<description>&lt;img style="width:75%" src="https://www.borntowin.net/wp-content/uploads/ten_commandments_15.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;</description>

Taking God Seriously

<description>&lt;img style="width:75%" src="https://www.borntowin.net/wp-content/uploads/The-Assyrian-Rabshakeh-Demanding-the-Surrender-of-Jerusalem.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Middle East is a very curious place, but I hardly need to tell you that. For instance, &lt;em&gt;everyone&lt;/em&gt; learns the parable of the Good Samaritan in church, and they learn that the Samaritans were pariahs to the Jews. I wonder, though, how many people know that the Samaritans are &lt;em&gt;still there&lt;/em&gt;. Fewer still will know the story of how the Samaritans came to be.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Assyrians carried all of northern Israel captive into lands beyond the Euphrates, and lest the land go to waste&amp;mdash;just lie there and grow thorns&amp;mdash;they imported people from other parts of their empire to settle there. After they arrived, though, they had a serious problem with wild animals, and assumed that it was because they didn&amp;rsquo;t know the God of the land. So the king of Assyria sent back a priest to teach them the right way. Presumably, this priest brought a copy of the Torah with him, because the Samaritans copied it and made it their own.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is a document called the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is a Hebrew copy of the first five books of the Old Testament, but the script differs markedly from the later Hebrew. Some presume it is an older, pre-exilic style of letters. There are also some differences between what the text says and the Masoretic text&amp;mdash;the latter being the text used in nearly all English versions of the Bible. What is fascinating about it is that, in many places where they differ, the Septuagint agrees with the &lt;em&gt;Samaritan&lt;/em&gt; text. They both, along with some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, come from an earlier manuscript tradition. Nevertheless, the Samaritans weren&amp;rsquo;t immune from the same sort of corruption that had afflicted Israel.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote class="x-blockquote"&gt;&lt;p&gt;So they feared the &lt;span class="smallCaps"&gt;Lord&lt;/span&gt;, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. They feared the &lt;span class="smallCaps"&gt;Lord&lt;/span&gt;, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from there.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;footer&gt;&lt;cite class="x-cite"&gt;2 Kings 17:32&amp;ndash;33 KJ2000&lt;/cite&gt;&lt;/footer&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;</description>

  The Middle East is a very curious place, but I hardly need to tell you that. For instance, everyone learns the parable of the Good Samaritan in church, and they learn that the Samaritans were pariahs to the Jews. I wonder, though, how many people know t

The Book of Kings #23

<description>&lt;img style="width:75%" src="https://www.borntowin.net/wp-content/uploads/Ahaz-Worships-at-an-Altar-Fashioned-After-the-Assyrians.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;Reading through the stories of the last kings of the house of Israel, I always get a feeling of ineffable &lt;em&gt;sadness&lt;/em&gt;. That nation had been served by two of the greatest prophets who ever lived&amp;mdash;Elijah, the archetype of all prophets, and Elisha, who had a double portion of the spirit of Elijah. There were only two more significant prophets during the entire history of the house of Israel. The first was Amos, who wrote during the last years of Jeroboam II. Then came Hosea, who wrote as the age of violence descended upon Israel. But after Hosea, God seems to have &lt;em&gt;written Israel off&lt;/em&gt;. And I guess you have to expect that. There comes a point in time&amp;mdash;when prophets are sent to them&amp;hellip;and ignored, when they drop deeper into sex and violence&amp;mdash;that they are judged as simply being &lt;em&gt;beyond redemption&lt;/em&gt;. There is no significant prophet who speaks during the last &lt;em&gt;40 years&lt;/em&gt; of the kingdom.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote class="x-blockquote"&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and captured Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria. And Hoshea the son of Elah led a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and struck him down, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;footer&gt;&lt;cite class="x-cite"&gt;2 Kings 15:29&amp;ndash;30 KJ2000&lt;/cite&gt;&lt;/footer&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;A good-sized part of the kingdom was just &lt;em&gt;gone&lt;/em&gt;, and four of their last five kings were assassinated by their successors. For the Kingdom of Israel, the decay is well set in, and the patience of God grows short.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

  Reading through the stories of the last kings of the house of Israel, I always get a feeling of ineffable sadness. That nation had been served by two of the greatest prophets who ever lived—Elijah, the archetype of all prophets, and Elisha, who had a do

