Get REAL With Scripture: When Properly Used, It Can Save Your Life

Faith, blog host of Acts of Faith in Love and Life, linked to this AMAZING blog post in one of her recent comments at another blog. It's a MUST-READ-right-now sort of post that shows just how relevant and real scripture can be when properly explained. http://swordofgoliath.blogspot.com/2009/07/jezebel-darling-who-lied-to-you.html

Too many of us read our various scriptures as if they were fairy tales with no relevance to real life. And that's the handful of us who bother to actually read the scriptures we claim to believe in. Most of us don't read, and depend upon our various ministers, imams, etc. to spoonfeed us their understanding of God's Word. Here's the part of the post that sent shivers down my spine:

"One of the worst things that can happen to any woman is to get involved in any way with an Ahab.

. . . The Ahabs are mind bending, heart breaking, and soul eroding opportunists. Ahabs can spot your low self-esteem in high heels from across the room. Ahabs can see beyond the make-up, weaves, highlights and fake skin tones. Ahabs can see the size 22 mind inside the size 2 mini. Ahabs can see all those things and will use them to their advantage. Ahabs will use you to kill off your support system and kill off his enemies."

This behavior pattern is REAL. The same way God's warning to Lot and his family to NOT look back at Sodom and Gomorrah as they were fleeing was real. These are stories about humans that describe various types of human behavior patterns. People haven't changed; and their behavior patterns haven't changed. These are repeating patterns.

The point of relaying the stories of past people(s) is so that we'll recognize the patterns when we see them play out in our own lives. If God made the scriptures a catalogue of all the various past, present and future manifestations of various human behavior patterns, these books would be endless. Those who read and believe the scriptures are expected to use pattern recognition in their discernment.

This is what I hoped to remind people of when I went on a rant during a previous post:

"I was amazed by the 'shocked, shocked I say' outrage about the latest atrocity on Black Exploitation Television. I hesitated to say this before for fear of giving offense, but I feel compelled to say it openly now: I feel that this particular outrage (the apparent airing of child pornography during the 2009 BET Awards show) was yet another sign.

There were those people who could still be lured to turn back and look upon Sodom/BET. Just like Lot's wife looked back at Sodom in the Bible. She was supposedly running from the impending destruction of Sodom to save her life. But then she looked back; and was turned into a pillar of salt. I guess the point of that story is that, in order to survive, she was supposed to run away from that place and NEVER look back.

I believe that the disgusting spectacle that BET tricked these folks into watching (with false promises of some sort of tribute to Michael Jackson) was a warning that God gave out of His mercy. One of the FINAL warnings that will be given about the folly of continuing to "look back" and consume popular "Black" culture. For ANY reason whatsoever.

. . . I would strongly urge folks to STOP looking back at "Sodom":

Don't look back at BET-Sodom.

Don't look back at the "White Girl Song"-Sodom that Sara talks about in her latest post.

Don't look back at the Internet Ike Turner's blogs-Sodom or YouTube-Sodom.

Don't look back at entertainment products from DBRBM-Sodom.

Stop looking back at Sodom! God has let you slide for now. In His Grace, He has granted you a few more moments to make it out to safety. A few more moments to get clear of Sodom. But eventually you will be turned into a metaphorical pillar of salt if you continue to look back at what He does NOT want you to take in. You can't run forward while looking backward!"

I've been amazed that more people haven't identified BET, "Messence" magazine, and the rest of that material by the labels used in scripture to identify their prototypes. The only thing that's new about these modern negative messages are their formats. The message these entities are promoting (calling people toward abasement, degradation, and ultimately death) is NOT new. It's a very old message modeled on a very old template. And from a very old source.

Believers: Are you ready to stop being a passive spiritual consumer? Are you ready to read and study God's Word as an active student who's looking for the parallels with modern circumstances?

Are you ready, willing, and able to get real with your faith tradition's scripture?