Temptation

Job and Satan put job in a kind of trial in which the question is if Job will remain faithful and loyal to god while keeping his fear and respect. Job is able to stand the different trials 10 times and then he finally gives in which in a way shows how humans will always have a weakness and once its reached its hard to keep going. But at the same time it also shows how humans can make themselves keep going for as long as they want. Here Job is able to keep his loyalty firm with god even though Satan tries to trick him into getting mad at god and insulting him but Job is always stable and has his mind clear. Still at the end, after being “tested” many times Job finally breaks down and expresses his feelings towards god. He tells how he feels mis treated and how unjust god has been with him; he complains but at the same time asks for forgiveness and for him not to be condemned. He says how good he has always been and even though God has always recognized this and has been aware of his unconditional faith, God still had it given for granted and never fully appreciated it. THis is why, as any human being, Job was stopped more by his emotions than what his physical characteristics were actually capable of doing.
Also in a way Job is one of the humans that will at some times keep his loyalty firm to god but will later on explote and express all frustrations and doubts that have aroused withing concerning God and the way he controls the world. We sometimes feel tricked and unjustly tried and therefore we have been ive a harsher punishment for our wrong doings, if it is a ounishment what we recieve. Either way, we wont always agree with the way God does things and maybe we are just supposed to learn to live with it withought questioning it. Or maybe we are meant to explore other posibilities and reclaim GOds unjustnesses.

Tertiary sources

http://www.telegram.com/static/fire/ and http://burningissues.org/table2.htm come from the topic SMOKE in wikipedia.

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=8&hid=102&sid=a113a16f-e733-4290-9783-457b8d653da9%40sessionmgr108 from Ebscohost

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=17&hid=102&sid=a113a16f-e733-4290-9783-457b8d653da9%40sessionmgr108 from ebscohost. talks about the measures firefighters take to protect themselves from the smoke in fires

http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=smoke_fires.main from google and it calls for prevention from forest fires smoke.

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/natres/06307.html from google and tells what the vegetation effects after fire are.

Who Deserves to be Forgiven?

“…The Lord also hath put away thy sin; though shall not die” Samuel 12:13
How could have God decided who shall live and who shall die? Why didn’t he instead killed David and saved the child? Why did he forgive David’s sin when he didn’t forgive any others?
God, it could be said, is similar to the judge in a court house. The life and future depends on him and his decision, but he is not always fair. He will take into account how the rest of his live was spend and how faithful he was toward him, and he will also de what he thinks will benefit him most. God has many human characteristics, including greed. He wants what’s best for him and this will always affect his decisions. But it is also a mystery why he chooses who will be saved and who won’t because the past of people can influence and how huge the sin was but the fact that they sinned is always a great risk. He sometimes kills some of his beloved but then, luckily, he sometimes saves them, just as he did with David.
Still his sin was not completely ignored since he had to live with the grief of a dying son. He also fated and didn’t sleep during the seven days of his sons life, and was forced to see his wife once more after his betrayal. This punishment was meant for him to never sin again… but will it work? Or is it human nature to sin?

Ruling Justly

“…He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.” Samuel 23:3
This quote captured my attention while reading because it makes me think of how someone just has always been looked for but never found, and how God would supposedly subconsciously be really the one ruling. It is said that this person would rule by fearing god, in other word that he would do what he think god would not punish him for but then, even though God is supposed to have expressed what it is he wants through the bible, each person thinks god wants something different. The general idea everyone gets but then the details is what each person adapts to their own. It also happens that every person will get a different interpretation even from the own bible.
Ruling justly is something that will never be able to be agreed by every single person. This happens because every human being on earth has different opinions and are not equally satisfied. So how could god ever expect to be a just ruler, of course there are some that have been more responsible and equal with their power but having everyone happy is something that will never happen. What one person considers just, another might not and this is why these two will never share these ideas. That’s why ruling is so hard, because everyone wants and expects something different.

the ten commandments

It is clear what god wants, referring to the daily life. It says when it is that people should work and go to school but he also sanctifies the seventh day, Sunday, since it was the day that god rested after creating the world. The Ten Commandments also make it clear what it is that people must not due to avoid making sins and therefore God would not have to punish them. If people kept real to these commandments, their lives would be as pure and can be and many of their sins would be ignored.

Even today Christians and Jews must follow these commandments and many values are based on these original commandments. Even the laws of countries are revolving around these "donts".

Moses in Egypt

Through out my reading I have come to see a "darker" side of God when it comes to the way he treats people. He manipulates Moses and the Pharaoh to do what is convenient for him and he doesn’t care about what happens to the Egyptians as long as the Israelites are well and all he wants is to prove that he is the greatest of all and that no one can dare put it to doubt or they will suffer. God also manipulates the Pharaoh when it comes to letting the Jesuits out so it makes you doubt what it is that he really wants, why didn’t he just control the pharaoh into letting the Jesuits leave from the beginning? Wouldn’t it have been much easier? It also came up to mi mind why it he chose the plagues that he put to Egypt why those and not any other? It also confuses me when it comes to understand why it is that god is acting this way. Throughout my life I have been taught that God is a good person that only does good but when I come to think about what we have read so far, God is constantly punishing humans, and even though it might be because humans are sinners and because they deserve a punishment, he is still making it greater than what it should be due to the circumstance. This makes me think why it was that the idea of god came to change after the New Testament. I also wonder why it is that all Egyptians cam eto be punished when it was only the pharaoh that was difying Gods power, even thouigh they might have been mistreating the Jesuits, it was still on orders. And why was Moses chosen if he did one of the worsts sins, he killed a man. I also come to wonder why it is that the movies done and the stories told to little kids exclude Aaron from the story when he, too, is a very important character in the story? any way, reading the bible has brought many new questions to my head and it has made me change some of my ideas about it.

The message

Even thougn I am a Christian, I have never been a very dedicates one. My parents are not very religious, and therefore influenced me in many of my current beliefs. I believe in god and his capability of making things happen. I also believe the fact that jesus was gods son. What i dont believe in is in some of the ways in which the church takes advantege of peoples faith and use it for their own benefit. Through history the church has been very currupt and how can we know that it is not currently corrupted? I also believe that the most important in any jind of religion is not prayer, I believe that one can communicate with god whenever they want, I even think God constantly knows what is going on in your head. I also think that when you want to confess you dont have to do it through a bishop, you can do it with yourself, as long as you understand what it is that you did wrong and you put your mind into never doing it again, then you can be calm and realize that you confessed, its just you did it in a different way.

Since we begun to read the bible I have been constantly thinking about all these things. About the fact that one really doesnt need to go to church to understand what is going on. I for example have understood most of it and as long as I get the message that is being tried to get through everything is ok. Right now in the chapters we had to read for today I understood about Abraham, about Ishmael, about Lot, etc. What does come to my mind though is tha fact that i perfectly understan the literal meaning of what is being told but i do wonder sometimes what it is that is trying to be exposed espiritualy. I guess that every person can interpret it in a different way even though many of the interpretations may have resemblence. Still I believe that each person is free to get whichever message from the text and not the one the church wants us to see. I also believe, though I might be completly wrong, that the New Testament is the part of the book which gives you the most spiritual background while theOld Testament is more of understanding the past and how God had comunicated with people on Earth before Jesus.

One thing about Im kind of glad is the moment in life in which I am reading the bible. I believe i might respect it more now that i am facing a tough moment in my life rather than I the way I would interpret the reading and show respect towards it if I was in a very happy moment in life.