The Book of Kings #22

<description>&lt;img style="width:75%" src="https://www.borntowin.net/wp-content/uploads/2-Kings-15-Menahem-Gives-Silver-as-Tribute-to-Pul-of-Assyria.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;It was now 126 years after the death of Solomon and the division of the Kingdom of Israel into two houses&amp;mdash;the House of Israel and the House of Judah. A man named Amaziah came to the throne to rule for 29 years. To give you a feeling for the passage of time, if you count forward from the Declaration Independence&amp;mdash;a similar sort of division&amp;mdash;that 126 years would bring you to 1902. The comparable time period would be from 1902 to 1931. In Ussher&amp;rsquo;s chronology, this was 849 BC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote class="x-blockquote"&gt;&lt;p&gt;And he did that which was right in the sight of the &lt;span class="smallCaps"&gt;Lord&lt;/span&gt;, yet not like David his father: he did according to all things as Joash his father did.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;footer&gt;&lt;cite class="x-cite"&gt;2 Kings 14:3 KJ2000&lt;/cite&gt;&lt;/footer&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Note, he doesn&amp;rsquo;t hearken back to Solomon to look for an example, but to David. Now, we all know what a rounder David was at times, and a bloody man. So what does it mean when we look back to David as a kind of archetype? Well, the key element with David is that, while he did sin and was chastised for it, David &lt;em&gt;never&lt;/em&gt; allowed idolatry to flourish and never served any other God. Thus, when David went astray&amp;mdash;when he sinned&amp;mdash;the way back to God, to forgiveness and restoration, was always open.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That wasn&amp;rsquo;t the case for many of David&amp;rsquo;s successors. What the Bible calls &lt;q&gt;the high places&lt;/q&gt; had been important centers of the Canaanite religion, but had mostly been destroyed as Israel entered the land. Many later kings, however, worshipped among the high places&amp;mdash;or least tolerated them. And this was more than burning a little incense. It was the involvement with male and female prostitutes in these sites&amp;mdash;sometimes children. You have to know this in order to understand the fury that God directs against their continued existence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote class="x-blockquote"&gt;&lt;p&gt;However the high places were not taken away: as yet the people did sacrifice and burnt incense on the high places.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;footer&gt;&lt;cite class="x-cite"&gt;2 Kings 14:4 KJ2000&lt;/cite&gt;&lt;/footer&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;</description>

  It was now 126 years after the death of Solomon and the division of the Kingdom of Israel into two houses—the House of Israel and the House of Judah. A man named Amaziah came to the throne to rule for 29 years. To give you a feeling for the passage of t

The Book of Kings #21

<description>&lt;img style="width:75%" src="https://www.borntowin.net/wp-content/uploads/Joash-Shooting-the-Arrow-of-Deliverance.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is a sobering thought to consider that the Kingdom of Israel was once ruled by a woman&amp;mdash;but not a very good woman. To secure her throne, she had all the royal children murdered. But a priest, Jehoiada, hid one of the boys, and thereby hangs a story. Athaliah, the queen, ruled for six years until the boy Jehoash was seven. Then the priest and the army conspired to dispose of her and place the young Jehoash on the throne. It was a good choice. The idealism of youth served Israel well for many years. The story is told in 2 Kings, chapter 11.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote class="x-blockquote"&gt;&lt;p&gt;And Jehoiada made a covenant between the &lt;span class="smallCaps"&gt;Lord&lt;/span&gt; and the king and the people, that they should be the &lt;span class="smallCaps"&gt;Lord&lt;/span&gt;&amp;rsquo;S people; between the king also and the people.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;footer&gt;&lt;cite class="x-cite"&gt;2 Kings 11:17 KJ2000&lt;/cite&gt;&lt;/footer&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mind you, they are not going to be the people of Baal. They are not going to the people of no god or a nameless, generic god. They are &lt;em&gt;Jehovah&amp;rsquo;s people&lt;/em&gt;. It turns out it was none too soon, because the worship of Baal was gaining a foothold in Judah.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote class="x-blockquote"&gt;&lt;p&gt;And all the people of the land went into the house of Baal, and broke it down; its altars and its images broke they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the &lt;span class="smallCaps"&gt;Lord&lt;/span&gt;. And he took the rulers over hundreds, and the captains, and the guard, and all the people of the land; and they brought down the king from the house of the &lt;span class="smallCaps"&gt;Lord&lt;/span&gt;, and came by the way of the gate of the guard to the king&amp;rsquo;s house. And he sat on the throne of the kings. And all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet: because they slew Athaliah with the sword at the king&amp;rsquo;s house.Seven years old was Jehoash when he began to reign.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;footer&gt;&lt;cite class="x-cite"&gt;2 Kings 11:18&amp;ndash;21 KJ2000&lt;/cite&gt;&lt;/footer&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;</description>

  It is a sobering thought to consider that the Kingdom of Israel was once ruled by a woman—but not a very good woman. To secure her throne, she had all the royal children murdered. But a priest, Jehoiada, hid one of the boys, and thereby hangs a story. A

The Book of Kings #20

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