Um…I don’t know a nice way to say this but you need to get yourself back to seminary school.
I’m willing to assume that the “You’re a Christian first and a father and husband and citizen second” thing was recorded before the events of last Tuesday and 'though your “Do whatever it takes to spread the Gospel” message was creepy in light of what happened, I accept that’s not what you meant. But what I’m not willing to forgive is your complete lack of historical and Biblical knowledge.
You were using the story of Mordechai standing up to Hamen as a lesson in how Christians should stand up to worldly influences. Swell. Except. Um…
Mordechai didn’t do all that much and, well…Mordechai wasn’t a Christian.
Really.
He wasn’t a good Christian man, a good Christan father or a good Christian citizen. Maybe he behaved like one should, but…trust me on this: [sub]he was Jewish![/sub]
Really. We Jews honor him so much that we gave him (actually, come to think of it, we don’t honor him much, we honor his cousin. She’s the real heroine of the story. Esther. Has a whole book in the Bible named after her. Very famous.)…we gave those events their own holiday: You may have heard of it. Also famous. Purim. You get cookies to celebrate.
The main point here is that Mordechai lived quite a while before Christ was born (I’ve seen wildly varying dates. At least 150 years B.C.). He couldn’t have been a Christian. If you wanna use Mordechai as an example of how religous people should behave, fine (although again, why not point to Esther, since she’s the one who did all the work). If you wanna say that Christians should be like Mordechai, swell, I suppose. But don’t co-opt Jewish heroes by saying they were Christians.
C’mon – the whole thing started because Haman hated Mordecai; Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman, so Haman plotted to destroy the Jewish people as a result. Mordecai also talked Esther into speaking to the king on behalf of the Jews. Admittedly, Esther fasted for three days, but the guiding hand was Mordecai’s just as much as Esther’s.
According to the Talmud, a Purim celebrant is encouraged to drink until he cannot tell the difference between cursing Haman and blessing Mordecai. I’d say he deserves more than “…didn’t do all that much.”
Clearly, of course, he was a Jew.
But then, so was Jesus, and look how much attention He gets!
This reminds me of when I was taking a bible study course and we got to the lesson on Esther. I got online and found a site that told about the story, the holiday, etc. I went to class armed to the hint. To make a long story short did you know that we Christians do not interpret the Old Testament the same way the Jewish people do? It was a shock to me at the time.
Yeah. Ok, I’ll concede the point. I hang my head in shame for dissing Mordechai at the expense of his cousin. Consider it an overreaction to Mr. Radio-Rreacher not even mentioning Esther’s name.
**
So where was this verse when I was 16 years old? Out of deference for American sensibilities, I didn’t ever even hear about this 'till I was an adult. My culture and the right to get drunk was denied to me. Maybe Mr. Radio-Preacher has a point!
I had a (very brief) period where I was grossed out by them. I was about…oh…five or so. Some older kid told me that hamentashen meant “Hamen’s ears” and that the lemon/poppyseed mixture was actually wax to represent earwax (and the raspberry goo was red wax and was supposed to represent blood from when his ears were cut off(?). Eeeeewww. That lasted a couple o’ hours. Then the hamentashen’s sweet lure overcame my queasyness.
Because I was out and about at 6:00 AM to buy ingredients for Matzo Ball soup (a family tradition for Rosh Hashana). I’d forgotten my CD case and there was nothing else on. It was either Mr. Radio-Preacher Man or[ul]
[li]The. World’s. Slowest. Talker. Discussing. How. Too. Many. Earth. Worms. Are. Bad. But. Too. Few. Are. Bad. Too! Worm. Poop. Is. Called. Castings. And. Is. Good. For. Veg. et. a. bles![/li]
[li]Some infomercial about the heartbreak of toenail fungus. I’m not prepared to deal with fungus, let alone the toenail kind before coffee.[/li]
[li]A boring radio preacher. “We should all love each other more and strive to be like Jesus.”.[/li]Hmmm…well, Good Lord! I can’t object to that.
[li]Someone saying something in Spanish. With my luck it was aliens giving the secrets of immortality and FTL travel (“It’s really easy folks, all you need is a nice hot cup of really hot water, some copper wire and a battery!”). My high-school Spanish teacher always said I’d regret ditching so often![/li][/ul]
Anyway, I hear Hamen and Mordechai and thought “Kewl! Purim! A Radio Rabbi! In Denver!? Whodathunkit?” before I realized:
A) Christians read the Old Testament too!
B) Mr Radio Preacher Man was a Christian and got the story wrong. (At which point it became fun, in an MST3K way)
Damn, I thought we got that broadcast shut down faster than that! How are we going to use the Memerase[sup]TM[/sup] on everyone in Denver? Time to get in the big guns from the homeworld.
He didn’t get it wrong. He was just being kind. Christians have a long tradition of genrously sharing there Christian status with Old Testament figures- particularly if they’re heroic enough.
Goes back (at least) as far as Dante, who let Moses into Heaven (and left poor Virgil and Aristotle in Limbo) because he (Moses) anticipated a Messiah.
See, they’re being nice enough to believe, anticipating a Messiah, they would have guessed right and picked Jesus if they had the chance. So, they’re honorary Christains.
Of course since 24 AD, the rest of you didn’t guess right and y’all are still damned and all. Sorry about that.
