Voicesby Vic Jameson Sunday School is a good place to go. You can learn a lot there. Here are some things you probably didn't learn in Sunday School and don't blame me if you get in trouble for using them. Proceed at your own risk: Adam -- First human. shows that a master Craftsman can make something out of nothing, including dirt. Although that same Craftsman may sometimes think that leaving it as dirt would have been a better thing to do. Beelzebub -- The very devil. Cain -- First human with a -- well, a navel; (one does not say "bellybutton" in polite company). Too bad that a man of such distinguished lineage turned out to be so bad. Especially since his action spawned a comment attributed to some otherwise respectable fish, "Am I my blubber's kipper?" Daniel -- Didn't eat meat. Maybe that's why the lions didn't eat him. David -- Warrior, poet, army, musician, dancer, king. Gave his own twist to the admonition to "love your neighbor." Esther -- "This happened in the days of Ahasuerus," says the beginning of the book of Esther. And plenty happened, although some things in the book apparently didn't happen, and some things that happened in those days are not in the book. Esther is described as essentially a book of fiction. It has been much-praised, and much-criticized. Confused? Read the book. Ezra -- Made a terrific report on the returnees from captivity in Babylon, including 42,360 plus the servants, 200 singers, 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels, and so on. And, freewill offerings to a building fund for the house of God came to 61,000 darics of gold, 5,000 minas of silver, and 100 priestly robes. Ezra would have been an excellent clerk of session. Or chairman of a building campaign. Father -- There are something like 1,199 references in the Bible, give or take, to fathers. Mothers get mentioned only somewhere around 380 times. Take your choice on who wrote those minutes. Huldah -- The king, figuring he was in trouble, sent Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah to see the woman prophet Huldah, the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, son of Harhas. Huldah said some pretty harsh words to them, and most of the dire things she said would happen, happened. You can find some of the details in 2 Kings. Festus -- An official who, in a trial, said, "You are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!" Not much more is said about Festus. Habakkuk -- An introduction to the words of Habakkuk says that "nothing is known about the life of the Old Testament prophet, not even his father's name." If nothing was known about his life, one has to wonder how could anybody know anything about anything? But let us not nit pick. After all, he did rate five pages of prophecy and complaints and prayer, in the Old Testament. Do you think you could do better? Herod -- Between 4 B.C. and about 100 A.D. -- something like 137 years -- there were four heads of state named Herod in biblical lands. Which means to match that record the current USA leader family has some distance to go. Jael -- After some battle or other, Sisera, a soldier, fled to the tent of Jael, wife of Herber the Kenite. She invited him in, gave him milk to drink and a rug to hid under. Sounds kind and caring. But then he went to sleep and she whacked him something awful with a hammer and a tent peg. Wham! He never lived to talk about it. If anyone ever tells you to go someplace, you'd better hope it's to go to jail, not to Jael. Jezebel -- Ahab took Jezebel for his wife and a lot of bad things happened thereafter. Jezebel was not a nice person. Joel -- Not a lot seems to be known about Joel, either , except that he once witnessed a locust plague that ravished his country. Not just anyone could have that claim to fame. Kidron -- is not a him, it's a place where the king crossed the wadi and the whole company wept aloud. A place Jeremiah said would be sacred to the Lord. Where Jesus often went with his disciples. Leanness -- "My leanness has risen up against me," said Job. Job spoke of so many complaints in those days that it is not easy to figure out just what he meant here. On the other hand some of his sayings are food for thought. Such as "My breath is repulsive to my wife," and "there is not justice." But he also said, "I know that my redeemer lives" which could be more important than all the other things he said put together. In leanness or not. Micah -- An introduction to Micah's book says that Micah "stands solidly with Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah as a fierce champion of pure worship of the Lord and of social justice." Seems like the dispute over those two issues is as hot as ever. Miriam -- Did you know Miriam, the sister of Aaron, was a prophet? Now you do. Obadiah -- That's the answer. The question is, What is the shortest book in the Old Testament? Rachel and Leah -- Jacob loved Rachel. He was tricked into marrying her sister Leah. The girls' father then promised Rachel to poor Jacob, who accepted the offer. All told Jacob spent fourteen years working to win the daughter he had wanted all the time. This shows that either (1) Jacob loved Rachel like crazy, or (2) Jacob was easily befuddled. Or both. The whole story would be a knockout as a TV series. Ruth -- A lovely account of a widow and her mother-in-law who was not the stereotypical mother-in-law and who helped her get the attention of a farmer named Boaz in a somewhat unusual way and wound up becoming his wife and what is more became (Ruth, not the mother-in-law) the great great great great great great great great great grandmother of King David. Maybe it was eight greats, or ten, but who's counting? And in conclusion -- The Bible mentions the word liberal in only one book, and the word conservative not at all. Republican and Democrat also are absent from it all, as is the word politics itself. The word love is mentioned in the Bible something like 580 times, in at least 55 of its books. Enough said.
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