It's quite obvious that Peter still retained his loyalty to the Jewish religious law of an eye for an eye despite spending number of years listening to the teachings of Jesus christ.

A lot must have gone through Peter's mind the night that Jesus was arrested. They were twelve gallant Jews mostly from the streets of Galilee. They could have taken on the Roman soldiers and it could have been a fair fight with a good chances of escape for them, but Jesus picked up the fallen ear of his assailant and magically restored it, then followed them to be crucified like a the lamb that he is.

Peter must have wondered "what manner of man is this Jesus? he doesn't get angry" the only time I could recall Jesus angry was when he went to Jerusalem and found the temple crowded with traders and he was angry why they had turned his father's house to a market place.

Every other time Jesus was paying taxes with a penny from the fish's mouth to the Jews, being nicer to Mary who listened to his teaching as opposed to Martha who busied herself preparing sumptuous meal for the lord Jesus who had visited, and so many good and cheerful things he did even at the point of death!

I like to think that the Jewish religion is more human, direct and realistic which is true to the nature of man as opposed to the Christian religion. It is the nature of man to get angry or afraid when in an unpleasant situation. When faced with a threat, a man either stand to fight back or take a flight to stay alive, and yes, we got this nature of ours from God.

Let me take you through what I understand to be the nature of God.

When Saul was commanded to destroy the Amalekite and all that belonged to them, he disobeyed by looting the remains and God was angry with him which eventually cost him his kingdom but David who was lustful and even went as far as murdering someone's husband just to cover his tracks
of adultery was forgiven! To even crown it all up, that same woman became the mother of the heir to the throne.

David even earned the reputation of being the man after God's heart. Now David is the man that really appealed to the emotions of God, David practically had a romance with God, go read the book of Psalms to confirm this. What do you expect of a man who spent everyday of his young years in the wilderness alone with sheep and the vastness of nature at his disposal, He mastered the art of flattering God with sweets words. In the sweeter parlance, he knew how to tickle God's fancy, thus, he was able to get what he wanted from God. God couldn't help it but forgive him.

From David's story, I learned that God is just as emotional as man, he gets angry, he gets happy, he can be flattered and can as well change his mind.

However God, as much as being loving, kind and being subsceptible to woos, so many accounts were recorded when he got extremely angry and did disastrous things, even many of the Jewish prophets took after him, like Moses smashing the tablets he spent days to obtain when he met the Isrealite serving a graven image or was it Elisha when he commanded bears to devour the little children who made fun of him?

Jesus taught us to shun things of the flesh and reverence the things of the spirit but here I am wondering, if God really made us in his image and likeness, then the flesh should be God like, we only need to be like David, that is, to have to ability to woo God to favour us regardless of our shortcomings because God has emotions like us and can be made to change his mind.

Just wondering, what do you think?

khilardz:
It's quite obvious that Peter still retained his loyalty to the Jewish religious law of an eye for an eye despite spending number of years listening to the teachings of Jesus christ.

A lot must have gone through Peter's mind the night that Jesus was arrested. They were twelve gallant Jews mostly from the streets of Galilee. They could have taken on the Roman soldiers and it could have been a fair fight with a good chances of escape for them, but Jesus picked up the fallen ear of his assailant and magically restored it, then followed them to be crucified like a the lamb that he is.

Peter must have wondered "what manner of man is this Jesus? he doesn't get angry" the only time I could recall Jesus angry was when he went to Jerusalem and found the temple crowded with traders and he was angry why they had turned his father's house to a market place.

Every other time Jesus was paying taxes with a penny from the fish's mouth to the Jews, being nicer to Mary who listened to his teaching as opposed to Martha who busied herself preparing sumptuous meal for the lord Jesus who had visited, and so many good and cheerful things he did even at the point of death!

I like to think that the Jewish religion is more human, direct and realistic which is true to the nature of man as opposed to the Christian religion. It is the nature of man to get angry or afraid when in an unpleasant situation. When faced with a threat, a man either stand to fight back or take a flight to stay alive, and yes, we got this nature of ours from God.

Let me take you through what I understand to be the nature of God.

When Saul was commanded to destroy the Amalekite and all that belonged to them, he disobeyed by looting the remains and God was angry with him which eventually cost him his kingdom but David who was lustful and even went as far as murdering someone's husband just to cover his tracks
of adultery was forgiven! To even crown it all up, that same woman became the mother of the heir to the throne.

David even earned the reputation of being the man after God's heart. Now David is the man that really appealed to the emotions of God, David practically had a romance with God, go read the book of Psalms to confirm this. What do you expect of a man who spent everyday of his young years in the wilderness alone with sheep and the vastness of nature at his disposal, He mastered the art of flattering God with sweets words. In the sweeter parlance, he knew how to tickle God's fancy, thus, he was able to get what he wanted from God. God couldn't help it but forgive him.

From David's story, I learned that God is just as emotional as man, he gets angry, he gets happy, he can be flattered and can as well change his mind.

However God, as much as being loving, kind and being subsceptible to woos, so many accounts were recorded when he got extremely angry and did disastrous things, even many of the Jewish prophets took after him, like Moses smashing the tablets he spent days to obtain when he met the Isrealite serving a graven image or was it Elisha when he commanded bears to devour the little children who made fun of him?

Jesus taught us to shun things of the flesh and reverence the things of the spirit but here I am wondering, if God really made us in his image and likeness, then the flesh should be God like, we only need to be like David, that is, to have to ability to woo God to favour us regardless of our shortcomings because God has emotions like us and can be made to change his mind.

Just wondering, what do you think?

I think the god is just a mental construct and largely is an aspect of the individual ego. That is why your god always knows you perfectly but doesn't know what you don't know or otherwise can't find out. The changeableness of your god is a reflection of this.