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Which Side of the Bed Did God Wake Up On Today?
The God of the Bible scares me. He always has, and I was a classic Christian for most of five decades. That’s a lot of years to be walking around scared.
Depending upon the “sin” I committed, I was afraid God would strike me blind, hit me with a bolt of lightning, make my face break out worse than it already had, or inflict me with one of a host of other punishments if I hadn’t admitted my guilt to him and expressed my remorse.
Where does our fear of God come from? Mine originated from reading the Old Testament story of the flood. I first read it when I was around ten years old, which was the first time I read the Bible all the way through. I thought a God who would drown everyone for misbehaving except Noah and his family had a pretty big mean streak.
Then there’s the story of a man named Er. It’s in the book of Genesis (38:1–10) where God is displeased — no reason given — with Er, the first-born son of Judah:
“But Er offended Yahweh (God) greatly, so Yahweh brought about his death.”
This divine crime is then repeated with Judah’s next-born, Onan. This son was asked by his father to sleep with his widowed sister-in-law to produce a child for his slain brother. However, Onan knew the child wouldn’t be considered his, so he practiced coitus interruptus, and:
