About a month ago, I wrote about hearing a short sermon at payer meeting by a First Baptist minister on Revelations, Chapter 2. The preacher pointed out that Jesus said he would kill Jezebel and her children. I commented that I was disappointed that Jesus would kill children for something the mother did. A brain surgeon's wife then asked twice who I thought I was to question Jesus. I also asked if there was another interpretation to this, and the minister replied that there was but he wasn't going to get into it. Later in his sermonette, he said, "You know the old saying that the fruit doesn't fall from the tree. That may be a reason for the killing the children." I shooked my head no while being painfully aware that others were nodding in agreement.
After blogging about that, I arranged to talk to a Methodist minister over the phone. By then a friend who is a Friend (Quaker) had told me that the passage was a metaphor not a threat to a specific Jezebell and her children. When I talked to the Methodist minister, I told him what the lady who belongs to the Friends had said about the metaphor, and he agreed completely with her. Still why would you metaphorically kill the metaphoric children of a metaphoric Jezebel? The Methodist minister added that you can find God killing children in the Old Testament. So how does that make him a just God? If he had reasons to kill children, as unlikely as that seems, why didn't he tell humans the reasons so we could worship a just God? On what basis should we worship an unjust God? Because we're cowards and fear his wrath? Now that's a reason to be proud of ! Peter Nickerson, MS, MSW
Gainesville, Florida 352-359-0850
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