Zach . . .

One of Zach's favorite subjects this year has been the study of religion. Two of the books he studies religiously (pun intended) are Tools Of Dominion and Institutes of Biblical Law. It hasn't surprised me that he has found these books to be interesting because he has read the Bible as literature for the last several years. He carries it around with him and reads it in his spare time. It's hard to explain, but I guess I'd have to say it's not a sacred book to him. It's not something he reads because he has to or because it makes him more spiritual. He reads it because he finds it interesting. The Old Testament kings and battles have been especially fascinating to him. The two books that are assigned texts for his senior year have taken on the same significance. He devours them. I'm not sure what this means for his future, but I'm very interested to find out where all of this will lead.

I'm sorry to say that I find myself glazing over when he begins to share what he's learning with me. I'm thankful to say that Pastor Brad, who is closer to Zach's age than mine, has taken the time to hang out with him on Fridays to give him an outlet for all these deep thoughts and ideas.


This afternoon, Zach was reading through the Old Testament book of Kings and telling me all about the escapades of young and old kings and the women who raised them and sometimes killed them. Stories of blood and guts and traitors and Eunuchs and Queens who murdered their grandsons. I admit, it was interesting and I even made him show me some of the passages because it sounded more like a novel than the Bible. These are just two of the passages that really caught my attention:

Passage #1:
Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels.
As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

The king replied, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”

She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”

When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and they saw that, under his robes, he had sackcloth on his body. He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”
(2 Kings 6:24-31)


Passage #2
Then Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she painted her eyes, arranged her hair and looked out of a window. As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, “Have you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?”
He looked up at the window and called out, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked down at him. “Throw her down!” Jehu said. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot.

Jehu went in and ate and drank. “Take care of that cursed woman,” he said, “and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.” But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet and her hands. They went back and told Jehu, who said, “This is the word of the LORD that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will devour Jezebel’s flesh. Jezebel’s body will be like refuse on the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that no one will be able to say, ‘This is Jezebel.’”
2 Kings 9:30-37


Not sure if I should be proud or worried. . .