Redeeming God

Liberating you from bad ideas about God

Learn the MOST ESSENTIAL truths for following Jesus.

Get FREE articles and audio teachings in my discipleship emails!


  • Join Us!
  • Scripture
  • Theology
  • My Books
  • About
  • Discipleship
  • Courses
    • What is Hell?
    • Skeleton Church
    • The Gospel According to Scripture
    • The Gospel Dictionary
    • The Re-Justification of God
    • What is Prayer?
    • Adventures in Fishing for Men
    • What are the Spiritual Gifts?
    • How to Study the Bible
    • Courses FAQ
  • Forum
    • Introduce Yourself
    • Old Testament
    • New Testament
    • Theology Questions
    • Life & Ministry

Help! I’m Trapped!

By Sam Riviera
6 Comments

Help! I’m Trapped!

Below is the fourth letter in the series, “Letters To Dad.” They are written by Sam Riviera, and are based on the true stories of people he actually knows in real life.

trapped in sex slavery

Dad,

I’m stupid. I was so wrong. I thought you and your rules were stupid. That’s why I ran away. I thought I had everything all figured out and you were treating me like a baby with your rules. “Come straight home after school. We need to know where you are at all times. Don’t try any drugs even if the kids at school give them to you. That stuff will ruin your life. You can’t go to parties unless we know where you are and the parents are there. No parties with drugs or booze.”

The first few nights I stayed at a friend’s house. Her parents didn’t know I was there. She snuck me into her bedroom through the window and I left the same way the next morning. She said we couldn’t keep doing that.

I was hanging with some kids I didn’t know near a liquor store. This guy a little older than me bought me some snacks, then he took me to a movie. After the movie he asked where he could drop me off. I told him I didn’t care. He asked if I needed a place to stay and said I could stay at his sister’s.

She was real nice to me for a couple of days. Then she told me she couldn’t afford to let me live there forever. She said her friend could help me earn my way.

Her friend says he owns me. He says he owns all of the girls in our house. I don’t know exactly where the house is, but I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in San Diego. When we leave, he puts us in the back of a van. We can’t see out. He drops us off and then picks us up later in the van and takes us back to the house.

When we get back to the house, he locks up our clothes so we won’t try to run away. Not that we have many clothes anyway. Only our working clothes.

This is going to make you so mad, but he’s got us hooked on this stuff. Honest. I didn’t know what it was. He said it would relax me. Now I really need it and he’s my only way to get it.

trapped in human trafficking

He makes LOTS of money off us, but we don’t get to keep it. He makes thousands every week. That’s how he can afford his car and jewelry. He doesn’t stay here. He probably has a nice house somewhere, not like the dump where he keeps us. He pays a woman who looks like a truck to guard us in case we get any ideas about running off naked.

We get fed, but have nothing. They took our ID, clothes and everything else we had. I was lucky to find the paper to write this. If I’m really lucky I’ll somehow find an envelope and a stamp. Maybe I can get a stamp from one of my customers and mail the letter.

Our guard buys the newspaper every day. If you can forgive me and still want me, put an ad in the lost and found pets section that says “Found. Blue eyed basset hound near the corner of” and list some street corner a couple of blocks north of El Cajon Blvd. about a mile east of the 805. My territory is not far from there. I’ll try to walk to the corner in the ad. If I don’t show between ten and midnight, try again until I show. It might take awhile for me to get a chance to make a run for it.

You won’t recognize me, but I’ll recognize you. Bring some of my clothes.

I heard there’s a drug rehab place near uncle Glenn’s. That would get me out of town. I can’t ever come back here. They might find me. If I can make it through rehab I’ll need to go somewhere else where they can’t find me.

I’ll find a way to pay you back for the rehab and the doctor. I need to be checked out. How could I be so stupid? I am so ashamed.

Lorene

God is Redeeming Life Bible & Theology Topics: human trafficking, Letters to Dad, prostitution, Sam Riviera, slavery

Advertisement

These 11 verses turn Christians into Atheists. How do you explain them?

By Jeremy Myers
191 Comments

These 11 verses turn Christians into Atheists. How do you explain them?

atheist womanI was recently having a discussion with an atheist who had grown up in a Christian family and had gone to church for the first twenty years of her life. But she became an atheist in her 20s.

When I asked her why she became an atheist, she said, “I started reading the Bible.”

We Christians often tell people that if they would only read the Bible, they would come to see that God is real and that He loves them. We hear testimony after testimony about how drug addicts and hookers were considering suicide but somehow got a Bible and started reading it and ended up giving their life to Christ.

I am not in any way denying such accounts or stories.

But I think it is also time to admit that while many people decided to follow Jesus as a result of reading the Bible, there are many others who turned away from God after reading the Bible.

Part of this, I am convinced, is because we Christians have said that the entire Bible is the Word of God, but then we sort of ignore, gloss over, conveniently forget, or are simply dishonest about some of the more troubling portions of Scripture.

And there are many troubling portions of Scripture! (If you don’t believe me, read this book: Drunk with Blood).

I call these troubling texts “Atheist Maker Verses.” They are verses that do not point people to God, but lead people away from Him instead. Here are a few of the more blatant Atheist Maker Verses:

Genesis 19:8

“See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish; only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof.”

As a father of three daughters myself, I cannot imagine offering my daughters to get raped so that I could protect the strangers under my roof.

And yes, I have heard the Christian explanation of this text that this was how the ancient Middle Eastern people valued hospitality. But how does that make it okay? It doesn’t.

Rather than trying to explain away Lot’s behavior according to “hospitality laws” we must condemn his behavior as horribly barbaric.

Exodus 21:20-21

“And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property.

This was a favorite verse of slave-owners during the period of slavery in our country. In fact, all of Exodus 21 talks about the rules for treating slaves.

And apparently, you can beat your slave all you want, even within an inch of their life, because the slave is your property.

Of course, even if you kill your slave, you won’t be put to death yourself, but only punished.

This sort of verse about slaves has caused many people to turn away from God and Christianity.

Leviticus 25:44-45

And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have– from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property.

This is another verse about slaves, but this one includes the children. According to God, it is okay to buy and sell children. So apparently, everybody today who is trying to raise awareness about the human trafficking of children just needs to shut up. Apparently, God’s in favor of it.

Note as well that it is not just the Old Testament which says these sorts of things. Here is a quote from 1 Peter:

1 Peter 2:18

Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.

slaves 1 peterSo if you are a slave, and your master beats you harshly, the slave should just accept it. After all, fear of your master is a good thing.

As a little side note, what I find most interesting about the numerous verses all over the Bible about slavery is that modern Christians almost unanimously condemn the practice of slavery, even though the Bible condones and accepts in in numerous places.

And yet when the Bible condemns homosexuality in three verses, Christians are divided over whether or not we should follow these verses. “God’s Word said it; that settles it!” we are told. My response is, “Really? So can I meet your slaves?”

But the Bible is not just wrong about slaves. Certain texts about women are also quite appalling.

Deuteronomy 22:20-21

But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.

So if a woman has pre-marital sex, she should be stoned. Other texts lay guilt on the man as well, but the guilty male gets less attention than the guilty female.

Deuteronomy 23:1

“He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the LORD.

So if your penis is cut off or your balls are crushed, God does not accept your worship. God only accepts worship from people whose genitals are in good condition (minus the foreskin of course … that sort of mutilation is required by God).

The thing that gets me about such verses is how people knew who could go in to worship God and who couldn’t.

Did they have a little “inspection station” at the front door? And we complain about the TSA groping us when we get on a plane…

Deuteronomy 25:11-12

If two men fight together, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her.

So two men are fighting and a woman steps in to defend her man, and ends up grabbing the genitals of her husband’s opponent. Rather than discipline the men for fighting in the first place, the proper response in this case is to cut off the woman’s hand.

That sounds fair.

I also wonder how this law came about… Was it a common thing for women to grab the balls of their husband’s enemy when they were fighting?

Maybe this verse had something to do with the previous one about not getting to worship God if your balls are mangled. Maybe a man could no longer pray to God because some woman crushed his balls, and so they had to make a rule against that sort of thing.

Of course, now that the woman has no hand, she can’t worship God either, because God doesn’t allow deformed people into his presence either. On other hand, He doesn’t care too much for women either…

Of course, it’s not just women God hates. He is also not fond of dwarves and hunchbacks, people with eczema, and those who have a limb that is too long…

Leviticus 21:18-19

For any man who has a defect shall not approach: a man blind or lame, who has a marred face or any limb too long, a man who has a broken foot or broken hand, or is a hunchback or a dwarf, or a man who has a defect in his eye, or eczema or scab, or is a eunuch.

To approach God, you apparently had to be a perfect male specimen, with a working penis. Everybody else could not approach Him.

But it is not just the dwarves and the blind that God was against. He also was not a big fan of children.

Leviticus 20:9

For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him.

How is this even remotely justified? I don’t care if a kid cursed his parents with the worst curses ever uttered, does he deserve to get stoned to death for it?

Frankly, if a kid has parents who would be willing to stone him to death for cursing them, they probably deserved getting cursed.

But no, God, apparently, sides with the parents.

And it is no wonder that the #1 sin Christians are terrified of committing today is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I get dozens of emails about this sin every single week, and without fail, the people who think they have committed this sin feel that because they said something mean about God, God is going to burn them forever and ever in hell.

And where does such an idea come from? It comes (partly) from a verse like Leviticus 20:9 where God tells parents it is okay to kill their children if he curses them.

So sad.

But God doesn’t always have children killed by stoning them. Sometimes He kills them with bears!

2 Kings 2:23-24

Elisha 2 Kings

Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

Apparently, even though God doesn’t want people to worship him who are blind in one eye, or have a limb too long, or have eczema, He is a big fan of bald men!

These youths learned that lesson the hard way. Bald men shall not be mocked! Especially when that bald man is a prophet.

And when God cannot get children stoned or mauled by bears, He just pronounces blessings on those who bash babies’ heads against rocks.

Psalm 137:9

Happy the one who takes and dashes Your little ones against the rock!

Happy? The word here could also be translated as “blessed.”

Psalm 137:9But try to picture the scene. Was this like baby piñata day?

Imagine a soldier coming home from a day of baby-smashing. His wife greets him at the door with a kiss. “So how was your day, honey?” she says.

“Great! God was really at work in me today! I got to smash babies against a rock wall! We all praised God as we did it. The Spirit was really moving! I must have killed ten or twelve, but that Joash, he got over twenty! He’s a beast! The best part is that now we are going to be blessed because of all the babies we killed. I’m standing on the promises of God!”

How to Handle Atheist Maker Verses

I could go on and on with these sorts of verses.

But here’s the point: What are we to do with these sorts of “Atheist Maker Verses?”

There are three basic Christian responses.

1. We can stick our head in the sand.

Many Christians look at these difficult and troubling texts and say, “God is good all the time, and He gave us His Word to show us that He is good, and so while I don’t understand how these texts can reveal a good God, we know they must, and so I believe they do.”

It is this sort of response that does not help people at all.

In fact, I would say that, more than the verses themselves, it is this response that causes people to become atheists. Such a response is so irrational and ignorant, that most of the world simply cannot accept it.

Nor should they.

God cannot be both good, kind, and loving, while at the same time commanding genocide, praising the smashing of babies’ heads against walls, and sending bears to maul children because they made fun of a prophet’s baldness.

If Christians want people to see God as He truly as, as the God revealed in Jesus Christ, rather than sticking our heads in the sand, we must find some way to side with the world in condemning such texts of terror. This leads to the next two ways of responding to these texts.

2. Call them Errors in the Bible and be Done with It

Probably the simplest way to handle these troubling texts in the Bible is to handle them the same way we handle violent texts like this in Greek Mythology, in the Qu’ran, or in ancient historical documents.

How is that? We say that the people were flat-out wrong in what they did and the reasons they gave for doing it.

And while this approach is increasingly common with many Christians today, it makes many others quite uncomfortable, because then we are admitting that there are errors in Scripture, and that maybe God didn’t inspire it after all.

So while this helps explain the violence in Scripture, it does so at the expense of Scripture itself. We are left with something that, in my opinion, is less than Scripture.

This is why I prefer the third approach:

3. Realize that the purpose of the text IS condemnation

There is a way to both affirm inspiration and inerrancy while at the same time denying that God had anything to do with it.

I am working on writing a more thorough explanation for a future book on this subject, but the short explanation is that we can view the Bible as a divinely-inspired text which inerrantly reveals human error. In this way, we get a glimpse into our own hearts by reading Scripture.

We see ourselves on the pages. We see our tendency to demonize our enemies. We see our desire to take what is not ours. We see our addiction to blaming God for our own evil actions. We see our habit of scapegoating the outsider. We see how easy it is to excuse our own sin and turn a blind eye to our moral failures.

When we approach Scripture this way, we can agree with the Atheists about the moral repugnance of these violent texts, but then turn around and say that the reason God inspired these texts to be written in Scripture is not to justify such behavior and actions, but to challenge us to not do such things ourselves.

Study the Bible with Atheists

At least, this is the way I have been learning to read Scripture, but it is still something I am working on

How about you? How do you read these violent and gruesome texts? How do you understand them? What would you say to someone who has rejected God because of verses like these? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

God is Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: 1 Peter 2:18, 2 Kings 2:23-24, atheism, Deuteronomy 22:20-21, Deuteronomy 23:1, Deuteronomy 25:11-12, Exodus 21:20-21, Genesis 19:8, Leviticus 20:9, Leviticus 21:18-19, Leviticus 25:44-45, Psalm 137:9, slavery, violence of God

Advertisement

Thanks for helping Rescue Girls from Sex Slavery

By Jeremy Myers
3 Comments

Thanks for helping Rescue Girls from Sex Slavery

If you had lived back during the days of slavery, would you have helped slaves gain freedom?

If you answered “Yes!” then keep reading…

First, I want to thank those of you who donated to help me rescue girls from sex slavery.

I said I would cut off one inch of hair for every $100 dollars raised. I raised almost $600, but went ahead and cut off over 10 inches of hair anyway. I didn’t get enough to shave my head though!

Here are the Before and After shots:

Jeremy Myers hair

Hair of Jeremy Myers

That second shot was with my webcam, which obviously as terrible color….

Anyway, if you would have helped rescue slaves from slavery, you still can. There is more slavery today than at any other time of history, and most of these slaves are young girls. How much more dire could it get?

If you are somehow still not aware of the crazy epidemic of slavery in our world (and here in the United States!) RIGHT NOW, go see some of the stats on this page about Forced Prostitution.

And just think about this: Current estimates say that about 12 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic for slavery from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

But according to Human Trafficking Statistics, there are CURRENTLY 12.3 million slaves RIGHT NOW. Yes, this year.

Human Trafficking

And many of them are children who are forced into prostitution. The average age is 12-14 years old. Most are girls. California has 3 of the 13 highest child sex trafficking areas. Some of them are raped 30-40 times EACH DAY.

Human Trafficking and child slavery is more common today than it was during the 300 years of slavery of our past.

There are more slavery victims this year than the total number of slaves during the entire 300 years of slavery in the past.

If you want to help, our favorite organization is the International Justice Mission.

To learn more about Human Trafficking and sex slavery, check out some of these posts:

Human Trafficking Posts

  1. Sex Slaves
  2. Would You Fight Slavery?
  3. Rescue Russian Sex Slaves
  4. Rescue Russian Girls from Sex Slavery
  5. Stop Her Nightmare
  6. Another Girl Rescued Today
  7. Girls for Sale
  8. Goal Reached!
  9. I Want to be a Prostitute
  10. $52,000 raised!
  11. 31 Million Sex Slaves
  12. Renting Lacy
  13. More Than Rice
  14. Human Trafficking Ring Busted
  15. The Other Big Game
  16. Sex Slavery, Planned Parenthood, and Your Tax Dollars
  17. How to Minister to Prostitutes
  18. Wisconsin Woman Held as Sex Slave in Brooklyn
  19. Coked-Up Whore
  20. Human Trafficking has Many Faces
  21. Into an India Brothel
  22. You Need a Girl?
  23. Human Trafficking Media
  24. The Son of God is Selling Children
  25. My Girls Raised $300 to help stop Human Trafficking
  26. Rape for Profit
  27. Human Trafficking Statistics
  28. Help Rescue Girls from Forced Prostitution

God is Redeeming Theology Bible & Theology Topics: Discipleship, human trafficking, prostitution, sex trafficking, slavery

Advertisement

Help Rescue Girls from Forced Prostitution

By Jeremy Myers
6 Comments

Help Rescue Girls from Forced Prostitution

Rather than write a bunch of words about the dire problem of human trafficking and forced prostitution, I decided to just post some pictures and infographics. Sex slavery and forced child prostitution a bigger issue than most realize, and it is is huge problem right here in the United States. You most likely have human trafficking and child prostitutes right in your own town.

forced prostitution

Human trafficking

human_trafficking_awareness_6_by_andreawaldrop

forced prostitution

Human Trafficking and Drug Trade 7-06-2014A 10271147_727945063933005_7918263557732447964_o-1

forced child prostitution

sex slavery

Human trafficking

forced prostitution

Invite others to participate by using the sharing buttons below. Thanks!

