Bible Teachings or Traditions of Men?

I think that you are making some assumptions there that aren’t Biblical. First off, it isn’t like they are three separate persons. In one way it is like three separate aspects of the one God. When you read through the Gospels we can see that Jesus understood His vocation through His understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures. For example, His referring to Himself as the Son of Man is an obvious reference back to Daniel 7. His understanding that to lead means to serve goes back to Isaiah. Riding into Jerusalem on a donkey shows that He understood as Himself to be the Messiah in reference to the passage in Jeremiah.Also through the Hebrew Scriptures there is the message that God will return to His people and that He will be their King. Jesus combined the messianic message and Daniel 7 into an understanding that through him, Jesus the man, God was returning to His people and that He was to establish that Kingdom as the embodiment of God. As He said to Pilate that it wasn't a kingdom of this world but a kingdom for this world. It would be a kingdom of people who were to take God’s message of truth, love, peace, mercy, justice and forgiveness to the world. (Not doing much of a job of it are we. )The Holy Spirit of God was not something new. God always spoke to the and through the hearts of humans who had always been resistant to His still small voice, which is obvious as we read the OT and see the incredible acts of cruelty performed by the very people that were supposed to be the agents of bring His peace and love to the world. However, through all that God’s message of love still survived and Jesus pulled all of those threads together and perfectly presented God’s will for His created beings to the world, and if we believe in the resurrection of Jesus then we can have confidence that Jesus, the man, truly did embody God’s return as God vindicated and confirmed Jesus through His resurrection. The resurrection is the key and the starting point of Christianity. I think that we have to be very careful that we don’t take ancient Jewish apocalyptic writings too literally. There are other threads on hell and I’ll just repeat what I said in other threads. I will say though, that it isn't about committing wicked deeds as you put it, but about what our hearts truly desire. It is our hearts that God wants. He wants hearts that desire His desires for us. He wants hearts that embrace love, peace, justice, forgiveness etc.

That is your understanding of Christian orthodoxy. I presented what I suggest is orthodox and more than that it is the Biblical view as well.The trouble is Faith is that your view comes out of the tradition that wants absolute answers. When we look at the Biblical story or the human story in general we can see that God just doesn't work that way.

I re-read what I wrote and I could have said it better. Yes I believe that God is in three persons. I have no problem with the creeds except for what the creeds leave out, which is Jesus' whole Kingdom message. (The creeds essentially jump right from Christ's birth to His death leaving out just about everything in between. This is probably due to the fact that the creeds were written to establish the controversial parts with the non-controversial left out.)Understanding the personages of God the Father and Jesus the Son is relatively easy. We see Jesus praying to the Father and we see the Holy Spirit working through Jesus. For example this verse from Luke 10.

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21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

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So yes, I see the Trinity as being 3 persons but at the same time there is only one God. Jesus was born flesh and blood. There was a specific date of His birth and a specific moment of the death of that part of His life. During that time, Jesus embodied Yahweh's return to His people and Jesus with the Holy Spirit revealed God to all. The difference lies in our understanding of how God reaches out to us through the scriptures. You believe the Scriptures to be inerrant and essentially dictated by God. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I understand the Scriptures to be inspired in the sense that God working through the minds and imaginations of people inspired writers to record their histories and ideas, but not giving them word for word instructions. As a result we wind up with accounts that are both personally and culturally conditioned. As a result there are inconsistencies and misunderstandings of God within all that was written.IMHO the Bible is God-breathed in that God's word is breathed through the Scriptures, and that He informs us through the Scriptures. As Christians we worship Jesus and not the Bible. If we truly want to understand Jesus we have to understand Him in His Jewish context which requires reading the Gospels and then referring back to the OT to see what references Jesus was using. Then to understand the OT we have to read the words of Jesus in the Gospels to sort out what in the OT was of God. Firstly, you have your own view of what it means to be a Bible believing Christian. I consider myself a Bible believing Christian but I believe it differently than you do. As far as facing God when I die, I have no doubt that He is going to far more concerned with my heart than He is with my theology. I also would rather face Him with the idea that I took my understanding of Him from the one He sent with His Word, namely Jesus, as opposed to understanding Him from a group of early scribes. Frankly I don't think that I would be thrilled to face Him in the belief that He is capable of ordering genocide or public stoning, and furthermore I if I'm wrong I am not at all sure that I would care to spend eternity with Him.I don't just worship Him because He is God, I worship Him because He is all loving. If I am wrong then frankly that's fine by me because that is where my heart is.

