Is God good?

Well, obviously, you go by the rules elsewhere in the Bible which call on you to exterminate the men, women, boy children, girl children, babies, cows, goats, sheep, and goldfish! Now that's some real rules of war! Deuteronomy 13:15, for one of many examples.

I was wondering how long it would take you to preach to me. I really wanted that.Wait a minute,Nope, actually I didn't. Good day, preacher jaywill.

Thanks. Anytime!Have you seen how beautiful my feet are ? Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Years ago I was told that some serious venereal diseases entered into the human sphere from ANIMALS. This means that humans had sex with animals and introduced these venereal diseases into people.It certainly was not animals raping people.The killing of the cattle in some cases may have had to do with this in the Canaanite matter. I don't know that for sure.It also may be because of cattle and children so consecrated to demonic forces. That is deep occultic pacts with Satan involving animals or children.I do not have easy answers for a couple of these extreme cases. I am glad that the Bible includes them and did not hide or exclude them. The candor is appreciated.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The harshest extenses were not GENERAL rules for warfare. They were for most often non-repeatable specific instances.And it said here in Deut. 13:14,15 in the case of an apostate Jewish city - "Then you shall INVESTIGATE and EXAMINE CAREFULLY and INQUIRE THOROUGHY." (v.14) If the thing is true and CERTAIN - the abomination has been in your midst. It says.This is instructions about punishment of one of their OWN Hebrew cities for fermenting apostasy.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Humans are animals.Assertions of "you heard" carry no weight; provide the source so it can be evaluated.Venereal diseases can be transmitted through contact other than sexual.How would that justify killing anyone anyway? How does killing someone for such practices show anything other than an evil god?

Years ago I was told that babies were brought by storks. Being told something does not make it true - hell, even reading something on the internet doesn't do that!

It is interesting to me that with God being so accused of being bad to children, it was largly Christians who spearheaded justice for CHILDREN in history.1.) During Roman Empire, families were encouraged to abandon unwanted chidlren and allow infants to die.Christians spoke out against these acts; rescued children and voluntarily pooled their resources and church property to support orphans as well as the sick and widows.2.) Basil of Caesarea and Chrysostom of Constantinople (4th century) both urged construction of orphanotrophia to care for orphans.3.) In the 1800's, during the Industrial Revolution in Europe multitudes moved into cities to find work. Many were met with impending starvation. The Salvation Army was founded by William Booth (1829-1912) to help poorest families shelter and feed thier children.4.) The British Christian George Williams in the 1840s founded Young Men's Christian Association - YMCA. No doubt originally an evangelistic outreach. Its focus was on young men turning to crime and alcoholism when dispairing of finding work in the cities.The YMCA offered these destitute young boys combined spiritual, educational and physical activites instead of poverty and crime.5.) Child labor laws Arose as a result of Christian activists coming to defense of kids exploited in British factories at age four and five. Children were slaves to coal mines and fabric mills for morethan 16 hours a day.Christians like Anthony Ashley Cooper (aka Lord Shaftesbury) (1801-1885) enfluenced passage of Parliamentary laws protecting these children. Christian activists played major part in getting legislation passed to spare children from employee abuse.Callistus of Rome (3rd century AD) stronly opposed Roman infanticide. Clement of Alexandria a Greek theologian also did.
Tertullian (ca. 160 - 240 AD), an African church theologian who openly opposed infanticide.Infanticide was formerly abolished in 374 in Rome through arguably Christian Emporer Valentinian.Lactantis (c. 240 - c. 320) was a church father and tutor to one of the sons of Canstantine the Great. He commented in Divine Institutes (1.6) on the practice of abandoning children outside to die : "It is as wicked to expose as it is to kill."Afra of Augsburg was a former prostitute in the latter 3rd century. She converted to Christianity and ministered to abandoned children.Honorius and Theodosius II (5th century emperors) both proclaimed that abandoning children must be announced before a church. If the child was not claimed, the finder was allowed to keep and care for the child.John Calvin (1500-1564) a leader in the Protestant Reformation wrote "The unborn child ... though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being ... and should not be robbed of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy." We have the historical example of George Mueller (1805-98), born in Prussia and and evangelist, powerful man of prayer, established orhponages in Bristol England after a cholera epidemic. In the next 60 years he cared for more than 10,000 orphaned and abandoned children.The God of the Bible and the Christian Gospel inspired these thoughts and activites of Christians. This is inspite of the same things they read in Joshua and Deuternonomy. Somehow they got a fuller apprehension of God's heart concerning children and applied themselves to it.
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Years ago I was taught that if a frog turned into a prince it was a fairy tale.But if a frog turned into a prince and it took 20 million years, it was science.

