Mark Buchanan has written a timely book, entitled: Your God Is Too Safe. He believes that many Christians want God to be "comfortable rather than comforting." We want him "to be peaceable, to keep his peace, to be docile, rather than to be peacemaking." We want a God who makes few demands but who will be our "ace in the hole."

But this is not the God of the Bible. The bad-good models that I talked about in my last post were severely punished for their stubborn rebellion:

• they were scattered over the desert
• in one day 23,000 of them died
• some were killed by snakes
• some were killed by the destroying angel

Paul's God was certainly not safe! And he pleaded with us not to endanger ourselves by following in their footsteps.

Some of my beginning students of the Bible reject the concept of a punishing God. Why? Because it doesn't square with their fuzzy idea of a loving God. But as they are considering Christianity, I ask them to consider whether it is true, not whether they like it. There are many concepts of Christianity that I don't particularly like or understand. But since I believe they are true, I adjust my life accordingly. If I reject truth simply because I don't like it, I do so at great risk to my soul.