Remember the Exodus?

(This blog entry is worth 20 pts and will cover the Exodus and the Covenant themes.)

Long before the exodus, God made a covenant with Abraham: "I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God" (Gen 17:7-8). After the exodus from Egypt, on Mt. Sinai, God said to the people of Israel, "Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:5-6).

The Exodus story is about freedom: freedom from slavery in Egypt under Pharaoh, freedom to worship God, freedom to work the land and provide a legacy for future generations. The Bible says that God chose the people of Israel to be a special, holy people, dedicated to worshiping God and to living as a community of faith in a land filled with non-Israelites. But in order to live in that land they needed first to escape slavery in Egypt and defeat the "foreigners" already living in the promised land. The Exodus story has provided hope for many people. During WWII, Jews, who believe very strongly in their covenant relationship with God, found hope that they would one day escape their imprisonment and flee to Israel to live on the land that was promised to their ancestors. During the 1800's, African-American slaves based their hopes for freedom on the Exodus story. Their music especially reflects their hope for freedom (www.negrospirituals.com).

But it must also be said that the Exodus/covenant story in the Old Testament has also caused some problems. For example, because the Jews believe that Israel is their promised land and that they are the chosen people, the Palestinian people (descendants of the Canaanites) have suffered death and destruction of their land. In addition, black South Africans were brutalized for centuries because white South Africans believed that South Africa was their promised land and that the "unbelieving black 'Canaanites'" needed to be conquered. One black South African says this: "Protestations to the effect that white people are misusing the Bible have neither empowered black people to deliver themselves from this white slavery nor successfully explained to anybody, except the beneficiaries of apartheid, why such a tradition of conquest exists in the Bible in the first place. My contention is that the only adequate and honest explanation is that not all the Bible is on the side of human rights or of oppressed and exploited people" (http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/joshua/apartheid.html). The problem is made even worse when one takes into consideration that in the New Testament Jesus becomes the new covenant and Christians become the chosen people. Many wars have been fought throughout the centuries because Christians believe in their superiority over peopl of other faiths.

What do you think? Is God on the side of all people, regardless of their "chosen" status? How do you know? What does the Bible say? What if you were to put yourself in the place of the "other"? How do you think you might read the Exodus/covenant story if you were a different color, ethnicity, or faith? In this multi-cultural, globally conscious world, who are the "foreigners" and are they truly the enemies? (Remember, this entry is worth 20 pts; think before you type!)

The Bible and the Environment

Particularly in the last 30 years, environmental concerns have been at the forefront of Western society. Everything from the rate at which we consume the world's natural resources to alternative fuel sources, from "save the whales" to "earth-friendly," from landfills to recycling, from the ozone layer to global warming: each issue represents an effort to maintain and sustain our natural habitat.

The Bible says a lot about the natural world. First of all, God created the world and everything in it. Creation is God's means of judging and saving the people; it is also God's means of showing God's power in the world. People were put on the earth for a purpose: to care for God's creation. So, though human beings certainly have been blessed with the intelligence and the power to use creation to our own ends, according to the Bible our purpose is to serve the land and all that is in it.

Science has shown that we are not doing a very good job of this. Overpopulation and industrialization have impacted our environment in alarming, sometimes irreversible ways. Some have even predicted that at the rate we are consuming natural resources, there won't be any left for future generations.

What do you think? What is it that we truly need for survival and in what ways do we take advantage of the gift of creation? What can we do better?

God in the Bible

Marcion, a second century bishop, believed that there were two Gods to be found in the Bible. In his work, Antitheses (c. 150 A. D.), he set forth many examples in which he compared Old Testament sayings about God and New Testament sayings about God. From these various examples Marcion concluded that the God of the Old Testament, the "Creator God" was harsh, judicial, and distant from humankind. On the other hand, the God of the New Testament, the "Supreme God," was kind, gentle, and in touch with the needs of human beings.

Though Marcion was considered a heretic by the early Christian church, his thoughts still live on in Christianity today. Ask any random Christian on the street and you will likely hear that God is harsher and more distant and judgmental in the Old Testament than in the New Testament. Though all Christians believe in one God, and that Jesus is the human incarnation of God, many will be hard-pressed to find evidence in the Bible that contradicts Marcion's ideas.

What do you think? Do you think God is portrayed differently in the Old Testament than in the New Testament? If so, how? Can you back up your thoughts with evidence from the Bible?