Civil Disobedience and the Bible Essay

Solomon obeyed God and kept the covenant. When Solomon asked for wisdom, God blessed him with wisdom in addition to riches and fame. Solomon built a temple to God signifying God’s presence. He was prosperous and successful and so was the nation of Israel. He was famous and known for his wisdom. However, with all his riches and success, he forgot who gave him these blessings. God blessed him with success and riches, yet ultimately these successes and riches led him astray from God. He married foreign wives to have peace with other nations. “Instead of securing the kingdom, Solomon's numerous diplomatic marriages paved the way, following his death, to its division and decline” (Green, 156). These foreign wives came to Israel and introduced their foreign gods and foreign culture. In addition to idols, Israel’s riches made them subject to materialism. In their materialistic pleasure and worship of idols, they forgot about God and eventually rejected Him. Because of these influences, the United Monarchy of Israel was divided after Solomon’s

In the Bible and in Greek stories, the price of disobeying a god is either severe punishment or death. In the second source of chapter three, God orders the Pharaoh several times to let the Israelites go free from Egypt. And each time, the Pharaoh does not listen causing increasingly harsh punishments to fall on Egypt. The punishment that makes Pharaoh finally change his mind, is the one that “strikes down every first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast” (34). The Pharaoh, finally realizing that he should obey God before any more people (or animals) die, lets the Israelite people go. In the book of the Bible called Jeremiah, God’s wrath is again placed upon those who do not obey. The people of Jerusalem are worshipping other deities,

In the Old Testament God gives Moses Ten Commandments at the Mount Sinai. It was impossible for Jews to follow the law, and God’s wrath rose against them. When Jesus came to the world, he fulfilled the Mosaic Law and gave us a new one, "the perfect law, the law of liberty" (James 1:25). His law is universal, since He commands all people to obey Him. It contains only two commandments: to love God with all your heart, and to love one another. Through Jesus Christ our debt is fully paid on the cross. We are not under the Old Covenant anymore, neither God’s wrath, but experiencing His love and grace by following the new

While man has its own set of laws that has set of consequences if convicted doing wrong, God has the ultimate law. Mankind weighs the crimes and punishes based on what man finds appropriate. However, in the bible, we know what is right and wrong in relation to sin. Although it is contrary to human nature, we should consider all sins to be equal and are to love and treat each other with respect instead of delivering judgment.

In this story, God described to Moses what would occur if his people followed the laws He had commanded. This

Civil disobedience is a human dilemma, an internal, moral restlessness to an act of authority. It voices the power of the people, strengthens democracy and puts checks and balances on the Executive power. It is a non violent act that may be either positive: peacefully protesting against what one feels is wrong. It can also be negative when external forces turn a peaceful protest violent. It is essentially a challenge to the claimed legitimacy of authority, a declaration that the authority has done something it is not entitled to do or has failed to do something that it is responsible to do. One of the earliest examples of civil disobedience is found in Exodus 1:15-17. The King of Egypt had commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill any boy babies born to the Hebrews. Because these midwives feared God, they obeyed His higher law and let the babies live. From this first act, civil disobedience has advanced many causes. Because it gives people an opportunity to force politicians to change,

“Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.” (Nehemiah

Saul was commanded to obliterate the Amalekites, yet he spared not only the best livestock, but even the king, Agag. Adding further insult to injury, upon being confronted by Samuel, Saul placed the blame on his soldiers rather than owning up to his own disobedience. Even after Samuel informed Saul that he would lose his kingdom, Saul continued to shift blame: “I was afraid of the men and so I gave in to them” (15:24). He also sought to redeem himself in the eyes of Israel by asking that Samuel “honor [him] before the elders of [his] people and before Israel” (15:3). After this incident, Saul and Samuel parted ways forever.

