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Author | Topic: What is a True Christian? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Phat writes:
Let's look at the quote you are referring to form 2 Timothy 3.
If Paul tells Timothy that scripture is inspired by God, what would you expect Timothys next questions to be?A) Paul, do I believe everything you say or write? How do I test for integrity? B) I have no questions. Paul tells me its from God, I believe Paul. C) Do I believe what I feel or should I look for evidence? quote:Neither God-breathed or inspired is the equivalent of saying that the Bible is inerrant. Yes I know that many people try and use it that way but that isn’t what it says. All human wisdom is a gift from God. It is all God breathed or inspired. That doesn’t mean that human wisdom is inerrant. We do know that all scripture was written by humans. The question then is did God somehow short circuit human wisdom to come up with an inerrant Bible. I agree that all scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Firstly then, why would Jesus have to correct what had been written. As I have pointed out to you before Jesus refers to passages from the Torah as being written by Moses and then corrects them. For example here is a quote from John 8. quote:The Pharisees are referring back to Leviticus 20 where God commands death for adultery. Note too that they don’t say God told us to stone her, they say that Moses told them. Jesus say that Moses, not God got it wrong. So let’s break it down by what Paul says how scripture it to be understood and used. 1/ Teaching: We learn that adultery is wrong and we see that as we all sin none of us have earned the right to, metaphorically speaking, cast the first stone. 2/ Rebuking: Jesus is rebuking self-righteousness and the idea of public stoning. 3/ Correcting: Both the Pharisees and the woman are corrected and when we read this can find things in our own life that need correcting. 4/ Training: It is easy to see that Jesus is saying that the legalistic hard hearted attitude of the Pharisees was in need of training to soften their hearts and from that I suggest that Jesus wants us to train ourselves and others to have softer more understanding hearts. I agree that God breathes life into the scriptures. He speaks to us through the Scriptures. The scriptures are a huge part of the Christian faith but if we start to believe that the man Moses, or for that matter any other Biblical author wrote specifically as directed by God then we have to conclude that death by public stoning is ok and that Jesus got it wrong. In the end we have to come to a conclusion on whether we understand the nature of God and His desires for our life through Jesus or an inerrant Bible. Is it the Bible that perfectly embodies the eternal Word or wisdom of God or is it Jesus? It can’t be both. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Faith writes:
Interesting that you pick out that to quote and respond to, while ignoring the fact that Jesus tells us that it was Moses not God that wrote that verse in the OT and that Moses got it wrong. What on EARTH do you think you are saying? Do you actually think Paul would have called anything other than scripture itself "God breathed" or "inspired" -- which means breathed by the Holy Spirit? The same Paul who calls human wisdom "foolishness with God" (1 Cor 1:20, 3:19)? Human beings may be capable of some wonderful things even in our fallen condition, but nothing that Paul or any other writer of scripture would call "God breathed." If it's God-breathed it is authored by God Himself and therefore inerrant. I was simply pointing out that as life is a gift from God then it follows that so is wisdom.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Faith writes: No you weren't, you were denying the inerrancy of scripture. Which you were also doing when making it seem like Moses' could have said anything as if under his own power rather than God's inspiration. I do agree that I don't believe that we are to understand the scriptures the same way you do. You choose an inerrant Scripture over what Jesus says and I choose Jesus over an inerrant Scripture. It is either Jesus or an inerrant Scripture. Take your pick. The two positions are not congruent. I explained in that earlier post how I contend is the way that God speaks to us through the Scriptures. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
NoNukes writes: OK, but the quote I used was that "Moses COMMANDED us to stone such women". If you go back to Leviticus 20 where that command comes from you can see that Chapter 20 starts off with, "Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying... and then follows on with along list of punishments which includes death for adultery. A bit of a nitpick here, but statements like these do not claim that Moses wrote the Torah. The quoted statement just says that the Torah, which is not written in first person anyway, contains Moses words. Another example is from Numbers 15. quote: Here we can see that it is very clear that the writer is saying that the public stoning by the community is commanded by the Lord through Moses. When Jesus refers back to the Torah as in the adultery case He doesn't say that God commanded it, He says that Moses commanded it.
NoNukes writes: The problems with that though are huge. If we are to believe that, then we are left with a God of situational ethics. If our understanding of the nature of God follows along that line then who is to say that we aren't back in the same situation now with people of other faiths. All of Jesus' teaching about love your enemy is simply boiled down to that we should love our enemy as long as they are nice to us. Jesus didn't take that attitude with the Romans. However inerrant Bible worshipers have a number of techniques for defending innerancy despite statements like this one. One doctrine is to talk about dispensations. 'Moses was right for his time, but we are in a different dispensation after Jesus'. Edited by AdminPhat, : fixed quoteHe has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Sorry. Of course you are right. Tradition has it that Moses wrote the Torah but nobody really knows.
