Forgive the title, but there’s really no other word for it, is there? “Awesome” has become too diluted. “In-your-face” sounds cheesy. The only word close is “Boom.” Just BOOM. These are things that just make your spine tingle. Like Gandalf facing down the Balrog. Like the Joker’s pencil trick. Like every action hero walking away from the explosion. Just badass.

And believe it or not, the Bible is full of such moments. When God revealed this stuff to me, I became a stronger Christian. I’m not joking; I fell madly in love with the God who just punches evil in the face and says, “Do something about it!” So here are ten moments in the Bible that just make your jaw drop. I had to break them into two parts, so here are numbers 10 through 6.

NOTE: I will not be including any Jesus moments because he has his own list later on.

10: Jael just doing her Civic Duty (Judges 4)

Judges is a violent book and Chapter 4 gets right into it. The good guys are winning a big battle, but the bad-guy commander, Sisera, has escaped. He hides out in the tent of a woman named Jael. She’s part of a family that is neutral in this war, so her tent is a safe place. In fact, Jael herself is very kind and comforting. she hides him, covers him with a blanket, gives him some warm milk, and soothes the weary soldier to sleep.

Then she hammers a tent peg through his head.

The best part is the next morning, when the good guy, Barak, comes along in verse 22. “Jael came out to meet [Barak], and said to him, ‘Come, I will show you the man whom you seek.’ And when he went into her tent, there lay Sisera, dead with a peg in his temple.”

They don’t record Barak’s response, but I’m guessing it’s “DANG, woman, you 50 Shades of Cray!!”

9: God vs. Gods (Exodus 3-12)

Everybody knows about the Plagues of Egypt, how God sent them to trouble Pharoh to let the Israelites go. But most don’t know the other side of the story. In Exodus 3, we have the famous Burning Bush scene. This is where God calls himself Yahweh (I AM) for the first time. God wasn’t just rescuing the Israelites, he was reminding them that He was God. And he wanted to show the Egyptians He was God, too.

And he did it by pimp-smacking every Egyptian God in EVER.

“Oh, Khnum and Sothis are the gods of the Nile, eh? BOOM! Now it’s blood. Let’s see them do that. Now let’s see your livestock god deal with FIERY HAIL! Oh, that Ra sure makes the sun bright, doesn’t he? Check this out. DARK! But only on the palace, not on the Israelites, because I TELL THE SUN WHERE TO SHINE!!

See, this is what I love about God: He’s every Chuck Norris joke made real.

8. God vs. Job (Job 38-41)

Job has had a hard couple of days. His family is 95% dead and that last 5% is his nagging wife. All his wealth is gone, and now he has Chicken Pox (Okay it’s worse than that). And he’s grumbling, wondering where God is in this whole mess, why God has allowed this bad thing to happen. Haven’t we all done that? Don’t you sometimes wish God would come out of the the Heavens and answer you?

It turns out, no. No, you don’t.

God finally does show up and he gives Job what he needs: a testosterone-laden injection of AWESOME. God lays out in 4 chapters just why he is awesome: he told the dawn when to freaking wake up (38:12), he told the hawk, “You! Have wings!” (39:26), and says, “I eat lightning for BREAKFAST!” (40:9 veeeerrrry loosely translated).

But it all starts in 38:2, when God appears “out of the whirlwind” and says, “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you and you shall answer Me.”

Gulp…

7. Tamar takes matters into her her own hands (Genesis 38)

Tamar has about as much shame as an episode of Jerry Springer, but you know what? She gets stuff done.

A man named Judah has 3 sons. His firstborn marries Tamar, but does evil and God kills him. Tamar is left without children, so Judah sends his second son to fulfill husband/father responsibility (times were different. I would not want my brother to marry my wife if I died). But the second son also does evil and God kills him, too.

So Judah does what any good patriarch does and blames the woman. He refuses to give his last son to her, which breaks the rules, since Tamar still needs kids. So she dresses up like a prostitute and tricks Judah into having sex with her. Her father-in-law. But then it gets bad-A. Tamar made Judah swear a pledge to her by giving her his signet. Later on, Tamar is accused of prostitution, so Judah, her father-in-law, comes out with the totally-stable decree of “Let her be burned!” (v.24)

Now picture the scene. Tamar has been thrown at Judah’s feet in front of all his friends because she whored herself out. But then she pulls out the guy’s driver’s license and says, “Oh yeah, the baby-daddy dropped this.” To Judah’s face. In front of everybody.

Silence…

Fun fact: these two were the ancestors to JESUS.

6. The Original 300…and 18 (Genesis 14)

The reason most people don’t realize how awesome some Bible stories are is that the writers just glaze over some details. Case and point is Genesis 14. I’ll summarize greatly: 4 kings are fighting 5 other kings. The 4 kings beat the 5 and invade their land. When they do, they take prisoners, including a man named Lot. Lot had a relative named Abram (later Abraham) who heard that Lot was captured. So Abram took 318 guys and took back Lot and everyone with him.

Wait, what?

4 kings were fighting, remember? How many men did they have in each of their armies? Enough to defeat FIVE other kings and take their stuff! But then Abram just walks in with 318 guys and TAKES IT ALL BACK.

Boom.

NUMBERS 5-1 NEXT TUESDAY, 5/21…sometime around Noon!…on my laptop!…with a Pepsi nearby! Stay tuned!