The Bible is a big book. Such a big book, in fact, that people often try and condense it to its most important bits, and explain everything in as few words as possible. One time, I was told that the Old Testament was basically a story of how God loves His people. While I hadn't - and still haven't - read the Old Testament in its entirety, I was unsure as to whether this was an accurate description or not.
However, I recently came across the verse Judges 10:16, and realised that actually, this description is not very far off at all.
Judges is the story of the Israelites when they first settle in the Promised Land, after they have driven out the peoples who were already living there. A lot of Judges seems to be the Israelites turning away from God and sinning, so in response God allows them to be occupied or attacked by another nation. After living under oppression, the Israelites remember the LORD and turn back to Him, and He gives them a judge to rule over Israel and drive out the oppressive nation (this is before Israel had a king). Once the judge that God has appointed has driven out the other nation, the Israelites have peace as long as that judge is alive. However, once the judge has died, they go back to their old sinful ways and the cycle starts all over again...
This passage is no different. The previous judge, Jair, has died and the Israelites begin to worship other gods. In response, God allows the Philistines and the Ammonites to attack Israel. When they realise that they have done wrong by turning away from God, they cry out to Him for help. One of the most astonishing things I find about this passage is that when the Israelites cry out to God, He reminds them of all of the times that He has saved them in the past, and tells them that despite all of this, they still turned from Him. He tells them to ask the gods that they have been worshipping to save them. But the Israelites realise that they have sinned, and this is where we get to Judges 10:16.
The Israelites get rid of the foreign gods that they have been worshipping and God cannot bear their pain any longer. This is what I find so astonishing: the Israelites have broken Commandments by worshipping other gods, but as soon as they realise that they have sinned against God, His love won't allow them to suffer any longer. God knows that they are going to sin again, but when His people turn to Him He still saves them, despite what He knows they will do in the future.
The story of Judges is much like all of our lives. We turn away from God in various ways, realise that we have been wrong, turn back to Him and then once we feel better we end up turning away again. But every time we turn back, God helps us. Despite the fact that we can't help but sin, God will help us when we ask Him with a true heart.
So maybe the Old Testament is simply the story of how much God loves His people, because it mirrors just how much He loves all of us right now.
This is very well written Ellen, although I'm not a Christian I can sympathise with you here.The problem with many people is that like you have said, "they condense and pick out the important bits" they often try to sum them up Holy books to an extent where they don't pay attention to detail or don't fully understand it, I mean surely everything in it is important? .They sometimes come with a conclusion that all the stories are very similar and that they don't have to read the whole context, that they just need an insight to it.It's like when someone gives a group of people a bag of different flavoured sweets, they immediately take out the once they are similar with, ones they have tasted before. Even without try do pick something different and without appreciating it in a sense. I hope this makes sense and doesn't make me sound like I'm contradicting myself.
ReplyDeleteI see where you're coming from. Often it seems meaningless to condense the Holy Books into such small summaries, but I guess the Bible is such a big book that it can be quite intimidating to someone who hasn't read it before. Maybe it's easier sometimes to have a little bit of background information before you embark on such a long journey, because it's not an easy read by far and you certainly can't do it in a holiday. Then again, you can never get the true Message just from a summary; the actual Scripture is much deeper than that and while a summary might start you off, you can't just take that on its own, you have to read it all for yourself as well.
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