Those Confusing Kings

12 Responses to “Those Confusing Kings”

1. 

   Stacy Lee

   August 13th, 2009 at 6:51 am

   Dear Pastor Ken,

   I have a question about a passage in the end of Job that describes someone whose “back is made of rows of shields…his sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. Out of his mouth go flaming torches…on earth there is nto his like, a creature without fear. He sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride” (Job 41:15-34).

   I don’t think it’s the Leviathan, which is mentioned just before this passage, and I can’t clearly discern if the passage implies that the being is good or bad (”goodly frame” vs. “a creature without fear”). Is God describing Satan by chance?

   Also, I was wondering might have God judged Elihu, who was not mentioned by God at the end? I wasn’t sure how his speech was different from the other three men’s.

   Thank you!

2. 

   Pastor Ken

   August 13th, 2009 at 10:13 am

   Hi Stacey,

   I’m glad that you are keeping up with the Bible reading program. Earlier in chapters 38-39 God described several other animals that He had created. In chapters 40-41 He describes two especially magnificent and powerful animals, Behemoth and Leviathan.

   I don’t see any indication that He starts describing a different creature in 41:15. There has been a lot of speculation about what exactly was the Leviathan, but the most common interpretation is a crocodile. That would have been quite a fearsome beast to people with only primitive weapons. The “row of shields” would refer to the tough hide. But what about the part about breathing fire? That might be poetic hyperbole. In v. 34 Leviathan seems to symbolize arrogant evil. That may be one reason that the description goes beyond a real crocodile.

   I’m not sure why God didn’t judge Elihu.

3. 

   John Shen

   September 13th, 2009 at 4:45 am

   http://www.crosswire.org/bibledesktop/

   This free software helps me to keep up, because I am always with a computer. It is available in all platforms. Hope someone else finds it useful too. You need internet connection to download bible text and other books such as commentaries, but can use the software offline.

   The only requirement is that you have JRE (java runtime environment).

   God bless and happy bible reading!

4. 

   Pastor Ken

   September 15th, 2009 at 1:53 pm

   Thanks for sharing this with us. I took a look at the resources available in this software and discovered that they are mostly very old Bible translations and commentaries. That is not surprising, because books with an active copyright are usually not available for free.

   Take a look at biblestudytools.com, where you will find a good collection of resources, including some more up to date Bible transltations and Greek/Hebrew tools. But you need to have an internet connection to use it.

5. 

   Carol

   October 26th, 2009 at 4:00 pm

   I have a question. Did Chinese people come from the line of Shem? Any resources as to which son of Noah we can trace our lineage to?

6. 

   Pastor Ken

   October 30th, 2009 at 4:58 pm

   In Gen. 10 it looks like the descendants of Japheth went north, those of Ham went south, and those of Shem went east. That’s not much to go on, but that is probably why some say that Chinese people are descended from Shem. I haven’t studied this in detail, so I don’t know if there is any other evidence.

7. 

   Stacy

   November 23rd, 2009 at 1:42 am

   Hi Pastor Ken,

   Another question regarding a recent passage in the reading schedule - out of curiosity, when Jerusalem falls in the end of Jeremiah and the temple is burned, did that mean the ark of the covenant, tablets, budding staff get destroyed as well?

   And this is off topic, but I once brought up the idea of compostable communion cups with Kiki after one service…could that be considered by the elders of the church? I found a website with some information and the church is actually based in Berkeley: http://www.agreenchurch.com/products/index.html

8. 

   Pastor Ken

   November 23rd, 2009 at 10:24 am

   The Bible does not say what happened to the ark of the covenant or its contents. There has been lots of speculation, even an Indiana Jones movie, but no one really knows.

   Thanks for the tip about the disposable communion cups. I will look into it when they become available next year.

9. 

   Carol

   December 25th, 2009 at 10:45 am

   A question: Why do you think God included all the parts of the bible (specifically in the prophets) about Him judging other nations in the inspired Word? What is the application to us?

10. 

    Pastor Ken

    January 5th, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    God’s judgment reveals part of His character, namely that He is a holy God. It’s important to realize that He loves us, but apart from the death and resurrection of Christ He would be obligated by His justice to send us all to hell for eternity. Some of the judgment in the prophets is directed at Israel as a call for repentance. Most of the time the pronouncement of judgment is followed the the promise of restoration. But the judgment on the surrounding nations is sometimes without remedy, reminding us of the immense privilege of experiencing God’s grace.

11. 

    Carol

    April 16th, 2010 at 9:42 am

    Hi PK, I looked up “true” and it was the greek word alethes, meaning loving the truth, speaking the truth, truthful. it’s used many times in john referring to 1) statements or testimonies that are true and 2) God or Jesus being true. What does it mean for a person to be “true”? How can we emulate Jesus based on John 7:18?

12. 

    Pastor Ken

    April 20th, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    When the word “true” is applied to persons it usually means truthful or honest. So we could emulate Jesus by speaking and acting according to the truth.

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