Yes Finally the Last Post for Reading a Bible

These four songs that are dedicated to God indicate the QUESTions we discussed in class; is there unfairness in the world? If there is why?
At least, it answers one of the questions, “Is there unfairness in the world?” As you can see, all the three characters are talking to God, with the hope of salvation. However, only the character from chapter 23 gets to get the “goodness and mercy” from God. What about the others? They all seem to have absolute faith towards God. The one from Psalm chapter 137 asked about how to sing the song of LORD God. He one from 51 asked for the salvation of his soul. The one of 42 asked for the chance to see Him. What was the difference between them and the one that is receiving God’s mercy? Was there really a difference?
From the previous stories, I believe it is chosen by randomness or better said by God’s likeness. For example, in Job. He was chosen to be the one punished because God wanted to make a point with Satan. The reason why it was Job was because he was one of the (one of the) one who was “righteous”. Which was one of the conditions Satan mentioned.
As a conclusion, I would say that unfairness exists due to the random choosing.

David Has Such an Interesting Personality.

The character of David surprises me a lot. Specifically, his loyalty and faith towards God is so strong, it makes him strong in mentality, is what surprises me the most. The chapter that showed this aspect of him the most was in 15:26, “But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.” His faith is so absolute that he thinks God is the one who chooses his own destiny. Probably, this is one of the reasons why God loves David so much. Because David will do whatever thing God wants to do and will accept anything that will happen wrong.
Another characteristic of him that impressed me was his size of his heart. David not only welcomed back one of this sons that killed the other son, but he grieved for that same son that was trying to overthrow him. He was able to grief because he has accepted the fact that his son was trying to betray him. Now, drawing the line between accepting and giving up is a challenging thing to do. Or at least I think so. Let’s say, you have ‘accepted’ the fact that you don’t have the ability like Beethoven. Therefore, decided to play the piano as a hobby and not try as hard as before, when you believed you come become a great pianist. How can you say that that ‘acceptance’ was not an excuse for ‘giving up’? I often hear that humans’ abilities are limitless. But I also believe that the talents are distributed differently among us. Which means some of our potentials are limited. I guess I will conclude that the balance between accepting certain things and not giving up is one of the greatest challenges I would need to overcome some day.

David. It is all about David.

Here comes David, the perfect one. The one that has such an big heart that can mourn for the someone that was trying to kill him, as shown in The Second Book of Samuel 1: 12, “And they mourned, and wept, and fasted until even, for Saul, and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the LORD, and for the house of Israel; because they were fallen by the sword.” Moreover, he not only has such a big capacity in his heart, he is really loyal to God. David killed the so called alien, to show how much respect he has towards Him by killing the man that finished off the sufferance of Saul.
By making produce so many children of humans God has made a complex society. He is causing all the problems and fighting between people. Was this what God wanted? Or is this the consequence of wanting a creature that was made out of his likeness. I think God just lost control over humans since the day Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge.

Humans Seek For Mystery.

Humans have always been attracted to those of who has a strength we don’t have. Whether the strength that person or creature has is used for good or bad. Why are we enticed by so many things that we don’t have and will never have? This aspect of humans is shown in Job 41:33, “Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.” Why is it that we always seek for the things we have never experienced? I believe this only happens to humans, which has made us be greedier, because animals such as zebras and lions make a perfect natural life-cycle. Maybe the reason why humans seek for things we can’t reach is because we have this tendency of wanting to explore. (I think we can see this in our human history of conquering.) And if we loose the “thing” to explore, we loose the energy of enthusiasm or the reason to ‘live’. (Because we tend to act from logic. Why were we born? For what? What is our mission? Etc.) So, maybe that is why we look for areas we will never reach, in order to let our fire keep on burning until we die.
Well, maybe my guess is right because I think the reason why many people believe in god is to have an explanation about the things we don’t know yet. Such as the born of life.

Elihu, Is a Master of Convincing People.

Picture from: http://oneyearbibleimages.com/elihu.jpg


For this reading response, let me try to analyze the roles of the characters in Job. All of them are organized in a way to persuade the readers about the absolute authority of God. First of all, Job. His character tells us that pretending to be “perfect and upright” (Job 1:1), is not enough to gain wisdom from God. Showing all the process of questioning, doubting and complaining towards God prepares the setting for one of the most important character, Elihu. The three friends of Job also help set up the stage for Elihu. By giving variation to the reaction towards the punishment of Job, the author succeeds to evoke many types of readers.
Finally, Elihu, the character that is so young but knows so much about God. He is the key character, I believe. By listing only the great things God has done to humans, like mentioned in Job 32:8, “But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” Elihu proves how God is so different from us, humans, who are ignorant. (However, this line is not precisely correct. God didn’t give us the understanding. Humans have stolen it from God against his will.) Also Elihu only mentions the terrible consequences when one is “ignorant”. He also uses pathos, for example in Job 33:13, “Why dost thou strive against him? for he giveth not account of any of his matters.” He makes the actions of Job as the most terrible and mean thing you can do. He makes Job seem that he is the most annoying person who lacks the gracefulness towards God. Even if he was just punished because he was randomly chosen by Satan to prove his point.

Freewill doesn't exist. I believe.

One of the abilities that debate requires is public speech. In theory, we learned that a good speech requires flexibility, stability, volume, content and strategy. But it was a totally different experience to actually make it into action. By observing the people speak, I was able to learn some things for my next turn.

1. Eye contact
2. Not rush when speaking
3. Good volume is a when it doesn’t echo that much that makes your ear uncomfortable but it does expand so that the people in the back can hear you.
4. Be comfortable with what you are talking. Read as less as possible.
5. Even if you don’t believe what you are saying, say it with confidence.
6. When giving a example, it is convincing when you give a daily example that you know about.





Well, at the end of the debate about freewill, I was fully convinced that freewill doesn’t exist.

Job, the first one who questioned God.

Picture from: http://www.wga.hu/art/b/blake/09job.jpg


Job”, has introduced us one of the QUESTions that we learned at the beginning of the course, “why does injustice exist?” I saw this question from Job 7:20, “I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself.” According to the passage, Job was chosen to be tested, because GOD wanted to make sure that what Satan was saying was not true. In other words, injustice was born out of the doubtfulness of the GOD towards human beings. He wanted to test the humans and Job was chosen because that was who Satan mentioned to prove his point. But the direct cause of his sufferings is mostly because of the anxiety of God.