4. Is the book of Samuel pro-monarchy or anti-monarchy? Why/Why not?

 

The book of Samuel is neither pro-monarchy nor anti-monarchy.

 

The key character of the book is not Saul or even the favorably presented David, but Samuel. Samuel’s function is to highlight the central theme of Yahweh’s kingship. As Yahweh’s representative, he is the king maker and the king breaker. As prophet, his word is the king’s word – to disobey Samuel is to refuse Yahweh’s rule.

 

The structure highlights Samuel’s central role. The book begins with Samuel’s birth, and even though he dies half way through the book, Samuel still gets the last word, making a dramatic curtain call just before the end (Chap 29). The book closes with the fulfillment of his prophecy – Saul’s death in chapter 31.

The Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Samuel are best understood together. The story moves from Israel worshipping God in a tent at Shiloh, to the temple promised and all but built; from Israel virtually a vassal of the Philistines and under threat from other nations, to the stability of the Davidic Empire; and from the unstable rule of the Judges, to the monarchy and the promise of an everlasting house. In short, the two books were taken together move from apostasy, to the golden era of the Old Testament.

 

Most probably written during the Exile, 1 and 2 Samuel ask the question: “what went wrong?” There are seemingly both favorable and unfavorable reflections on kingship intertwined (e.g. 1 Samuel 8 anti-monarchy, 1 Samuel 9 pro-monarchy). However, the institution of Israel’s monarchy is not judged as either good or bad. The real issue is Yahweh’s kingship. 1 & 2 Samuel are book-ended by Hannah’s song (1 Sam 2) and David’s song (2 Sam 22), and the theme of both is Yahweh’s kingship. Monarchy is OK, provided the monarch understands that Yahweh is the real king. This is the obvious lesson in both Saul’s failure and David’s rise. The exilic writer is pointing out that what has gone wrong is that Israel has always been a nation that has refused to submit to Yahweh’s kingship. The big application for us today is the importance of obedience.

 

 

Reference: Perspective online: 1 Samuel—quest for a king.

 

DV4

1 Samuel 13:14 But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.

 

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A servant after God’s heart

 

In Samuel 13:14, apparently, the man after God’s heart points to David. But in the Bible, we can find at least two serious sins David have committed: the first one is in 2 Samuel, chapter 11, David committed adultery with a very beautiful woman—Bathsheba, and set a trap to kill Bathsheba’s husband—Uriah, so that he can marry Bathsheba. Another one is in 2 Samuel, chapter 24; David counts the fighting men of Israel for his own glory, not because of God’s command. David committed serious sins, in 2 Samuel, chapter 11:27, after David’s adultery, “But the thing David had done displeased the Lord”. Why God called him “a man after his own heart” before He selected David? God is omniscient, He never makes something wrong. In Isaiah 64:7 “No one … or strives to lay hold of you” But from Bible we can find: although David committed sins, but he always grasped God, his life always looked God as the Lord. Isaiah 42:1 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight, I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.” Luke 3:22 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am very pleased.” In the two verses, the servant and the son is Jesus Christ, who is the only one after God’s heart completely. But Jesus is God, He is not a sinner. In the Bible, David is the only sinner God commented him as “a man after God’s heart”. God was the center of David’s life, he never had exceptions on God’s decision, and he always obeyed God. After he committed sins, always he was conscience-stricken and repentant before God. He looked God as God, so God gave him a fabulous comment. We should imitate David’s attitude toward the sins, toward God, so that we can have possibilities to be a person after God’s heart. And we should be watchful every minute, because from David’s weakness of committing sins we can learn a historical lesson written in blood: his secret adultery and murder caused his four sons’ death, his ten concubines were raped by his son Absalom in the sight of all Israel; his counting the fighting men caused seventy thousand Israelites’ death.