2 Kings 2-25 - A desperate attempt to catch up

The readings - days 113-119 - 2 Kings 6-25

So it's come to this...

When I started this blog I wasn't anywhere near convinced that it was going to be a project I could keep up with, and I'm surprised it took me more than 30 per cent of the way through the Bible to really hit a giant lag. In my defense, it was the result of my being on the opposite side of the planet without reliable or consistent Internet service for more than a week, but still... here we are.

So I'm now epically behind, and as far as I see it, the only way I'm ever catching up is if I break one of my initial rules, which was to always limit posts to just a handful of chapters, ideally no more than two days' worth of readings per post, regardless of how far behind I was.

Up till now that's been serving me fairly well, since I've managed to keep up with readings and not actually get all that far behind on postings, but now that I'm well over an entire book behind, I'm going to have to do a grave disservice to 2 Kings (and to 1 Chronicles, but that's for tomorrow...) and just give a brief, not-at-all-sufficient, summary of the book with some specific thoughts and then move on.

So here we go: a short post covering almost all of 2 Kings...

2 Kings 1-5 - Bears!

The readings - Days 111 and 112 - 2 Kings 1-5

If you had to assign different musical genres the various Biblical characters, I'm pretty sure that heavy metal would be a not-bad fit for Elijah. He commands respect, dresses funny, plays (from the perspective of the crappy kings of the time, at any rate) by his own rules, and has a particular love for pyrotechnics.

This time, he follows up on his Mount Carmel hit by calling on God to torch two successive groups of soldiers who have been sent to fetch him by the king. The king was irritated at Elijah for telling him that he was going to die because he sent for word from another god in a neighbouring land instead of consulting with God about it.

Judges 1-7 - Times have changed. Or not.

The readings - Days 77-79 - Judges 1-7

I suppose there's something worth addressing, now that we're in the books of the Old Testament normally categorized under the heading of "history."

While these works contain decidedly more detailed and intentionally historical documentation of events, etc, and therefore ought to be treated as more accurately depicting events/people/places/etc than other portions of the OT (IE the Psalms or bits of the Pentateuch), there's something that still strikes as odd about using these books in the same way that we would use a modern history text.

Joshua 1-8 - Water and other hazards

The readings - days 70 and 71 - Joshua 1-8

Look at me, just ripping along with the readings and neglecting the tens of readers that are following along. Shame on me. Apologies to everyone, and I'll try to keep up a bit better.

In fact, when I started writing this post, I had intended to just catch up, but 15 chapters is just too many, so I'm going to take it two days' readings at a time until I'm caught up. Hope that's okay.

Num. 18-22 - On keeping clean, fetching water and talking to donkeys

The readings - Days 50-51 - Numbers 18-22

Well, I'm only just reaching the two-thirds mark of Numbers, and I have to say, it's not so bad. Don't get me wrong, it started off with an almost unbelievable lack of pace, but this has been several sustained chapters of actual story - something I wasn't expecting at all.

It also turns out that I did know some stories from Numbers, I just didn't know they were from Numbers. Huh.

That said, however, there are still some dry bits, but even those tend to not be so bad. 18 starts off with, shades of Leviticus, instructions for priests as far as their duties, roles and dinner portions following sacrifices, but what struck me about this was not any of the particulars, but rather the downright casual approach to the concept of "unclean" demonstrated throughout.

Ex. 16-18 - Makin' it RAIN! (only, awesomely enough, not)

The readings - Day 23 - Exodus 16-18

I firmly believe that there is something inherent about the ability of the Bible to stand up to translation. I think that the whole point, from the very beginning with God's promise to bless the entire world through Abraham's descendants, was that there should be no impediment to people's relating to God, and translation is a huge part of that. I think it's right that the Bible should be read in English, Spanish, Farsi, Japanese, Cree and everything else, because I think God's bigger than language differences and linguistic quibbles.

Ex. 7-9: Moses' school of witchcraft and wizardry

The readings - Day 20 - Exodus 7-9

You know what I find weird? How many people think that being Christian automatically precludes belief in ghosts, aliens, the paranormal, the occult, witchcraft and all those other things. Well actually, it's not that people think that that confuses me, but rather that people think that because so many Christians will tell them things like it.

Even if I didn't think it was just a waste of time to protest things like Harry Potter or Ouija Boards, and that all that ends up happening is you look a bit silly and are somewhat less likely to be taken seriously next time around, I sort of see it as a sign that Christians who rail against the existence of actual magic and powerful, non-Godly supernatural forces haven't really been paying attention to the Old Testament.

Ex. 4-6 - Moses: the shy murderer

The readings - Day 19 - Exodus 4-6

Rightly or wrongly, there's a certain type of image that pops into your head when you hear about a guy whose on the run, being hunted down for killing a man as vengeance for an injustice.

Being so shy that you become a distinct irritant to the Creator of patience Himself usually doesn't fit in to this picture...