The God Who Can't Resist the Temptation to Be Merciful

The God Who Can’t Resist the Temptation to Be Merciful
2 Kings 13:1-14:29

Yesterday in church, the person who was doing the first Scripture reading, from the Prophets, said as she came up to the lectern, “I don’t really want to read this passage.” After she had read it, our rector said he had been struggling with it all through the week. He was going to preach on the reading from the Gospels, but he invited the congregation to share their thoughts on and reactions to this first passage. It came from Amos 7 and included a colorful warning about God’s angry judgment on the priest who had told Amos to shut the hell up and not prophesy. How do we handle such passages? Of course, someone pointed out (actually it was me) that Jesus is at least as colorful and straight in his warnings. So how do we relate to such a God and to such a Jesus?...