GDR On Faith

Of course. All I am saying is that it does not require believing in an inerrant Bible to know and understand the nature of God. I also go further and say that believing in an inerrant Bible leads to a distortion of the true nature of God that we see in Jesus.An inerrant understanding of the Bible leads to belief in a god that is inconsistent and is guilty of using situational ethics. The problem has been IMHO that some Christians have taken the focus off of Jesus and put it on the Bible. They are worshiping a false idol.Remember the Bible is made up of 66 books with hundreds of authors. Why should we give them all the same credibility. However, as Christians we supposedly see Jesus as the embodiment of the wisdom of God so that should be the filter or lens that we use to understand where the Biblical authors got it right and where they got it wrong.When we use that filter we can see that when the authors claimed that God told them to commit genocide or engage in public stonings for minor offences we can be sure that they got it wrong, and take it as a lesson that just because someone says that God has told them to do something that we should be skeptical. Sure, but I don't understand how that fits with the discussion.

I guess we have to make our own decisions about that but we should do it by their consistency with what Jesus taught. Let's face it. One big reason that Biblical inerrancy is popular is that someone can find a passage in the Bible to prove pretty much anything they want. The trouble is that very often you can find a passage to prove just the opposite. There is much about the Christian faith that is ambiguous. If it weren't so we would have absolute knowledge and we would largely lose our freedom to choose.

I suppose God could dictate what each of the likely hundreds of people wrote that wound up in the scriptures. That isn't the question. The question is, did He do that, and I suggest that it is very clear that He didn'tI know you believe that and that you still believe it when Jesus corrects some of the OT writings. God can use all the books of the Bible to reach out to us, but when you are understanding it as inerrant you wind up with a message that IMHO God never intended. If you want to believe in a God that orders genocide and public stoning for difficult kids and minor offences, then so be it. I believe in God, whose nature we see perfectly embodied by Jesus. No, I am using my own fallible human heart and mind in my understanding of God, just as any Christian does including you. I could hardly impose my will upon Him. You are vastly exaggerating my powers. What you are doing is replacing Jesus as the 2nd person in the Trinity with the Bible.

No Faith, it is you by replacing Jesus with an inerrant Bible that is rejecting the whole Word of God. This is typical Jewish apocalyptic language. I am not saying that there isn’t a price to pay when we live a life where we are self focused and unconcerned about the lives of others. We can see this in our world today.Those that are in the end happiest and most content are those who do genuinely care for the concerns of others in general. Those that are always concerned with their own interest, even at the expense of others create their own hell in this world and the next. In the end we choose, as in Matthew 25 in the sheep and the goats parable, to serve others, or to have our own self interest as our only concern. There will be those in the end who are unable to give up their pride, greed etc and will reject the life that God offers when all things are renewed.I know that you and Tangle aren't huge CS Lewis fans but he says this:

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There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.

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So yes, there is retribution but we impose it on ourselves.

Yes, the Word or Wisdom of God that existed before time as we know it was embodied in Jesus so that if we want to understand the nature of God then that is where we turn. Every Christian does. Faith doesn't argue for genocide or public stonings. She would rationalize it away I presume by saying it was necessary then but not now. I'm curious as to how she thinks God would want to use public stoning by the community for someone picking up firewood on the sabbath, or for difficult kids then, but presumably, (maybe I'm wrong here), wouldn't see it done for some of the heinous things have happening today.

There are so many faults in what you write Faith that it is difficult to know where to begin. Jesus established His Kingdom so in a very real sense Christians are a nation but one without borders.How many people have come back from various wars in the last century and been totally unable to deal with the experience. PTSD from the horrors of war is a very real thing. As you believe in an inerrant Bible you believe that Yahweh was able to destroy the whole community of Sodom and Gomorrah on His own. You also believe that He was able to bring about a flood that killed everyone except for one family.Why then, would He subject His chosen people, to the horrors that they would experience by commanding them to kill all life, men, women, children and beasts in a neighbouring community. Why would He subject them to the huge psychological damage that they would undoubtedly suffer. Why didn't He just do it Himself? Your version of God is someone that not only wants to annihilate the bad guys but wants to see that the good guys suffer as well.You cannot square your version with God as perfectly represented by Jesus. That is the Jesus who lived in a country ruled by a brutal foreign power. Jesus told His followers that in the end victory is won by changing hearts and called them to love their enemy and turn the other cheek etc.If you fight evil with evil you know that evil is going to win every time.I give thanks to God that He isn't the diabolical deity you make Him out to be. However, this is the belief that you get when you replace Jesus with the Bible.Edited by GDR, : typo

