Satire in the Bible

I found this article laying around on the counter-top this morning... I thought I'd share a snippet. :)

The Book of Jonah is a funny story of a man whose life is a textbook example of how not to be a prophet. The pouting prophet ran away from God. On board a ship, he slept soundly while the real sailors were terrified of a storm. After he was thrown overboard, swallowed up by a great fish, and suddenly found himself on land, Jonah took God's message to the Ninevites and they listend to him. He should have been happy; but instead, he became angry.
There is much comedy here. We can imagine how glad that fish was to get rid of Jonah. What about the humorous image of animals in sackcloth? (3:8). Even the end is comic. After Jonah pouted under a bust that withered and died, God responded to his self-righteous indignation (4:9-11).

FaithLink's website is cokesbury.com/faithlink

Disclaimer: I have not visited the site and am not completely supportive of all content on the website. I just found this section in a magazine article interesting. :)

Matthew 11:28

Hmmm... I saw this title in my editing post list (I have so many drafts of what to write, it's not even funny :P ). I don't know what I had planned to write from this verse, but here goes!

Matthew 11:28 (NKJV)

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Boy, do I feel with this verse! Especially with finals coming around ... it's hard to remember that if only we come before the LORD we will find rest. I mean - for the past 2 or 3 days, I've been reading the allotted time from Scripture and praying a short prayer that God would watch over me. Not quite what I should be doing.

Today I thought, "Ok, I'm just gonna totally FORGET school today, as I pray and read Your Word, God. Please reveal to me whatever You feel I need to know." And Ka-bam! I read the Bible with a relish and time just FLEW!! And you know what? I felt peaceful and restful knowing God was going to watch over me today. All God asks is that we come to Him and He will give us rest. We don't have to do ANYTHING!! :D

Restitution and Repentance

Some Bible verses and statements from youth group one Saturday concerning true "repentance and restitution":

Note: All verses are given in NKJV.

Acts 26:20
but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.

Mark 1:14-15
Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Leviticus 5:16
And he shall make restitution for the harm that he has done in regard to the holy thing, and shall add one-fifth to it and give it to the priest. So the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and it shall be forgiven him.

Numbers 5:6-7
“Speak to the children of Israel: ‘When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit in unfaithfulness against the LORD, and that person is guilty, then he shall confess the sin which he has committed. He shall make restitution for his trespass in full, plus one-fifth of it, and give it to the one he has wronged.

When we have committed wrong, we have to change and live like we have repented. We can't just say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I won't do that again," and just keep sinning. Our Savior paid a price for taking on our sin, and if we continue to sin, we are spitting in His face for His gift to us.

Ezekiel 33:10-20

¹⁰ “Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: ‘Thus you say, “If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?”’ ¹¹ Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’

¹² “Therefore you, O son of man, say to the children of your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression; as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall because of it in the day that he turns from his wickedness; nor shall the righteous be able to live because of his righteousness in the day that he sins.’ ¹³ When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous works shall be remembered; but because of the iniquity that he has committed, he shall die. ¹⁴ Again, when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, ¹⁵ if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. ¹⁶ None of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right; he shall surely live.
¹⁷ “Yet the children of your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ But it is their way which is not fair! ¹⁸ When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die because of it. ¹⁹ But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is lawful and right, he shall live because of it. ²⁰ Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ O house of Israel, I will judge every one of you according to his own ways.”

Verse 11 says that God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. Rather, He desires that these wicked people would turn from the sin (repent and make restitution) . In fact, it goes on to say that when a sinful man changes his ways completely to restore what he has done wrong and walk in the way of the righteous, God will forget all his lawlessness and let him live. On the other hand, should a righteous turn from his righteousness and commits an iniquity, he dies because of it.

One says, "Well, that's not fair!!" For a man to judge, it isn't fair, because a human cannot have perfect justice, God can. How can we as the creation claim that the Creator is unfair? It says in verse 20, God will judge each one of us according to our ways... and of course according to His own ultimate justice.

The story is of Zacchaeus is a great example of restitution:

Luke 19:1-10

¹ Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. ² Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. ³ And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. ⁴ So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. ⁵ And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him,^a]">[a] and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” ⁶ So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. ⁷ But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”
⁸ Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”
⁹ And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; ¹⁰ for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Restitution is the action necessary to solidify the cleansing of your heart. Obviously, God is the one who washes you with His Son's righteous blood, but you must "repay, make complete, pay debts, restore, fulfill vows, and impart comfort" to show your "turn-around" i.e. Repentance. Zacchaeus took that step to restore to those he had taken wrongfully from. If Zacchaeus had just said with his mouth that he had repented from his actions, no one would believe, but because he made restitution and paid his debts, one could see his heart's sincerity and know he had truly repented. In fact, to quote the pastor who gave this message:

A lack of restitution is a laziness of spirit. We don't walk in restitution because of pride and selfishness. We feel it is an inconvenience if we've already been forgiven by the Almighty God.


Repentance brings a change of mind;
Restitution brings God's healing.

And there ends my lengthy post... which I had not intended to be so long! Hereafter, I aspire to write shorter posts. :D

*wonders how she should title this first post and sighs* Oh well...

Well, here is my blog. So far, I have only told 2 people about it, and that's fine with me. I had set out to make a blog with a bunch of authors (friends from CP!) to share random things we found, I but realized, it might be easier for me to start one on my own first. If this turns out well, maybe I'll consider making one sometime in the future. :)

So, please comment and tell me if you like it... suggestions are welcome as well :)

And just so the people who read this know - Vanlanthiriel means "beautiful waterfall" in Quenya (J. R. R. Tolkien language). I love the valleys of the mountains for their refreshing ambiance, so I thought I'd name my blog that... especially since, it alliterates with my name :D.

Perhaps, I shouldn't use so many smileys. I ought to customize my blog template and set up some rules... *puts that on list of things to do* Well, I need to stop and post this thing before I ramble any longer...

Oh wait - one more thing, my friend has already used the word in her blog title, but it describes what I'm going to be posting here... so as a warning,

---

*waits a little*

---

*leaves her readers in slightly longer suspense*

---

*decides to have mercy and spare them the agony*

---

*or not*

---

I am R-A-N-D-O-M ... (it's pronounced "ran-duh m" with a few of these: !!! ;) )

*makes last few edits and quickly posts before she is eternally branded as insane and sent to some type of asylum*