Habakkuk: What Did I Learned About The Character Or Nature Of God

In the article “The God Who Embraced Me,” John Fountain tells us his story of believing in, “The God who embraced me when Daddy disappeared from our lives - from my life at the age of four.” Growing up, John was vulnerable and lacked the presence of a father other boys had. He writes, “I always envied boys I saw walking hand-in-hand with their fathers.” Throughout his childhood, John wished to have conversations that fathers and sons have among many other things. He spent days imagining his father coming home from work, but obviously it never happened. The God John believed in, held his hand when he witnessed other boys struggling and being drowned in hopelessness. His God was always by his side, and made him feel like he was something when

Desperate to escape the despotic government, many people from Judah turned to false gods and idolatry.6 Pleading to God for rescue from such an immoral, faithless place, Habakkuk learned that the situation of Judah would be rectified in time.7 God said that He had prepared a chastising rod and that Babylon would be the avenging instrument of the just Judeans.8 After the Babylonians expelled Jehoiakim from the throne, God emancipated the Judeans and relieved the heinous social situation. In the end, Habakkuk knew that the just Israelite would not perish from the calamities of the Babylonian attacks;9 he knew that righteousness and faith would prevail. Instead of rectifying the situation at once, the Chaldean empire took control and continued to treat the Judeans harshly. Furthermore, Habakkuk became angry and questioned God again. Nevertheless, he heeded to the previous words of God and kept his faith. Before humanity lost faithfulness, Habakkuk needed to spread this message throughout the empire to save the Judeans. Habakkuk had to extend the word of God to all oppressed people, so he wrote in a style the Israelites could grasp.

     Throughout these chapters we see many portrayals of God’s character: The destroyer, the ever-judging, a God with expectations, a God that grieves, feels pain, repents, a God that demands justice; a self-evaluating, ruling and omnipotent God whom also passes on saving grace to the deserving.

Some critics of this passage would argue that there are two sets of behavior standards given for Christian and Jews. In order to obtain salvation in Jewish faith one must follow the rule of like and ceremony. In order that a Christian obtain salvation they must only believe in Christ. Some were worried that this new religion would be saturated by people who wanted to commit acts against the law and still be saved because they professed to believe in Christ. The concept of grace and mercy was a foreign one and harsh judgment was a reality of the day. The other part of this verse was, is Christ a master of sin?

14. “...it rested with him to punish them and there would always be time for that.” (4.2.22)

In this text titled GOD by Simon Blackburn, the protagonist agues of beliefs and other things. I am going to argue that there does not exist a super or godlike being who is all good, all knowing, all powerful. (40 words)

It says, “For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws”. This verse means that breaking one law is the same thing as breaking all of them. Whether you murder or lie, it is still a sin. And breaking one sin and keeping the rest is like breaking all. God does not like this, and in fact, he hates (even though He’s a loving God) when people do not abide to His laws. Corrie, when trying to hide the Jews in her bedroom, lied to the police about the Jews. She also lied about having only one radio and the men under the table. I am not trying to say that Corrie is a bad person because she sinned a lot, I’m trying to point out that even though it would help lives, it was still breaking God’s commands.

This verse is a great example showing that we are the same and that we shouldn’t judge other for a couple of reason. One reason is because it is saying that you should not call people out in things like a mistake or sin they have done because you are liking to have done a mistake or sin in your life, maybe the same one that

time is right for me. I need to do what is best for my family, financially, but emotionally, too. If

In his book God Behaving Badly David Lamb examines difficult texts in the Old Testament and tries to answer the hard questions that arise from those readings. In my own examination of Lamb’s God Behaving Badly I will look at a few of the- questions and difficult texts that I found most interesting. Specifically, I will examine Lamb’s response to God 's anger, apparent lack of concern for race and genocide, and violence in the Old Testament, and I will offer my own response.

Genesis is the first book of the Bible.  It begins with the story of God’s creation of the universe.    The Lord is the Almighty Creator of the world, skies, heavens, seas, animals, man, and woman.  He governs the universe and develops relationships with man.  Throughout Genesis, God acknowledges the fact that human beings make mistakes, and accepts their imperfection.  Throughout Genesis, God changes from one who does not tolerate disobedience, to one who shows clemency.  Early on in Genesis, God punishes Adam and Eve for disobedience.  After making the mistake of flooding the world, the Lord realizes that even He is not perfect, and does not allow Jacob’s deceit of his father to taint his future.

a) Christians believe many different things about God’s nature; due to the huge spectrum of Christians that there are. However, as a general rule they perceive God as being one of the following four things:

God develops many special relationships with His people throughout the Old Testament. Another word to describe the relationship between God and his people is covenant. The word covenant goes into the details of the relationship. Within the five books of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), Historical books, Poetical books, and the Prophet books, one may pick up on the relationships being developed between God and humanity. God has an unconditional love for His people; He is always faithful to them. On the other hand, humanity has more of a conditional relationship with God. Humanity continuously falls short, making the love seem “conditional,” but are given a choice to either follow God into a relationship and receive love and benefits of the covenant or not. “No child of the covenant who presents to Him a faithless and insincere heart shall be included in its blessings.” Going off the idea of love being unconditional and conditional, this paper focuses on how the Old Testament is about God, humanity and their relationship.

From my reading, I have realized that The Laws of God and His established commands of the Old Testament were not given to restrict or enchain man, but to reveal to man God’s own true and righteous character. It was a way for God’s people to be identified with Him, and though they were forever falling short, they were identified and forever learning from the holy and righteous glimpse of God their creator through the Law. The entire Old Testament was one continuous story of God faithfully reaching for fallen man, and as man would repent and turn to God as their one and only God, He would deliver beyond mans’ deserves with blessing, victory, and hope for salvation.

During biblical times crime not only affected society, but it was believed to have also been directed towards God himself. The Bible is the oldest book to reference with many directives to living life peacefully and without revenge. As retribution is considered a form of punishment, if not the first, the Bible itself explains that the punishment should not exceed the crime. Matthew 5:38 states, “You have heard that it has been said, eye for eye and tooth for tooth”. This passage is meant as a way to explain that the punishment should fit the crime. As a member of society, the offender was punished equally as brutal as the crime