I was wondering....
Today I was wondering if people would accept the words of David in the Bible if he lived today. It seems at times he was in the depth of despair, and other times as full of joy that he danced naked. I suspect we would label him bi-polar today. He had the husband of a woman he lusted after, killed so he could then have her as his wife. His children were not all the salt of the earth by any means and he had lots of them ...Amnon, Daniel, Absalom, Adonijah ,Shephatiah, Ithream, Shimea ,Shobab, Nathan, Solomon, Ibhar, Elishama, Eliphelet, Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia, Elishama (number 2), Eliada, Eliphelet (number 2), These were all the sons of David, besides the sons of the concubines, and Tamar their sister. 1 Chronicles 3:9 . Would we condemn him and not accept his words because he was less than perfect and some of his kids were less than perfect ? The man had 8 wives too, That would make the news today wouldn't it ? It seems we have gotten into a habit of judging the messenger these days more than the message. Sure There are some wacky folks out there proclaiming truth when it isn't. And we sure don't need to be listening to untruths. But at the same time, we might want to see truth for what it is when it comes our way. It is truth no matter who says it, if it matches up with the scriptures. Think about Peter for a minute. We value his word, yet he turned his back on Christ, denying him, not once but three times. He fought with Paul about what might be considered, "disputable matters". And at times his faith was a bit shaky. He never did have faith to walk on water.
Paul said he was willing to be "all things to all men" (1 Corinthians 9: 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some." which in our minds today if a person said that, we would just label him a flip flopper. Moses had his issues too, killed someone, had no desire to do what God asked of him at first, made an excuse about his speaking ability. Cursed the rock in anger. Sounds like stuff we might all do in our humanity. The point being, no one is perfect, but they can still be used by God. They can in their imperfections have a gem of truth to share from God. God works like that at times, but we sometimes forget that. More than once I have heard someone say, "oh don't read his/her stuff, they do this or that." Hummmm....
I guess many of us would never consider sitting down and judging David, Moses and Solomon, who of all things built temples for all his pagan wives to worship at ! But what if they were in our churchs today ? Would we excommunicate them ? Imagine if someone did that today, would we ever read their words and consider them good ? Truth it seems is from God and the messenger is not always perfect, matter of fact, there has only been one.
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2 Samuel 12 tells the story of why his son died.
Moses could not enter into the promised land, Numbers 20:12 (New International Version)
12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."