this too shall pass my child...
Posted on 01/23/2013 7:24:58 PM PST by Morgana
No kidding: there are parts of the Bible that most of us would be ashamed to read out loud, never mind post in our blogs. (A certain passage from Ezekiel comes to mind. There's a reason the lectionary has an optional abridged version!) Are we guilty of Cafeteria Catholicism by not focusing on these texts, or making them foundational for theology and spirituality? Is that a kind of bowdlerization of the word of God? Are we presuming to "edit" the Bible and only highlight the nice, agreeable parts? What gives?
The fact is, there are some ways in which the Bible is like a family album. The pictures in the album tell you a lot about where the family came from, or the challenges it faced. Some of the pictures celebrate momentous events: the weddings, the baptisms, the graduations.
(Excerpt) Read more at romans8v29.blogspot.com ...
this too shall pass my child...
Were the Bible not divine, it would be about the perfection of humanity.
Hmm, if one is embarrassed by the Bible, from where is the embarrassment coming? Does the Word of God teach a set of moral principles that lead to embarrassment as a proper reaction to parts of that same Word? That’s a contradiction that cannot stand. So, from where does this embarrassment come? Or is that even the right term for it? Maybe the question is simply one of context. Maybe the whoredoms and such in Ezekiel 16, for example, aren’t quite right for the 1st grade Sunday School class, but are perfectly appropriate and necessary for adults to study. Not everything is “for the children”.
Why get so hung up on the Word when we were given the Son?
Song of Solomon chapter 8
8 Our sister is little and she has no breasts as yet. What shall we do for our sister when her courtship begins?
9 If she is a wall, we will build upon it a silver parapet; If she is a door, we will reinforce it with a cedar plank.
10 I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. So now in his eyes I have become one to be welcomed.
That is just three verses. I could see parents too embarresed to read it to children. Seriously how often do people even read the Song of Solomon. They (men) love the wives submit to your husbands verse but this whole book I think is hardly ever read.
The only thing embarrassing about reading the Bible is when it convicts us of the sin in our lives.
The Bible is the Word. The Word is God. We are actually carrying on a conversation with Jesus as we read the Bible.
I think the stuff not “for children” is what Sister is speaking of. Don’t you think that some of this stuff that is not “for children” is embarrasing to some prudish adults?
Numbers 31 ?
How can something that is inspired by the Holy Spirit be embarrasing?
Numbers 31
17
3 Slay, therefore, every male child and every woman who has had intercourse with a man.
18
But you may spare and keep for yourselves all girls who had no intercourse with a man.
31
So Moses and the priest Eleazar did this, as the LORD had commanded Moses.
32
This booty, what was left of the loot which the soldiers had taken, amounted to six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep,
33
seventy-two thousand oxen,
34
sixty-one thousand asses,
35
and thirty-two thousand girls who were still virgins.
would those be the verses?
Oh please! Any bible verse talking about sex! Some people are so prudish even in today’s porn ridden society. In fact I will do one better. They can look at porn all the live long day but a Bible verse talking about getting it on hot and heavy like in the Song of Solomon and they just totally lose it.
I even used Song of Songs in my wedding.
I get embarrassed at parts of the 10 commandments.....
I went to an Orthodox Jewish Yeshivah from grades 1-12, and we studied the Hebrew Bible (”Old Testament” to you) in the original Hebrew. We started the book of Genesis in third grade, and every once in a while the teacher said that we would skip a chapter because “the Hebrew is too hard.” They were the parts you wouldn’t want to teach third graders— Lot and his daughters, Judah and Tamar, a few others. By the sixth or seventh grade, they stopped leaving parts out (I think we were in sixth grade when we got to David and Bathsheba, and we didn’t skip that.)
>>Some passages are more significant than others. Some passages are more in need of interpretation. <<
May I suggest the passages are in need of understanding? Yes some of the Old Testament needs to be framed in a modern context.
But The New Testament? Jesus’ words and the (admittedly much later) words of His Disciples are clear in all languages.
How sad it is that the Son of God gave us such clear directives and it has taken thousands of years and millions (billions?) of people to work to the end of “getting it.”
>>Do you mean Leviticus Chapter 20 verse 13?<<
“Thou shalt have no obamas.”
Clearly the lesson is overlooked... ;)
(a moment of levity in a serious thread)
>>I even used Song of Songs in my wedding<<
For a second there I read “Song of Solomon.”
Your plan was better :)
You should be delighted to read that the Lord God loved a sinful nation so much that he provided both spiritual and physical resources to the people. The whole chapter is a metaphor of The Lord calling out to the people to turn from their sin and sinfulness. And, of course, you would want to discuss the meaning with the children.
Nothing in my Bible that I’m am embarrassed about or would not read out loud.
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