Fortunately science has never claimed that a frog turned into a prince.

Grace is like a present under the Christmas tree with your name on it. You have to accept it - i.e. open it - to derive any value from it but you don't need to understand it. It might turn out to be an electronic gadget that you couldn't operate to save your life but it's still yours. You might appreciate it more if you acquire a jaywill-like understanding of it but you can't own it any more than you already do.

Saul of Tarsus had to be knocked down to the ground with a light from heaven and a supernatural voice in order to bring him into an understanding of the grace of God. Latter a physical ailment troubled Paul very sorely. Paul prayed three times that God would have it removed. The answer came to enlighten him that Christ's GRACE was sufficient for him.
" ... there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, that he might buffet me, in order that I might not be exceedingly lifted up.

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Concerning this I entreated the Lord three time that it might depart from me.

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And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.

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Most gladly therefore I will rather boast in my weaknesses that the power of Christ might tabernacle over me.

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Therefore I am well pleased in weaknessess, in insults, in necessities, in persecutiuons and distresses, on behalf of Chrsit; for when I am weak, then I am poweful." (2 Cor. 12:7c-10) Paul had to learn about how GRACE operated in his life.
Paul had to learn how the power of Christ within him operated.Before his appreciation of troubles, problems, ailments, oppositions he just saw things that rendered him weak. But the sufficiency of the Geace of Christ became more and more apparent to him. He was continually enlightened to the point of realizing that every weakness and misfortune that he faced was an opportunity for God to reveal to him how sufficient was the grace working in him, which was the power of Christ's indwelling life.Learning grace was something like learning power steering in a car. The Christian is in a life long education revealing to him how deeply SUFFICIENT is this GRACE in all and every kind of adverse situation.Grace is not just a one time present of forgiveness. Thought grace may start there, the enlightment concerns how extensive, how all-inclusive and sufficient this Person is, this grace.Paul eventually boasts in all of his natural weaknesses. He learned and continued to learn that when he is weak, Christ as GRACE within him makes him strong.The counter intuitiveness of the experience of GRACE requires learning which is life long, ever deepening.So Peter says - "Therefore girding up the loins of your mind and being sober, set your hope perfectly on the grace being brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Pet. 1:13) So the appreciation of the sufficiency of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ requires deeper and deeper enlightenment.So the wise person goes from seeing Grace as like a present under a Christmas tree "Oh, now by grace I have my ticket to heaven" perhaps kind of thinking TO - "Now I see that this GRACE is just this Person living and real, united with me, empowering me beyond my weakness and enabling me to pass all kinds of adversities in Him - to His glory."Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

So you've decided to stop defending forced marriages? Good, because those forced marriages were preceded by and included rape. That's right. What you called 'facilitated them being integrated into Israelite society' is rape. I also see that you are no longer trying to label owning people and their descendants as chattel as indentured servitude. Pathetic. Get a dictionary. Double talk. If your argument were a bit better they might rise to the level of being sophistry.

God said that grace was all he was getting - i.e. he wasn't going to be healed. What he had to learn was that grace was the only gift from God that he could count on. All other things he was expected to endure or fix on his own.The only thing to be learned about grace is its limitations. The present under the tree is yours for the taking but you have to get your own Christmas dinner.

The problem is not so much that the Jews did these things way back when. The problem is with their claims that God told them to do all of those things.