The point remains though that Jesus says that it was Moses that commanded them to stone to death adulterers, and that Moses got it wrong. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
kbertsche writes: Your point would be a lot stronger if you argued from a passage that was actually in the original manuscripts. As you probably know, the story of the woman caught in adultery is thought by most scholars to be a later addition to the text. Those who hold to inerrancy claim that it only applies to the original autographs, which did not contain this account. So, in other words the Bible is inerrant except for where Jesus says it isn't. Here then is another case from Matthew 19 where Jesus says that the OT got it wrong.
quote: ...or maybe this from Matthew 5 should not be counted as part of the canon either.
quote: Then there is the matter of squaring Jesus' command to love your enemy as opposed to the OT orders where Yahweh supposedly commands genocide and communal stoning to death for minor offences. It can't be done. Again, it is either Jesus as the embodiment of the Word of God, or an inerrant Bible. It is Christianity or Biblianity. You can't have both. An inerrant Bible is simply one of the false idols that the Bible itself talks about.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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Phat writes: I agree, but just because someone says that the Holy Spirit led them does not mean that He actually did. I suggest that is also the case where the writers of the OT books claim that Yahweh told them that Yahweh commanded genocide and public stoning.
Of course, I believe that Jesus not only existed and was alive but that He is alive today and that the comforter---the Holy Spirit---can speak through any one of us. Phat writes:
There is an ultimate truth but not we can't have absolute certainty of that truth, and so we go on faith that we have it right. I have faith that the Bible is the narrative of the progressive revelation that comes from God reaching out to mankind, with it climaxing in Jesus. With Jesus as a lens we can discern what actually did come from God and what didn't. I believe that The Bible is a library of books that God uses to reach out to us for teaching, rebuking, correcting etc. What is truth? Is truth relative or absolute? Is the truths gleaned from the Bible any more special than Mark Twain and the Perfect Stranger?He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
kbertsche writes: No, of course not. The Bible is inerrant in its original manuscripts. Any later additions, changes, and explanatory notes are NOT inerrant.You may think that this is a "cop-out", but it is not. There is very good agreement among biblical scholars on later additions to the text. This is determined by objectively comparing the earliest manuscripts to later ones. So I assume you think that the other examples I gave weren't supposed to be included in the Gospels either, or did those who put the canon together get it wrong?He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
kbersche writes: Why do you assume this? Do you really think there are objective, textual reasons that your other examples were not in the original autographs? Hardly. You explained away the first quote by saying that it didn't belong in the canon. I was wondering what your reasoning was to explain the other examples of how Jesus contradicted what Moses said after Moses claimed that God had commanded it.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
kbertsche writes: But I don't see how your other examples "contradict" Moses. Mt. 19:8 explains WHY Moses allowed divorce; it says that this was a temporary concession due to their hardness of heart. This is an "explanation", not a "contradiction": It explains why Moses permitted it but then Jesus goes on to say how it was from the beginning. Jesus is saying that Moses used his own understanding but that he got it wrong., even though Moses claimed that it came from the Lord.
kbertsche writes: Nor do I see that Mt 5 "contradicts" Moses. Rather, it EXTENDS his commands by focusing on the motives rather than on the outward manifestations. What Moses said still applies; the outward manifestations are still wrong. That's true in some cases but here is an example where it isn't. Jesus says in Matthew 5:quote:Jesus is referring to Exodus 21 and Leviticus 24 where the Bible tells us that the Lord told Moses that it is an eye for an eye etc. Here Jesus says that wasn't correct and then corrects what had been written. For that matter, once again, you can't square that statement by Jesus with a God that commands genocide and public stoning. It is either faith in Jesus as the embodied word of God or an inerrant Bible. Once again you can't have it both ways.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1
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kbertsche writes:
In other words you are quite prepared to worship a god of situational ethics. You are prepared to worship a god that is prepared to have you and your like thinking inerrantists engage in a campaign of genocide if the situation demands it, or to execute people for minor offences against laws that you believe God has commanded. I don't see why not. Why can't this simply be another case of the rules changing because times have changed? Again we have seen what war does to the men and women who fight them. PTSD is real. It destroys people's lives. As an inerrantist you believe that Yahweh personally destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Why then, when He can simply do it Himself, would He ask the people that He loved to slaughter the men women children and infants of a neighbouring community? Look at this from Numbers 15. quote:You are prepared to worship a god that not only is prepared to have his people execute this poor smuck, but to do it a way that is slow and painful as well as involving the whole community in the execution. Frankly, I just don’t get it. After reading the Gospels can you really in your wildest imagination really see God as embodied by Jesus ever sanctioning such an atrocity in any time or situation? This is what comes out of making a false idol of the Bible instead of allowing God to speak through it, and using it as Paul says for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Edited by GDR, : typoHe has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
kbertsche writes: Yes. I recently was part of a study of the book. You obviously insist on reading it with a 21st century mind set. It was a book written by a Jew to the Jewish members of the early Christian church. It is full of Jewish apocalyptic writing. I would also add that the writers of that time used massive exaggeration to make a point. Yes; Have you read the book of Revelation recently? So yes, I agree that those whose lives are totally self serving will choose a life in or of hell in both this life and the next. As C S Lewis says those that are in hell choose it. However, once again the book of Revelation is to be read through the lens of what Jesus taught and how He lived. You don't do that however when you worship an inerrant Bible instead of Jesus.
kbertsche writes:
No. I allow God to speak through all parts of the Bible using the lens of what Jesus taught so that I can understand how and when we get it wrong and when we get it right.
