People of the Bible Uncensored

David Stoop Dr.

Description

Stories in the Bible demonstrate how God works through the lives of ordinary, very human, people just like us. For millennia, the stories of the Patriarchs, along with several women, have been told from generation to generation in the Jewish community, shaping how God's chosen people understand their relationship with him. In People of the Bible Uncensored, modern Christians can get to know these legendary characters and the God who worked in and through them. Readers will be introduced to David, who wrestled with sexual temptation, and Abraham, who found it just as difficult to wait on God's timing as Christians sometimes do today. As they begin to see the ancients for who they really were, readers will be encouraged and challenged to trust the God who can accomplish extraordinary things through the unlikeliest of people.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 16 septembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441225931
• Langue: English

Extrait

PRAISE FOR
P EOPLE OF THE B IBLE : U NCENSORED
If you’ve ever struggled, failed, made mistakes or dealt with doubts, disappointments and discouragement, this book is for you. This book is about real people with real issues with real encouragement and real solutions. If you’re tired of clichés and pat answers, the stories of the real-life men and women in this book will open up new windows of understanding. The practical “So What Can We Learn?” section at the end of each chapter will help you apply what you’ve learned in your everyday living. Christianity isn’t wind sprints, it’s cross-country, and Dave’s insights will help you run a better race and finish well.
Gary J. Oliver, Ph.D.
Executive Director, The Center for Relationship Enrichment at John Brown University Author, Mad About Us and Raising Sons and Loving It!
Here’s a fresh look at the people of the Old Testament that will make them relevant to how you and I live our lives. My friend David Stoop has a way of making these people come alive. To see them as real people and not just characters in a story truly enhances studying the Bible. You will find new insights for daily living from these ancient personalities.
Gary Smalley
Author of Guarding Your Child’s Heart
In this book, a seasoned Christian psychologist-pastor peeks at the darker side of the Bible’s heroic Hebrews and finds the all-too-familiar matching threats facing today’s people of God. The retold stories, penetrating and compelling, draw on the tales of the rabbis that imaginatively, and at times humorously, enhance the Old Testament accounts. Sound biblical interpretation, discerning pastoral insight, mature devotional counsel!
Russ Spittler
Professor of New Testament and Emeritus and Provost Emeritus Fuller Theological Seminary

