5 Bible lessons they don't teach you in Sunday School

To respond to your saying of Jesus being cryptic and such about the fig tree, he does that to prove two points. One, when you have faith in God there is nothing you cannot do if you do it for him. Two, The fig tree represents a person who claims that they are Christian. A fig tree that produces is a Christian who is truthful to their claim and that it shows in their life. The tree that produces nothing is a false Christian who will suffer the fate of all other non-believers. God did what he did in 2 Samuel because of the sin of David. Did you forget that Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite whom David marched off to his death so David could take Bathsheba as his own. God did this because of the horrific sin that was David's. This idea that his son dies. War takes David's direct sons but you forget that David is the ancestor of Jesus. God was telling David that he was sending his own son to come from descendants of David to die on a cross for the sin of David. What happens in Deuteronomy is actually the moral and right choice of the attacker. God did not command the victim to marry the attacker, he commanded the attacker to marry his victim. The attacker has to pay the father and can never divorce the woman who was attacked. That fact is completely contradictory to the time in which women could be divorced if they burnt the toast that morning. You must also realize that the Bible is both a book of prophecy, wisdom, and history. The history is the fact that what is said in both Corinthians and Timothy is the fact that those exact standards for women barely changed since that time. Not just in the middle east, but all over the world. This was not a true decree of God, but a reciting of social propriety. Again in Hosea, Hosea said that because of Israel's sin they will be invaded and conquered and their conquerors will do such things because of the fact that the Israelite's were given a standard of living which they were told not to deviate from. Their sin brought their destruction. God does not condone murder. Death is a part of the sin cursed life that all humans lead, as set forth in Genesis. This exact same principle is what applies in Jeremiah. Israel falls whenever it strays from Gods path. King David was cursed in, guess what, 2 Samuel 12:11-14. Cain struck down his brother in cold blood and was cursed by God so that the ground would never truly yield to him. God knew that Cain would be killed. God then placed a mark so that Cain would not be killed. The prophets served God, and God never held the sins of their past lives against them. Noah was a righteous man who lived by God's will. He listened to God and lived. Noah never did any of that which you claim. Adam, he did exactly that which God told him not to. Adam died as was his punishment. Saul's kingdom withered due to his pride and greed. Saul killed himself in battle. Lot's wife did what Adam did. She looked back, God told her not to look back as Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. Guess what? She died. Korah's family literally rose up and tried to usurp God's authority. Not on grounds of moral objection, but greed. They died for that. The kids in 2 Kings told Elisha to leave because they did not wish to hear God. They would not accept God at all, so God gave them what they asked. Death and then Hell. The Bible is a very special book. You must read multiple sections to get the entire picture. You say Christians have not read the Bible, but the fact that they have is why they are Christians. They see the entire picture, God's reasoning and his plan. You must know how God operates. His standard does not change and when we try to do that we lose. He never wanted the Human race to fall to sin, but that was the choice that Adam made because God gave Adam free will. Here is why God is one who loves. He loved the human race so much that he sent his own son to die so that we might go to heaven and live with God for eternity. Jesus bears eternal scars of our sin while we will receive new, flawless bodies. Is God really hateful and oppressive if he would send his son to be eternal scarred in a brutal fashion just so humans could be with him for eternity. That is the love of God.