• About
  • Bio

Happy God

~ The Bible calls God happy. I wonder why?

Happy God

Monthly Archives: October 2003

Shakespeared

31 Friday Oct 2003

Posted by Owen in books, Zionism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alan Dershowitz, Israel, Shakespeare

I’ve been Shakespeared this week. With one family member reading Hamlet, and me editing a performance of Midsummer Nights Dream, I’m enjoying the bard’s banter. The course of true love never did run smooth, but there is a providence that defines our ends, rough-hew them how we will. Asleep, my love? Dead, my dog? I’ll call it “Bottom’s … dream”. It all flows so trippingly off the tongue, but what does it do for the mind? Time was, when the brains were out, the man was dead. Marry, that’s Macbeth. But fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Alack, that’s Pope.

Gotta get back to the paying gig… check out the new book by Alan Dershowitz — The Case for Israel. Highly recommended.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Pleasant Vengeance

31 Friday Oct 2003

Posted by Owen in love of God, prophecy, Theodicy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

eschatology, judgment day, love of God, Theodicy

A friend wrote a letter, describing her re-immersion in college life, as “pleasant vengeance.” “I am back on campus with a pleasant vengeance, enjoying everything like a freshman all over again.”

A nice and clever turn of phrase, which works quite well in its context. But I’ve been struck with the utility of the phrase as a philosophical and Biblical concept, and for me, it works nicely.

Consider one of the strongest vengeance passages in the Bible, Zephaniah 3:8, in which God says that all the world will be devoured by the fire of his vengeance. Unpleasant! But then the next verse says, “Then, I will turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.” Huh? I thought the earth was devoured. Yet people are left, and they are converted and unified in the aftermath of the vengeance.

So clearly, the fire and even the term earth are symbolic. And the vengeance has a pleasant result.

Here’s another one: Psalm 10:15. Here, the writer asks God to not spare the wicked. But what does he really, ultimately ask? That the Lord seek out the wickedness until He doesn’t find any more. The implication is that by exposing the wickedness repeatedly, eventually the wicked will reform until they are wicked no more, because they have corrected their ways.

Another interesting text in this vein is Isaiah 26:9, which precedes a point that is obvious to any parent: “Though the wicked is shown favor, he does not learn righteousness; he deals unjustly in the land of uprightness…”

But different are results are promised in verse 9, if God’s judgments are seen — in other words, if there are clear consequences meted out for every act of disobedience. “For when the earth experiences Thy (God’s) judgments, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” People WILL learn the right way to act, not by throwing them into a utopian state, but by gradually exerting discipline and a combination of favor for goodness and punishment for moral obliquity. This is vengeance with a goal of correction; “pleasant vengeance”.

And so I take great comfort in Jesus’ promise that, as king, he will “shepherd the nations with a staff of iron.” The iron rule is designed to remove the waywardness from the sheep. Of course, Jesus also balanced all of this pleasantness with the parable of the Sheep and the Goats — and there, the sheep are people who are so unconsciously loving that they don’t even remember doing good deeds, while the goats are apparently outwardly righteous — just not loving enough to see opportunities of doing gracious good to their fellow men. What a searching standard of love and unselfishness is held out as the standard for entrance into God’s eternal kingdom!

May your experiences of thinking freely and looking for the lessons of life take you through the crucible of pleasant vengeance!

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • November 2016
  • February 2016
  • November 2015
  • July 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • January 2010
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • November 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • May 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • April 2005
  • February 2005
  • October 2003
  • November 2002

Categories

  • a happy God
  • barna
  • Bible Questions
  • books
  • Brian McLaren
  • Calvinism
  • christian colonialism
  • Christian liberty
  • Christian trends
  • christianity
  • Christmas
  • Emergent Conversation
  • enjoying the universe
  • eschatology
  • evangelicalism
  • fatherhood
  • forgiveness
  • Generous Orthodoxy
  • George Barna
  • gnosticism
  • Hell
  • Jim Henderson
  • John MacArthur
  • John Piper
  • judgments of God
  • love of God
  • Mark Driscoll
  • media
  • movies
  • off-the-map
  • orthodoxy
  • Personal Observations
  • poverty and its causes
  • Promises of God
  • prophecy
  • race
  • reconciliation
  • religion
  • religion and politics
  • remnant
  • restorationism
  • revolution
  • revolutionconference
  • Rob Bell
  • salvation
  • Theodicy
  • Uncategorized
  • universalism
  • Virginia Tech
  • Zionism

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Happy God
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Happy God
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: