Week 1 | Taylor

This past week since Orthopraxis has started the way I view and interpret the Bible has already changed and my understanding of Christianity has become deeper. From learning about Jesus dying to break the covenant He made with His people, to my relationship with God as like a husband/wife relation not just father/son.

A major thing I got out of this weeks reading was about faithfulness. Faithfulness is a requirement in covenantal relationships. I've always heard people say how faithful God is to us and just accepted it, never asked for any examples of His faithfulness or questioned why. But the reading has taught me just how faithful He is to His people. He showed his mercy and faithfulness with the way he treated Adam and Eve, Cain, and even the pharoh who enslaved his people. Each fell short of God's will, but He responded with mercy by not giving them the punishments they deserved and giving them more chances. Covenant Relationships says that God does not ask His people to perform to a certain level, only to be perfectly loyal to Him.

This assignment showed me just how important relationships are, a relationship not only with God, but also with other people. The reading said that a covenant stems from a relationship and that a covenant is to “reiterate the set terms by which a relationship between two people operates.” The rules of the covenant mean little if the underlying relationship is damaged. So in order to get into covenant with God, we must have a relationship based on trust and faith, like a husband and wife must trust each other.