Faith writes:
Joshua was the head of a NATION at war with enemies defined by God. Jesus on the other hand is speaking to INDIVIDUALS, He doesn't address nations AT ALL EVER, He's always talking to His own personal followers, to individuals who believe in Him. We are PERSONALLY to love our PERSONAL enemies, but that has absolutely nothing to do with how NATIONS are to deal with enemies, especially now when there is no national people of God, but all nations are fundamentally pagan. Jesus did leave room for the need for a sword which certainly contradicts any stupid ideas about not defending oneself against enemies under some circumstances.
This is another case where you have completely distorted Jesus’ message to fit your understanding that the Bible is God dictated. Much of Jesus’ message was in reaction to the Roman domination of the Jewish homeland. His message to the revolutionaries was their militaristic intentions were not the way to defeat the Romans. His message that the way the Jewish nation was to defeat the Romans was through the changing of their hearts by their actions and their love. Thus they were told to love their enemy, to turn the other cheek and to go the extra mile in service to them. He told them that their failure to accept the message that He was bringing to them would result in the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple. He even went so far as to say that it would happen within the life time of many who were alive at the time. His message was certainly specific to the Jewish nation but it was also a general principle to all nations. If that isn’t the case then the Kingdom He established is only for the Jews and not for all nations.
Faith writes:
A lot of the differences between Jesus' teaching and the ways God guided the Israelites have to do with the fact that much of the OT is symbolic or intended as types or shadows of a reality yet to come, mostly the advent of the Messiah Himself but also involving spiritual warfare against Satan's kingdoms and the like. Nevertheless, in context all God's doings with the Israelites were righteous.
Actually I largely agree with that. God continued to speak through their hearts, minds and imaginations and their understanding of His nature continued to evolve. God was always righteous but in many cases there was a complete misunderstanding of His righteousness.
Faith writes:
THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION, there is merely the usual mishandling of scripture by somebody who has dismissed all the orthodox writings down the centuries.
Which IMHO is exactly what you are doing.
Faith writes:
Jesus IS the Bible for pete's sake, the Bible is our source of knowledge of what Jesus said. You have some other source? What kind of word games are you playing here? Believing the Bible means believing Jesus as He speaks in the Bible. Good grief.
The Bible is not one book. It is a compilation of all sorts of writings by all sorts of authors. Yes it is through the Bible that we learn about Jesus. The Gospels are written by a different set of authors in a different time than was the OT. There is a consistency in the message of the various Gospels, (although there are variations in many of the details), that rings true and I accept them on faith. I also find that the Gospel message makes sense of my life and the world I live in.
GDR writes:
I believe the Bible in that I believe that what the writers wrote they intended it to be believed in one sense or another.
Faith writes:
Gosh, not just straightforwardly BELIEVED, but "believed in one sense or another?" I have NO idea what that could possibly mean.
Some was metaphorical, some was historical, some of it was political and so on. All of the various authors were trying to convey some message.
Faith writes:
If the Bible is God's word, as I know it is, then if I don't understand something in it I have to see if I can understand what God meant at that point or put it aside for later when I can't. I certainly don't just decide my inability to understand is the basis for throwing out a part of scripture, as you do, making yourself God's judge.
So I take such a passage as about stoning for picking up sticks on the Sabbath as a revelation of how important the law against working on the Sabbath is, and that can lead me to understand how Jesus is our Sabbath now. You of course miss any such meanings, you just act on your own kneejerk reactions and make yourself God's judge. That poor schmuck KNEW THE LAW AND VIOLATED IT with knowledge, but you think him innocent? Get a clue GDR. God said don't eat the fruit of this tree, but they ate it and you want to say they're innocent? Scripture is given to LEARN FROM. But you like to teach God instead and anyone who believes God, you're so much smarter than He and us.
In the first place in order to defend your view you are assuming that the poor schmuck knew that it was against the law to pick up wood on the Sabbath. The Bible doesn’t give us that information. Where did I suggest innocence? If we are to stone people who sin then we would have been extinct centuries ago. All of this nonsense of me trying to teach God anything is nuts. I am simply following Jesus whereas you reject His teachings in favour of an inerrant Bible. If what you say is true then why aren’t we outside the supermarkets on Sunday, (or Saturday if you prefer), stoning those heathens who are committing the grievous sin of Sunday shopping?
