{"id":5062,"date":"2008-12-21T22:21:27","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T02:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=5062"},"modified":"2009-01-15T19:10:53","modified_gmt":"2009-01-15T23:10:53","slug":"should-my-prayers-be-whinier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2008\/12\/should-my-prayers-be-whinier\/","title":{"rendered":"Should My Prayers Be Whinier?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The psalms are prayers.  And some of them are real doozies.  <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Consider Psalm 120, where just a few minutes after requesting that the Lord shoot his (her?) enemies with flaming arrows, the psalmist declares &#8220;I am for peace.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first nor last psalm that we might read as a prayer of retribution or vengeance; it is not the only one that prays for enemies to meet an unpleasant end.  There are several apologetic dance steps that we might shuffle through at this point, such as claiming that the was the &#8220;old covenant&#8221; and that it would be inappropriate for Christians to pray in this way.<\/p>\n<p>Another option is suggested by Psalms scholar John Goldingay:  &#8220;The Psalms suggest an invitation not to deny that poison&#8217;s existence but to own it and bring it to God.  It is at least possible that bringing our warring instincts to God will make it possible to leave them there?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In other words, if you want to shoot your enemies with flaming arrows, ask God to do it.  And then leave it with God.  Get it all out.  Vent.  Whine.  Plead for evil-doers to get their just reward.  Ask God to do what you want to do, and then let it go.<\/p>\n<p>What think we about this?  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The psalms are prayers. And some of them are real doozies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-doctrine"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5412,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5062\/revisions\/5412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}