I am saying that God actually loves the people that He cared enough about to create them. You are saying that He is prepared to slaughter the ones He doesn't like and at the same time subject the ones He does like to unbelievable psychological trauma, and yet you are saying that you can't believe the things I am willing to say against God.This is what comes of worshiping false idols.

If God is going to have people slaughtered because of sin then why didn't He just slaughter everybody because as you know everyone sins? Did He kill every one who worshiped the fatted calf? You worship a God who is very selective about who gets killed. David was a guy after God's own heart but committed all sorts of serious sins as you know. God allows Him to live and prosper but has some poor smuck killed for picking up firewood on the Sabbath.Where in all of this is the forgiveness that Jesus talks about? God will take vengeance eh? Now it isn't about perfect judgement but vengeance, and not even just for sin but for not getting your doctrine right. You really bring God down to a very base human level. If your kid screws up isn't it sometimes best to give them a hug and tell them not to do it again. I think that you have given a rather perverted view of love, and again where is the forgiveness Jesus talked about. Again, you continuously replace Jesus with the Bible. It is Bibleianity not Christianity that you adhere to.You still haven't answered the question of why God would subject His chosen people to the horrors of slaughtering men, women and children instead of just doing it Himself.

I'm not even sure what long suffering means to an eternal God but here again we have a case of God wanting a whole community, men women and children slaughtered whereas He just has the Israelites moved into exile. Then why was it necessary to see anyone slaughtered? So instead of punishing David you see God going after David's family including having an infant die. This again is what you get when you are a follower of an inerrant Bible instead of a follower of Jesus. Once again you simply ignore what Jesus taught. How about "you who is without sin cast the first stone". Jesus obviously taught that sin that is repented can be forgiven without punishment. The forgiveness that comes through the cross and resurrection is for life to come when all things are renewed. You are confusing forgiveness and justice in the past and present of human existence with the justice and forgiveness that is yet to come.This is getting boring but once again - why God would subject His chosen people to the horrors of slaughtering men, women and children instead of just doing it Himself.

There are numerous passages in the Bible that contradict each other which is only evidence that the literalist understanding of the Bible is wrong. Here is a secular web site that lists many of those contradictions although many of them can also be explained away.
Bible InconsistenciesThat isn't what primarily concerns me though. Faith's view using the understanding that the Bible is inerrant leads to a very different understanding of the nature of God than does my understanding of the nature of God that is based on the belief that Jesus perfectly modeled God's nature. That's fine but again it only deals with a part of the difficulty. The fact is that there are contradictions. We even have Jesus correcting things from the OT. With Faith's understanding we are left with a God who is either genocidal and vengeful or forgiving and loving - take your pick, one or the other or both.I see the Bible as an ongoing narrative of God and the Israelites climaxing in Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Israel story. It is a progressive revelation.

That is such a perverted view of how justice works that it is really difficult to know how to respond. I wonder how the kids would feel about it. But He still had the kids killed. So it was sin punished with perfect precision when you say that God had David's three kids killed. I thought the rain fell on the just and the unjust. I have a good friend from church who suffers from a very severe case of MS and now in all likelihood has cancer. I wonder what her sin was. So you agree that even you can't rationalize God commanding genocide and public stoning.It seems to me that you worship God simply because He is God no matter what He says or does. I worship God because He is always good and always loving. That is the God that we see incarnated in Jesus, but not the God that we see by reading the Bible as the inerrant word of God. The Bible says not to worship false idols and that is exactly what you are doing. If believed that God's nature is how you describe it I wouldn't go anywhere near a church.Yes, I agree that God speaks to us through the scriptures, old and new testaments, but the way you think the scriptures are to be understood not only obscures, but perverts the message that you should be receiving from it.

