Isaiah 55:1-9

I have spent years attempting to have reasonable discussions with strong believers. I eventually started getting quickly to the sentiment here, sometimes the actual verses, that God's thoughts are beyond our ability to comprehend. The Bible has many passages that call you to listen to God. Few of them so sharply and immediately contrast that with a direct statement about not being able to understand what He says. Many conversations have ended with someone telling me to read the Bible and pray, then I'll understand, and me telling them I did so and it told me that's not possible. However, this seeming impasse can actually be a beginning of a discussion. It is an underlying assumption of any discussion that is reasonable, that is, we don't know everything. We struggle toward truth we don't hold it or possess it.

This passage comes from the Babylonian exile, long after the first part of the book of Isaiah and centuries after King David. To these authors, David's time is now legendary and most likely seen as better times despite the not-so-better things David did and the resulting loss of the kingdom. So they are forming a new theology, one of hope, one where nations will come to them, simply because they seek the Lord. Verse 2 gives you some hint of misspent riches and poor uses of their time, but not much else to go on. It's not wrong, it's just not well fleshed out, that's our job.

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

I'm not going to spend much time on the context of this one. If you aren't familiar with Moses wandering in the desert with a cloud that was God and they found manna as spiritual food and all that, well, go look into that, it's pretty important to the Biblical narrative. What you might not know is the story of some idolaters being struck down in the wilderness. 1 Corinthians is a pretty loving book, but here it takes a decidedly fundamentalist turn. If you don't worship God correctly, the followers that are worshipping him correctly will kill you. Even today's fundamentalists water this message down, at least in their public statements. Liberal Christians will say The New Testament is a kinder gentler God, but passages like this belie that message.

Moses discusses killing people with God
Thou shalt not kill, unless they don't follow God

Luke 13:1-9

The fig tree represents the nation of Israel. Symbols are not always universally agreed upon, but there's pretty good agreement on this one. Or, the symbolism might just be a more obvious analogy to the life cycle of a fig tree. I like the Israel meaning because it makes the very strange story of Jesus cursing a fig tree more sensible (Matthew 21:18-22). He's cursing the current leadership of his culture that is not bearing fruit. By speaking up and calling out that leadership, he is saying they can take them down. In this parable, he's willing to give them a chance. The soil represents community. Nurture it and see if they flourish. If not, then they'll have to go. More clearly here is that no matter who you are, if you don't repent, you're done.