The Bible/Heartwarming

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Old Testament

  • The end of the Deluge. God has just wiped out all of humanity with a huge flood save for Noah and his family. After the flood ends, God makes a promise to never unleash such destruction again. To symbolize that promise, God creates the first rainbow.
  • The almost-sacrifice of Isaac. God had promised Abraham a son. Then, out of the blue, God demands that he sacrifice that son. But just when Abraham is about to do it, God stops him, saying it was a Secret Test of Character, and provides a ram to sacrifice instead.
  • Jacob and Esau's reunion. Jacob had fled from Esau because the latter hated him for stealing his blessing. Many years later, Jacob returns to Canaan. When he hears Esau is coming to meet him, Jacob is terrified. His fear turns out to be unjustified, as Esau greets his brother with open arms.
  • Similarly, there's the reunion between Jacob's son Joseph and his brothers. Joseph's brothers had sold him into slavery in Egypt. Through a series of events, Joseph rises to a position of power and helps Egypt prepare for a famine. When thea famine strikes both Egypt and Canaan, Jacob sends his sons to Egypt, where Joseph has helped store food. When Joseph and his brothers first meet, they don't recognize him. When they realize who he is, they are afraid he might use his position of power to get revenge on them for selling him into slavery. Joseph, however, assures them he has forgiven them, saying that what they intended for bad, God had used for good.
    • Judah, pleading for Benjamin, and offering himself in Benjamin's place. He knew what Benjamin meant to Jacob, and he himself had been through double the sorrow he and the others had put Jacob through. He knew that if anything happened to Benjamin Jacob might never recover.
  • Jeremiah 30-33. Most of the book of Jeremiah is concerned with the apostasy of the Hebrews and the consequent judgment from God. Chapters 30-33, on the other hand, foretell the future restoration of Israel. To illustrate his point, Jeremiah buys a field from his cousin while the Chaldeans are besieging Jerusalem. The passages are often understood to have a triple meaning-the return of the Jews to the region of the old kingdom of Judah in 538 BC, the founding of the present-day State of Israel in 1948, and the final reconciliation of Israel to God in the last days.
  • At the end of 1st Samuel, Saul is the posthumous recipient of this from the men of Jabesh-Gilead, who repaid the debt they owed Saul for saving them early on in his reign by recovering his body and that of his sons from where the Philistines defiled them and made sure they were given an honorable burial.
  • David had a series of these early in his career as king.
  • In the Book of Jonah, God sends Jonah to Nineveh to foretell their destruction due to their living in sin. When the king hears this news, he immediately repents as do the rest of the citizens who put on sackcloth as a sign of their sorriness. God, seeing their Heel Face Turn, decides to spare the city but Jonah is angry and adamant that the city be destroyed. While taking shelter from the heat under a tree, God sends a worm to kill, which depresses him. God then delivers this line to a sulking Jonah: "You cared about a tree which grew overnight and died overnight, and which you did not work to grow. And should I not care about Nineveh, which has thousands of people who do not yet know their right from their left, and also much cattle!" Here the story shifts away from the Old Testament image of a destructive, vengeful God and foretells the image of the patient, forgiving, loving God of the New Testament. Its quite touching in that God shows compassion towards a people other than the Israelites along with the animals in the city. The book is also one of the few books in the Bible that doesn't have anyone die.
  • The end of the Book of Job. The title character has suffered a truckload of disasters. His "friends" tell him it's punishment for some sin he committed. Much argument ensues. At the end, God rebukes Job's friends for the way they spoke to him. Job, however, brings an offering on their behalf and God forgives them.
    • To boot, Job himself is generously rewarded for keeping his faith, getting back everything he has lost and more, and living on 140 more years.
  • Elijah saving the widow's son.
    • Elijah is on the receiving end of one when God shows up, not in anything spectacular or amazing, but in a still, small voice, to tell him "You Are Not Alone".

Jesus

The Bible

  • The entire purpose of Jesus on Earth. God was willing to sacrifice and forsake his OWN son just so that humanity - who were unworthy of salvation - could be saved.

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  1. the guy was lying about this, but David didn't know this