Of course, because there is no satisfactory answer to the problems that I raised. So I assume you mean that it is a result of sin somewhere in her family history. I am so grateful that God is not at all like you understand Him to be.

To be honest Faith it shows just how shallow your position is that at this point in the discussion this is what you come up with.Here is the definition from your link.

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The proverbial expression of the mills of God grinding slowly refers to the notion of slow but certain divine retribution.

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What has that got to do with God ordering the people He has chosen to commit genocide and public stoning. If God wants retribution for sin why doesn't He do it himself? It is interesting that you are now invoking followers of Zeuss to make your point. Yes believers in Zeuss did expect divine retribution in this life but they had a very different idea of what constituted sin than what we see in Jesus. Remember that it is the law of love that is the basis for all the law and the prophets.It appears that not only do you give more credit to ancient Jewish thinkers, but to the thinking of followers of other faiths or no faith, than you do to what Jesus said.That link adds nothing to the discussion. Sure when we reject selflessness for selfishness we and others pay a price for those choices that we make. We can see that happening without invoking God at all.

That isn't quite my point Phat. The rain falls on the good and the bad. We all die. It is bad enough that Faith believes that God would intentionally kill off a whole community Himself, or create a flood that kills everyone but one family but to also demand that His chosen people do the dirty work for Him, particularly considering the psychological damage it would do to them.Just read through Matthew 5-7, the "Sermon on the Mount", and see just how many corrections of the OT that Jesus makes. He repudiates "an eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth" that comes from Exodus 21:24 for example.Here is a quote from Matthew 19:

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‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. 7 Why then, they asked, did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away? 8 Jesus replied, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.

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Neither Jesus nor the Pharisees said that the command about divorce came from God but from Moses. Jesus also says that "it was not this way FROM THE BEGINNING". He is saying that Moses got it wrong. It wasn't that this was part of a new covenant but that it always like this.Fundamentalists like to rationalize away the genocides and public stonings in the OT by saying that with Jesus we have a new agreement. Baloney. Jesus doesn't say that as we can see in the above quote. The loving forgiving God can be just as easily found in the OT as can the vengeful and cruel God that we see there as well. (Just read my signature.)God was always just, loving and forgiving. He didn't just all of a sudden change. Jesus made it clear as to what was of God in the OT and what wasn't. We are Christians and we are to follow the teachings of Jesus. He is the Word of God. Yes all scripture is useful for teaching, correcting and training in righteousness. We can learn from everything in the scriptures but that is not to say that it is inerrant. When we read about genocide and public stoning through the lens of what Jesus taught we can see that how easy it is to turn to the dark side for own reasons and turn away from the values that come through Jesus. It is Jesus that fully represents the nature of God. Not an inerrant Bible which is why I suggest that Faith is worshipping a false idol.God is eternal. He isn't restricted to one dimension of time. He was the same 3500 years ago, 2000 years ago and today. He wasn't genocidal then and He isn't now.

The point is that for centuries people who have believed in a god(s) have always for their own benefit wanted to be on the right side of their god(s). If we had clarity about God then it would be difficult to choose to do the right thing just because it's the right thing as opposed to doing it to get on the right side of God.From a Christian perspective that is where the reformers started emphasizing grace, so that by faith you are right with God so that it wasn't about trying to earn God's favour. Personally I have a problem with that as well because it has become largely about the idea that if you give intellectual assent to the idea that Jesus is Lord, turning faith into a work. That is 180 degrees out from what Jesus taught.I think that the Gospels are pretty clear. It is about the heart. Do we make the choice to love selfishly or unselfishly. If we had absolute certainty about the desires of God then it is hard to love unselfishly or even sacrificially if we had certainty that this would put us in good with God. With the ambiguity we are able to freely develop hearts that love unselfishly by faith in the idea that the loving thing is simply the right thing to do.