Rather, your approach only allows God to speak through the parts of the Bible that you like, and insulates you from what He is trying to teach, rebuke, or correct you from the parts that you don't like.I can see when Moses said that the Lord told him that the guy should be stoned to death for picking up firewood on a Saturday that he got it wrong. When he says things like this in Leviticus - quote:- we can see that he got it right, with the exception of that he should have pointed out that it wasn't just for their fellow Israelites but for the world. Even at that though it was a part of the progressive revelation of God and was a very good start. This is teaching, correcting and rebuking the way that God through Jesus intends.You still haven't explained why a loving god would not only commit genocide himself but having the people he loved do the job for him knowing full well what the trauma would do to them, as well as explaining public stoning for minor offences. As a matter of fact you have left off explaining most of the points of inconsistencies concerning the nature and character of God as seen in Jesus and as we see in the OT. You just blindly going on following with a 21st century mindset that yearns to have absolute answers to all of your questions. This is a gross misuse of a collection of books that are a gift from God. It is a repudiation of the life and teaching of Jesus. Why, would you worship a god that endorses public stoning for even minor offences and that commands that the people he supposedly loves to slaughter men, women children and even infants? The only reason to worship a god like that is because you believe that he really is God and it is in your best interest to do so. This is the exact opposite of what Jesus teaches where we are to take the focus off of ourselves and live a life altruistically loving our neighbour. In the end I see an atheist that rejects that teaching could be closer to the heart of God than a Biblical inerrantist. Fortunately, the fundamentalists that I know actually do reject that god and essentially rationalize away the type of things that I mentioned and do align more with the teaching of Jesus than they do with the parts of the OT that Jesus repudiates. I have no doubt but that this is true in your case. However, in the end it is bad theology and as I say it represents Biblianity instead of Christianity and is a huge stumbling block for many who reject the Christian faith as they are led to believe that it is all Bible focused instead of Jesus focused. It turns faith and belief into a work and is the modern day equivalent of the Pharisees that Jesus so strongly criticized.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
kbertsche writes:
I asked this question. GDR, you don't know most of my positions on these issues. But instead of asking and discussing, you prefer to make unjustified assumptions and false allegations about what I believe. For example, you say that I "obviously insist on reading it with a 21st century mind set." You are simply assuming this, you don't know how I read Revelation, and you are dead wrong. I try to interpret all of Scripture in light of the historical and cultural context in which it was written.GDR writes: Your answer was this. Frankly, I just don’t get it. After reading the Gospels can you really in your wildest imagination can you really see God as embodied by Jesus ever sanctioning such an atrocity in any time or situation?kbertsche writes:
That isn’t an assumption, that is what you said. Based on that I have made other assumptions because you don’t answer the questions I ask so I left having to assume other things from that response. Most of it is based on the idea that you are an inerrantist so that does lead to certain assumptions. Please explain how my assumptions are wrong. YesJust for starters once again how do you square the idea of a loving god with the idea that somebody should be stoned to death for picking up firewood on the Sabbath, with the added dimension how that will affect the people carrying out this atrocity. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
kbertsche writes:
Essentially I agree except I don't understand why you would separate His love and His justice. Perfect justice is loving.
Very briefly: God is loving, but He is not ONLY loving. He is also just, all-knowing, and many other attributes. What He does must be consistent with the entirety of His character, not only with a single attribute, like love (or worse, our modern understanding of what this single attribute means). kbertsche writes: But I don't really want to get into a discussion of inerrancy or OT genocide for a number of reasons:1) These are difficult and complex topics, and this would start a protracted discussion which I simply do not have the time for. 2) I do not sense that anyone here really is willing to consider these views; it seems that everyone just wants to argue against them. I am not interested in arguing. 3) these are off-topic for the current thread. It is only difficult because there is no answer available. Jesus' teaching is totally incompatible with what God is supposed to have commanded in places in the OT. Of course in many cases it is completely compatible. If we are talking about what is a true Christian then I would think that it is necessary to sort out what is true Christianity.
kbertsche writes: Anybody can call themselves a Christian I suppose and be a true Christian. It just seems to me though that it is true Christianity that is the issue. Inerrrancy is just not consistent with Christ's life or His message. This thread is about "What is a true Christian?" It is NOT necessary to hold to inerrancy or to believe that God commanded genocide in order to be a true Christian.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
jar writes: So what's your point? But Jesus was not a Christian and Christianity is a creation of folk after Jesus death.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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