2011 David Stoop
Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Revell edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-2593-1
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation , copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Other versions used are:
KJV — King James Version . Authorized King James Version.
NIV —Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM GREIG, JR .,
THROUGH WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT THIS BOOK
WAS FINALLY WRITTEN .
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Abraham: The Imperfect Father of Our Faith
2. Isaac: The Silent Saint
3. Jacob: The Fearful Saint
4. The Family Dynamics of Jacob and Esau
5. Joseph: The Victimized Saint
6. Job: The Argumentative Saint
7. Moses: The Reluctant Saint
8. Samson: The Pampered Saint
9. Samuel: The Jealous Saint
10. King Saul: The “Could Have Been” Saint
11. David: The Sinful Saint
12. Some Saintly Women
13. Some Saints Who Were Prophets
Small-Group and Individual Study Guide
Endnotes
INTRODUCTION
Stories are an important part of our lives. In fact, one could say that our lives are simply one long story. Jesus knew the power of stories, and most of His teaching was done through parables—a type of story. And the Gospels tell us the story of Jesus’ life in the same way that the stories of the Old Testament tell us of God’s relationship with His people, Israel. For centuries the stories of the patriarchs, along with the prophets and of several women, were told from generation to generation, to the point that these stories became a part of their lives. And the most intriguing stories in the Old Testament are the accounts of the lives of those patriarchs, the prophets and the judges.
My purpose in writing this book is to help you get to know some of the people of the Old Testament to a greater degree. I want you to see them as fully human; to see that they each fought to hold on to their faith in the midst of good and bad circumstances; and how, like each of us, they struggled to continue to believe God’s promises. I think it helps to see that men like David wrestled with some of the very strong temptations men still deal with today. Some of these men suffered with depression; others with deep father wounds. There are even some who struggled with a sexual addiction, while others actually sabotaged their walk with God by their sense of self-sufficiency and pride. And, like us, there are some who became impatient with God’s slowness to act, and who even doubted what God had clearly said to them. They each had ups and downs in their walk with God. Some failed to be the men God called them to be. Some of the men were heroes, while others were jealous of another’s success, and some even sabotaged their relationships. And then there were the women—their stories shine like bright lights in the history of the Old Testament.
As a young boy growing up in the church, listening to the stories of the Old Testament characters, I became convinced that the people whose lives counted enough to make it into the Bible must have been perfect, even wearing haloes over their heads! I thought they must have had gigantic faith, trusting God for everything, and never doubted God. After all, God even spoke audibly to some of them. How awesome that must have been! I thought, If only I could be a little bit more like them . But then, I didn’t read their stories very often, because I didn’t want to feel guilty about my own imperfect faith.
It took a number of years for me to see these people as the Bible portrays them—good people who sometimes did bad things. In fact, some of them lied, cheated, stole and even murdered, and it seemed like they got away with it all. There went the haloes! But as I started to see them as imperfect people like me, I began to learn some important things from their stories. I discovered them as they really were—imperfect, flawed saints who cared about following God. Finally, I could identify with them.
Eugene Peterson makes this same point in his study on the book of Ephesians. He notes how often Paul calls all who follow Jesus “saints.” Paul used the word in every letter he wrote, and it was an inclusive word. It didn’t refer to a separate class of believers who were being honored by Paul. He said that we are all saints. “Paul deliberately chooses a word that identifies us by what God does in and for us, not what we do for God.” 1 What Paul did with the word “saint” is what I want to do with that word. I want to look at these imperfect, flawed people of the Old Testament and, in their stories, find the nuggets of what God did in and for them, not just what they did for God.
What I have since found to be interesting is that the ancient Jewish rabbis who taught and wrote about these biblical saints never saw them as perfect. If anything, they did what I want to do in this book—they humanized them by fleshing out their stories, while at the same time never changing what God intended to teach us through their lives. For them, these Old Testament saints were very human, and in many ways very much the same as we are. Now, by referring to the rabbinic material in this book, I do not intend to suggest that these stories are inspired by God and have the same authority as Scripture. Nonetheless, the rabbinic stories do help us understand some of the full implications of the biblical descriptions of Old Testament saints. My intent is to make these Old Testament people come alive for you so that you can more easily identify with them, enter into their lives and learn practical lessons from their all-too-human walk with God.
Each of these people of the Bible whom we will consider had a rich personality. Most of them were men, as the Hebrews were a patriarchal culture. But there are women included as well, and they stole the show when they arrived on the scene. But whether it was a man or a woman, what’s interesting is that they all started out with a lot of “holes” in their faith. Most grew to a point where they became “whole,” and some even went on to actually be what we might call “holy.” But their daily walk with God wasn’t any easier than what we experience today. Each of these stories will touch your life in some way as you see how what they experienced is relevant to you and me today. So I challenge you to open your heart and find yourself in their stories.
1
ABRAHAM
The Imperfect Father of Our Faith
Abraham believed God, so God declared him righteous because of his faith .
GALATIANS 3:6
I started out in ministry as the head of a local parachurch youth ministry. Each week we put on a Saturday night rally, which featured as often as possible some well-known youth speaker with a dramatic testimony. I remember thinking as a young man how unfortunate I was to have had such a non-dramatic conversion experience. I often thought that I would have been a stronger and better Christian if I had undergone some major transformational experience. How much easier it would have been to have faith if I could see a strong contrast between what I was before I accepted Christ and what I became when I accepted him. At least that was the impression I developed as I talked with those whose pre-Christian life was characterized by major sinful behaviors from which they were miraculously delivered.
But as I followed the lives of these well-known speakers