GDR writes:
When Jesus says that we are to pray to be forgiven as we forgive you must believe that He excluded the one He called Father from that.
Faith writes:
What? You dare to treat God as on a level with human beings? Am I getting this right? What is the matter with you?
I am simply saying that you believe in a God that wants us to forgive, but is Himself unforgiving, which again flies in the face of everything that Jesus espoused.
Faith writes:
Oh balderdash. If I'm addressing topics that pertain to His being God, that doesn't mean I deny His humanity. Jesus WAS human and that DOES explain Gethsemane. Again you are confused or playing games.
But you talk about Jesus as being all knowing in the same sense as the Father which is contrary to what we read in the Gospels.
Faith writes:
BECAUSE YOURS COMES OUT OF YOUR OWN FALLEN MIND AND EXPERIENCE AGAINST THE BIBLE AND MINE COMES FROM THE BIBLE WHICH IS THE ONLY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN FAITH.
The foundation of the Christian faith is Jesus. Yes, we gain our knowledge about Jesus from the Bible, but again the Bible is a collection of books. Just because we understand the Gospels in one way does not mean we have to understand the story of Jonah in the same way.
Faith writes:
THEY ARE ALSO TOLD TO GO AND SIN NO MORE, THAT'S WHAT YOU FORGET.
I’m not forgetting that at all. Telling someone to stop sinning and turn their lives around is very different from having them stoned to death but the community.
Faith writes:
What exactly are you talking about? Prostitutes or adulterers? I don't know of a case where stoning was prescribed for prostitutes, even in the Old Testament, perhaps I've forgotten something, apparently a big something if so, but I know it was prescribed for adulterers and Jesus released the adulteress on the basis of the sins of her judges, not her own supposed innocence.
Actually you are right about the prostitutes except it does say that if the daughter of a priest becomes a prostitute she is to be burned in the fire. ( Leviticus 21:9) However there is no shortage of people that according to the OT authors God wanted stoned such as adulterers as you mentioned, blasphemers, difficult kids etc. I have never suggest innocence, but Jesus’ message is that all of these people, as you point out yourself, are to change their ways and that they will be forgiven, not that they should be stoned to death.
Faith writes:
What on EARTH are you talking about? Christians are known for love to prostitutes and others who have ended up in degraded lives, rescuing them and so on. What sort of crazy stuff are you pushing anyway?
Absolutely, but that is not the message of the OT. The OT message was often, but not always, a message of condemnation and execution.
Faith writes:
You ACT morally superior to God, I didn't say you THINK OF YOURSELF as morally superior. Of course you don't.
Well, that is obviously your judgement on me, but from my perspective I am merely trying to be the man He wants me to be even if I do fail in that more often than not.
Faith writes:
Stop playing games. I'm not the one accusing God of "genocide," you are. I understand God as righteously judging nations by what you call "genocide." His judgments are righteous justice. Public stoning is the death penalty for offenses deemed to be deserving of death. Justice. You are the one who calls it wrong, making yourself God's judge, making yourself morally superior to God, I on the other hand regard God's acts as always right and just and try to understand what He is teaching through them, whereas you judge Him as wrong instead.
My faith is not a game. It is the foundation of my life.
The killing of every man woman and child in a society is genocide, and that is what God with your understanding of the Bible asked His followers to do. You also justify the picking up of firewood on the Sabbath, blasphemy etc as deserving death. I am not judging God. I am saying that He didn’t give those orders.
I find your beliefs about God frankly bizarre. Let’s say that God really did think that someone who picks up firewood on the Sabbath should be put to death.
1/ Why wouldn’t He just do it Himself?
2/ If He wasn’t prepared to do it Himself why not just involve one person instead of involving the whole community and hardening the hearts of the whole community.
3/ Why would it be necessary to execute him in such a cruel, torturous, hateful and barbarous way.
Does that sound like anything out of the Sermon on the Mount? I do agree that God does have a message for us in the passages that say that people are to be stoned to death or that whole communities should be slaughtered. He is showing us how far we can go off track when we try to make God in our own image. Yes, God has a message for us in all that but you IMHO are blinded by your own understanding. He has given us the gift of the Son to shed light on all of that, and you ignore that message as it conflicts with your misuse of the Scriptures.
I’m sorry to be so blunt but that is how I see 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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