Unsettling Bible Stories

There are some Bible stories that are hard to understand. We don’t like to talk about this because it sounds like we’re having doubts about our faith. But if we’re honest, what God does in certain situations doesn’t seem to agree with what he has done in other similar cases. An example of this is the famous King David. We all admire and respect his radical trust in God when he challenged the giant Goliath in a literal Death Match, but we shake our heads in wonder when God seemingly so easily forgives David for stealing another man’s wife and then having him killed.

Even a quick read through the well-known Old Testament stories gives ample examples of the Lord putting to death people for doing things which seem minor compared to what David did. We wonder, “Is God inconsistent?”

Maybe, just maybe, there’s more to learn about ourselves from God’s forgiveness of David than we would like to admit. Could it be that rather than spending time comparing the severity of David’s sins with those of other people we should be looking at ourselves? In certain situations, David displayed a trust in God that would put the best of our faith moments to shame. Yet, he had the potential to commit the most heinous of sins. Maybe what we learn from this man is that all of us are capable of the same crimes he was. The incredible grace which David needed, we also need. Instead of looking down on the man we should join him on our knees and say with him, “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion…wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.”

The grace of God is so shocking it has been called scandalous. Praise his name it is because we all certainly need scandalous grace.

* If you would like to participate in the Story Bible series but have not yet received your copy of the Story Bible, please respond to this e-mail and we’ll get one out to you.

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