#133. Refusing to paint my mural.
Apr 10th by Jon
I think Bible story murals might be slowly dying. As much as we love them, I am starting to see them at less and less churches. The days of having Noah’s Ark painted on the walls of your area for kids is slowly giving way to more contemporary creative interpretations of the Bible. And I’m fine with that as long as someone will finally paint my idea for a mural. I am of course talking about the scene in 2 Kings when the prophet Elisha orders some bears to attack teenagers that called him bald.
Go ahead and reread that last sentence, it’s a weird one. But here’s what it says in 2 Kings 2:23-24:
From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. “Go on up, you baldhead!” they said. “Go on up, you baldhead!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.
That story is insane, but here’s how I envision the mural. Elisha is standing in the middle of all these angry, bald hating teenagers. He looks really enraged and the caption out of his mouth says, “Do you know where you are? You’re in the jungle baby! You’re gonna die!” And then in the corner of the mural are two huge bears with hockey sticks. I’m not sure why they have hockey sticks but it seems a little tougher to me.
That’s my idea, but so far churches are refusing to take me up on it.
p.s. I once wrote a touching piece called “You’re Lucky I Don’t Have Access to Bears.” It was essentially a threat that if I had access to bears I would “bear” everyone that cut me off in traffic.
Comments
“Do you know where you are? You’re in the jungle baby! You’re gonna die!”
holy crap, this is hilarious beyond all belief.
Wow, just found your blog. You are hilarious! I’m a pastor’s wife in Seattle….anyway, mind if I post a link to your blog on my blog?www.sunbreaksintherainycity.blogspot.com
You gotta go KJV on the mural-”Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.”
Loving this blog. This blog could end up on your list.
I’ve got to agree with billy_chia. The GnR bit nearly made me spit my soda. The image of Elisha, bald, wild-eyed and enraged, screeching like Axl Rose while behind him looms the ursine equivalent of the Hanson brothers is going to stay with me for a long while.
Also, “you’re lucky I don’t have access to bears” is my new favorite threat.
You are on a roll!!…please “bear” with me…
Okay did anyone else go to Bible Gateway and check out this verse?! I was like, “There is no way this is an actual verse….” Man am I cracking up now!!
I’ve always wondered, why no mural from the Song of Solomon on the walls in the ‘young marrieds’ class?
Why?
Why only a large coffee cup with the steam forming a heart?
Glad to hear someone else knows about the bears…I remember sitting in my cell community and having to defend that it really happened. took me a long time to find the reference though.
ok-Jon-what did you make of Shout to the Lord last night on Idol? Do things like this make our christian antenae go up or what?
Cracked.com, which is in the “not safe for church” category, did a “Bad@** Bible Verses” article that includes the bears and some other verses I had to go verify. It’s worth a look if you’re not bad-language sensitive.
http://www.cracked.com/article_15699_9-most-badass-bible-verses.html
(my apologies for not remembering how to create a link in the comments)
C.S. Lewis and his friend Charles Williams once toyed with the idea of writing a book telling various Bible stories from the point of view of the animals mentioned in them.
For instance, with regard to this story they imagined two bears ambling through the woods having a philosophical debate about the existence and character of God. After the unexpected meal of the naughty boys, the bears would walk back into the woods together agreeing at last that yes, God does exist and yes, he is good.
My favourite ever song by a Christian Band here in the UK that I followed when I was younger was:
Get out of here you Bald Headed Man
Get on Your skates as fast as you can
Get out of here you bald headed man
B A L D H E A D, Bald Headed Man
etc
Hahahahaah! Thank you!
Sorry that you have no takers on the mural. Maybe you should consider pitching some different scriptures for your murals. Like Judges 4:21 or Ezekiel 23:19-20.
I’m still rolling! Hilarious!
I still remember the first time I heard about the bears, totally mystifying. A mural of it would be stupendous.
Any chance for a repost of “You’re lucky I don’t have access to bears?”
I say give one of them a hockey stick & the other drum sticks, GnR drum sticks! I now wish I was a graffiti-loving muralist &/or a megachurch dictator, er, I mean, senior pastor.
The Old Testament is filled with awkward references… so many that I once almost categorized them into a 365-day flip calendar. It’s really effective when you take prophecies or proverbs out of context. It was going to be called “365 Awkward Moments from the Bible”… of course… this could only be successful after my “Awkward Moments” book empire had released “Awkward Moments for the Chicken’s Soul”.
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I just spewed my tea all over myself.
Guns ‘n Roses + Biblical Bears = awesomely awesome. really.
hey, they have those t-shirts on cafe press
“respect your elders or be eaten by bears” with a big ol’ honking Kodiak up on his hind legs
cracks me up. if they weren’t 30 bucks I’d get one myself but I’m too cheap
What about when the fire consumes Elijah’s offering, trench water and all, then Elijah kills all the false prophets? That would rock.