The resistance to a law begins with a disagreement with it or how it affects people in the first place; if there were no people in favor of the opposition, there would be no reason to push against it. However, the existence of law means that there are those who support it, meaning acts of civil disobedience are rooted in disagreement. While the point of civil disobedience is to express discontent with an undesirable circumstance and to demand change without using brute force or violence, it still creates a tense milieu between the conflicting

God stripped Moses as well as Aaron of their eventual access to the Promised Land. Their crimes: disobeying orders and taking credit for God’s miracle. If we look back throughout Moses’ story, it can be suggested that he was forced into his position as a prophet by God when he appeared as a burning bush. Moses did all of the labor on behalf of God, and played middle man between God and the Israelites, who complained about each other to him, for forty long years in the desert! A previous time, Moses did bash his staff into a rock and received water without any repercussions from God. There is no way to really know, but it sounds like Moses was frustrated, forgot himself, and as a result was robbed by God of the paradise he had worked hard for and was promised. The Israelites were also robbed of their promise of living in the Promised Land. Their crimes: lying to Moses and by extension God, and complaining. Of the twelve scouts sent to explore the land, ten lied about the conditions and died from a plague. Because the Israelites complained about God so much, God denied them access to the

Chapter 26: Those in live in accordance with the Lord’s statutes and are careful to observe his commandments will be given a reward, such as rain in due season so that the land will yield its crops and the trees their fruits. But if an individual does not heed the Lord and does not keep his commandments then he will bring terror upon the individual. The sky above them will be hard as iron and the soil as hard as bronze so that their strength will be spent In vain. These are the statutes, decrees and laws that the Lord established between himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount

Kinder (1975) says of the word law, “It can be used of a single command or of a whole body of law, especially the Pentateuch, or again of Scripture as a whole” (p. 453). Today the Old Testament’s ceremonial and civil laws are no longer applicable, because we do not have a nation ruled by God’s civil law and the temple and sacrificial system no longer exist. The book of Hebrews states that the sacrifices, feasts, and rituals were types and shadows, pointing to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ at Calvary. Jesus himself made this statement, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). God’s laws are not simply dos and don’ts with no reasoning behind them. God gave his law to mankind out of love so that it might go well with

from their bondage and claims them as his own.” (174) God rescues his people as He promised in his covenants. He keeps up his side of each covenant, even when the other party fails to do so. Within this new covenant, God establishes new stipulations for His people to follow (the law). He then sets up a system (sacrifices) to allow Him to dwell with his people in the Tabernacle.

The authority of God is sensed throughout the book of Numbers, in His leading the Israelites to the promise land. Within the chapters, we discover the tribes of Israel, and their unrelenting petulant behavior. Their frustration, ager and discontentment endlessly rage on, towards God and Moses. It is emphasized that this is this is “God’s story above all, and God will keep his part of the covenant with Abraham regarding his seed inheriting the land. At issue is whether Israel will keep covenant with God—and Numbers reminds you over and again that the divine provision for them to do so is always ready at hand.” (Fee,

Obedience to authority is everywhere. Whether it is a student obeying the teacher, citizens following the laws or a child obeying his or her parents, there will always be a scenario of obedience to authority. There are different levels of obedience ranging from a group of people following their leader, such as on a sports team, to extreme religious cults. The word obedience come from the Latin word Obaudrie, which means to listen well. Obedience is defined as compliance to the plan; conformity to the pattern; observance of the rules; loyalty to the standards and submission to another's will. Obedience is carrying out the given direction cheerfully and quickly. Obedience is the bottom line of the Christian life yet it plays a vital role in the formation of character of a person. Obedience is part of the foundation of society. Without obedience, nothing would exist but chaos and confusion. Human individuality is often undermined by the blind obedience humans feel towards those in position of power. In order for humans to maintain their individuality and a stable society, a balance between obedience and independence must be found. To obey means doing what God says in the timing and manner that He says to do it. We must then know what His instructions are. We cannot comply with something we do not understand. The Holy Spirit assists us in relating God's commands to our situation and helps us determine the wise choice. The true meaning of obedience has changed over the course of