Israel=Egypt?

I just started reading Rob Bell's book 'Jesus Wants to Save Christians.' Chapter 1 talks about the cry of the oppressed. God is the God of the oppressed. Even after He kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden and everything descended into chaos, He responded to the Israelite's 'cry' when they were in Egypt. Egypt was a place of slavery, a place where they were forced to build things using bricks, and they were treated in an inhumane way. God delivers them from that using a man named Moses, and then He takes them to Sinai, where God finally breaks His silence. Here He meets with His people and gives them the 10 Commandments. The commandments were given so that they could have a way to remember who they are and the God that saved them from their slavery. The first commandment is that they should have no other gods. If they did, they would forget about the God who brought them out of Egypt, the God who heard their cry. The rest give them instructions on how to live and treat others in a humane way, something that they were not used to while living Egypt. God wanted them to be the opposite of Egypt.

Fast forward a few years to the reign Solomon. We see Solomon amassing a huge amount of wealth and building military bases, palaces, and even a temple for God. But how did he build all of these things? He used slaves! The slaves had become the oppressors. Those who God rescued were now doing the very things to others that God had rescued them from! But it didn't stop there. Solomon married many women, and they lead his heart astray, and he began to worship other gods. That was rule #1! This puts God in an awkward position, He told them not to, but here they are doing it anyway! He warned them not to even charge interest to their neighbors, or He would 'hear their cry,' and they are making slaves of people! Israel had become just like Egypt. The people who had been saved from Egypt moved up north and created a kingdom just like the one they had been saved from!

So throughout the rest of the Old Testament, God is trying to warn them that they need to get it together through the prophets, but they won't listen. Eventually God has enough and as He always does, He hears the cry of the oppressed. He sends the Babylonians in and destroys everything that Israel had built and carries them into exile. They began as slaves, then they tried to be masters instead of taking care of the poor like they were told to do, and so they ended up as slaves once more. Its weird how much Israel and Egypt have in common!

Enjoy the Journey

Why do we care?

Do you ever wonder why we have this need, this desire, this longing to be someone, to create something, to make a difference? No other species has this desire. My dog is laying at might feet right now, and I'm pretty sure she isn't thinking about what her personal destiny is (she's probably wondering when I'm going to tell her she can go get the rawhide bone that is on the other side of the living room). This is something that is unique to humans. We have a desire to make the world better. Even those of us who don't believe in God feel the need to be humane. Whenever a tragedy strikes, humankind rushes in to the rescue. Why is that? If the world is truly evolutionary, we should be motivated by a survival of the fittest mentality, but we are just not. We know that there is just something not quite right about living like that. Without God there really is not justification for it, but none the less we feel compelled to care about other people. Why do we care about other people? Because we are created in the image of God, we have within us the need to believe that this world can be better, and that we can help. Gandhi was the one who said that we should become the change we seek, and I completely agree.

Enjoy the Journey