And the girl who killed Sisera with a tent peg. And the dead man who was thrown in Elisha’s tomb and came back to life. And David talking about wanting to kill all his enemies and everyone who hates God. Bunch of cool stuff in the Bible that we never paint.
dude ur crazy, seriously ur posts are killin me here.
So, being as Elisha was clearly the worship leader at his church, what do you suppose his awesome worship leader face looked like?
http://www.nph.com/nphweb/html/bfv3/innerpage.jsp?c=BFV3&cs=STORE&sc=MEDIA&ss=NA&nid=ban
It may not be a mural, but the story is still being told . . .
Speaking of Mt Carmel. on top of the mountain there is a monastery with a sculpture of elijah slaughtering the prophets…not the sacrifice, the slaughter afterwards. There is a picture of it on my blog.
Keep up the good work.
Maybe the pre-marital counselling room could have Phinehas driving a spear through the fornicators to dissuade pre-marital hyjinks? That, and the 4 horsemen of the apocolypse in the prophecy center…
I am literally crying!
Too good!
I’m a mural artist. I’ve done a few kid’s areas in churches, but mostly depicting what Alan Hirsch calls “Sunday School Jesus”. Having spent some time around the youth group, I would love to do the bear mauling mural! But me thinks it might be frowned upon….
I had to look up Kristen’s scripture references above, even though I am loathe to do so. Good ones. Another thing Christians like: Skipping the scripture references. I’ll just assume they are good ones, rather than take the effort to look them up.
Hey bro, here’s one better. Go to http://swbc180.typepad.com and go down to the May 13th post (Bible Stories, Summer, and more). It’s actually the same story animated in flannelgraph.
So glad you used that verse, it’s like my favourite (comedy) part of the Bible. If you read the Good News Version (not sure if you have that in the US, it’s the version that every kid gets. It has stick man drawings in it) it specifies that they were she-bears – awesome!
when we found out we were pregnant last year and wanted animals in our new baby’s room, SO MANY people suggested a noah’s ark theme. why do christians love this so much? I know that it’s a popular story, and the animals look cute in the boat, but sooner or later that kid will ask – WHY are the animals in the boat? well, son, because God drowned the rest of them. I know it’s a story we need to know, but I didn’t want it to be my child’s FIRST impression of God… memories of lying in a crib, looking up at an ark mural. (we did a safari theme instead.)
so I for one, am happy at the fact that this trend might be fading! too many nearly-escaped fauna drowning victims are in these murals!
Oh my gosh that is awesome! Last week I suggested that idea for a Bible study, but in dramatic form. I even had an angry bear face!
Perhaps we could have murals in seminaries also. People training for youth and children’s ministries could have a mural of a man with a millstone around his neck being cast into the sea. That’ll keep ‘em orthodox.
Is “You’re Lucky I Don’t Have Access To Bears” going to be available at any time?
“You’re lucky I don’t have access to bears!” would make an awesome shirt and/or bumper sticker slogan.
This actually made me tear up with mirth. Bahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!! (TvT)
So, I know this is an old post, and I don't even have a blog so I'm not sure if you even get notified that I left a comment, but as soon as I read it I knew I had to show you..
My friends have a rock band and they all love the Lord dearly. They've made a couple of shirts, and this is one:
http://dividethesea.bigcartel.com/product/bear-tshirt
I hope you get a chance to see this!
Has anyone else read this blog? http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/
It's by Steve Wells who is an atheist and writes about the many many thousands or should I say millions of people God killed in the Old Testament.
It's an interesting read. Being a christian most of my life, I've never bothered to wonder why God did those crazy things, but just read through them like it was another story.
Anyone else feel like this?
Just another day goes by without really knowing how God is truly like.
don't forget about psalm 137:9!
"Blessed is the one who grabs your little children and smashes them against a rock."
yikes!
[...] of Jon Acuff and Stuff Christians Like. One of the first posts ( find the actual blog post here: Refusing to Paint My Mural ) I read on this blog was regarding the story of Elisha being mocked by teenagers for being bald, [...]
Someone already mentioned it, but I really think there should be murals of Jael driving a tent spike through Sisera's head in Judges 4:21.
I love that story!
My most favorite teacher in high school was bald and we all used to make fun of him and say his least favorite word– the "b" word of course (bald! what else?!). He would always get revenge on us by squirting us with water out of his dinosaur spray bottle that he had in his little cabinet/podem at the front of the room. But anyways, to make a point, he had printed this Bible story out and put it on his wall in the back of his room. It was there for years and I loved it!