To learn more about Human Trafficking and sex slavery, check out some of these posts:

Human Trafficking Posts

  1. Sex Slaves
  2. Would You Fight Slavery?
  3. Rescue Russian Sex Slaves
  4. Rescue Russian Girls from Sex Slavery
  5. Stop Her Nightmare
  6. Another Girl Rescued Today
  7. Girls for Sale
  8. Goal Reached!
  9. I Want to be a Prostitute
  10. $52,000 raised!
  11. 31 Million Sex Slaves
  12. Renting Lacy
  13. More Than Rice
  14. Human Trafficking Ring Busted
  15. The Other Big Game
  16. Sex Slavery, Planned Parenthood, and Your Tax Dollars
  17. How to Minister to Prostitutes
  18. Wisconsin Woman Held as Sex Slave in Brooklyn
  19. Coked-Up Whore
  20. Human Trafficking has Many Faces
  21. Into an India Brothel
  22. You Need a Girl?
  23. Human Trafficking Media
  24. The Son of God is Selling Children
  25. My Girls Raised $300 to help stop Human Trafficking
  26. Rape for Profit
  27. Human Trafficking Statistics
  28. Help Rescue Girls from Forced Prostitution

God is Redeeming Life Bible & Theology Topics: Discipleship, haircut, human trafficking, sex trafficking, slavery

Advertisement

I’m Getting a Haircut to Rescue Young Girls from Sex Slavery

By Jeremy Myers
7 Comments

I’m Getting a Haircut to Rescue Young Girls from Sex Slavery

human trafficking sex slavery

Two million children are sold into slavery every year. 98% of these are young girls and women, and some of these girls are forced to have sex with men up to 50 times each day [Source].

Help me raise money to rescue some of these girls from the hell they are living in. Learn how below:

Cut my hair to rescue girls from slavery

A while back, someone yelled at me, “Get a haircut, you hippie!” (True story.)

I have decided to go ahead and do it.

I’ve been growing my hair out for several years now … and it is time to get it cut.

AND YOU can help me determine how much to cut off. 

My hair is about 14 inches long.

Jeremy Myers hair

For every $100 raised, I will cut off one inch of hair (up to 10 inches). If I reach $1000 for the 10 inches of hair, it will be donated to Locks of Love .

If more than $2500 is raised, I will get a buzz cut.

If more than $5000 is raised, I will shave my head. Clean. Bald. The goatee stays…

What will we do with the money? Every penny that is donated will be given to the International Justice Mission to aid them in their ongoing work to rescue young girls around the world from sex slavery.

Go visit my fundraising page at GoFundMe to donate! Thanks!

My haircut is scheduled for next Tuesday, February 17. That gives you ONE WEEK to determine how much hair I will cut off. Go here: Yes! I want Jeremy to cut his hair!

Want more people to hear about this? It’s simple. Use the sharing buttons below. Thanks!

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: Discipleship, haircut, sex trafficking, slavery

Advertisement

Join the discipleship group
Learn about the gospel and how to share it

Take my new course:

The Gospel According to Scripture
Best Books Every Christian Should Read
Study Scripture with me
Subscribe to my Podcast on iTunes
Subscribe to my Podcast on Amazon

Do you like my blog?
Try one of my books:

Click the image below to see what books are available.

Books by Jeremy Myers

Take Online Courses
with N. T. Wright

Choose from Six Courses:
*N. T. Wright on Jesus
*N. T. Wright on Romans
*N. T. Wright on Galatians
*N. T. Wright on Philippians
*N. T. Wright on the Gospel
*N. T. Wright on Worldviews

Theological Study Archives

  • Theology – General
  • Theology Introduction
  • Theology of the Bible
  • Theology of God
  • Theology of Man
  • Theology of Sin
  • Theology of Jesus
  • Theology of Salvation
  • Theology of the Holy Spirit
  • Theology of the Church
  • Theology of Angels
  • Theology of the End Times
  • Theology Q&A

Bible Study Archives

  • Bible Studies on Genesis
  • Bible Studies on Esther
  • Bible Studies on Psalms
  • Bible Studies on Jonah
  • Bible Studies on Matthew
  • Bible Studies on Luke
  • Bible Studies on Romans
  • Bible Studies on Ephesians
  • Miscellaneous Bible Studies

Advertise or Donate

  • Advertise on RedeemingGod.com
  • Donate to Jeremy Myers

Search (and you Shall Find)

Get Books by Jeremy Myers

Books by Jeremy Myers

Schedule Jeremy for an interview

Click here to Contact Me!

© 2023 Redeeming God · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Knownhost and the Genesis Framework