It isn’t that different. We have God the Father who created all that is that and who art in Heaven. We have Jesus who was born into time as a flesh and blood human being who embodied God’s return giving us the unvarnished truth about the Father, and there is the Holy Spirit who is the connection between God’s heavenly dimension and our Earthly one. Three aspects of God in the three persons of God. It grew out of the reformation when the Church kept the Bible away from the hands of the people, allowing themselves the final word on what it said. The concept that you believe in grew out of that. I hadn’t realized it was a flap. I thought it was a discussion. They are not just culturally conditioned by style but by content both in the accounts of events and in the nature of God. Jesus says love your enemies whereas as Joshua says slaughter them. As you have pointed out in another thread you feel it is wasting time to read the thoughts of those who disagree with you. I have shelves of books which I’ve read with a variety of views including yours. I don’t read just to affirm what I already believe and as a matter of fact I make a point of reading views which differ from my own and am open to having my views corrected, which has happened many times. I believe the Bible in that I believe that what the writers wrote they intended it to be believed in one sense or another. It is your view that when it says that God has said that they are to stone to death the some poor smuck for picking up firewood on the Sabbath that God actually said that and then you look around for justification. 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. When Jesus contradicts portions of the OT I believe Jesus, whereas you go with the Bible. As I have said before, it is Christianity not Biblianity. Your view of Jesus makes Jesus all God and not man at all. It is essentially the heretical docetic view of Jesus although I know you would dispute that. I’m wondering why you think Jesus would bother to pray, to the Father, to not have to go through with what He knew would happen to Him in Jerusalem. If He had full comprehension of what the eventual outcome would be then why Gethsemane? Yes He was the embodiment of God the Father but He was still a flesh and blood human being and went to the cross as an tremendous act of Faith. I hardly think of myself as morally superior to God and I’m certainly not trying to be fashionable. (Just ask my wife about that. ) It is you who are accusing God of sin. It is you who agree that He advocates genocide and public stoning. If you are right and God does advocate those things then why would you want to worship Him? I know this isn’t true of you but through human history people have attributed those ideas to God as it justified their own lust for power. We see examples of that in the OT. God has shown us in the OT how easy it is for people to go off track. Faith, it is your mind that has told you that you are to understand the Bible in the way that you do. Why is my concept of loving any more narrow than yours? I’ll go back to the idea of public stoning. The OT tells us that prostitutes are to be stoned. (Jesus of course showed how prostitutes are to be loved and forgiven but we’ll ignore that.) Your so-called loving God is going to take someone who has no other way of keeping life going except to sell her body, maybe because she had been severely abused in the first place, and have the people that He loves take her out and stone her with all the good townsfolk looking on. First off, where is the love for this poor abused woman and secondly what does this do to the hearts of the people He loves. All it can possibly do is harden the hearts of those who are called to reflect His love into the world.It has nothing to do with my humility. (Actually it’s one of my attributes I’m most proud of. ) I am looking for truth. I have no doubt that much of what I believe is wrong, but as I said before I worship a God of love, not a God who advocates genocide and public stoning. He gave us Jesus. I think we should listen to Him.God speaks to us through the Bible, IMHO you seem to be more concerned with justifying your beliefs than you are in hearing what He actually has to tell you.

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. 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. Which IMHO is exactly what you are doing. 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. 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Absolutely, but that is not the message of the OT. The OT message was often, but not always, a message of condemnation and execution. 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. 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.

Interesting. So when Jesus teaches something that contradicts the OT the you go with the OT and yet you call yourself Christian. This IMHO is the problem. Your whole understanding of God is based on an inerrant Bible as opposed to an inerrant Jesus. As I said before, it is Biblianity not Christianity. Again, you miss the point. He wanted to change the hearts of the Jewish people because they were to be His Kingdom builders in order to change the hearts of all nations including the Romans. Matthew 12

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18 "Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. 19 He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. 20 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. 21 In his name the nations will put their hope."

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Matthew 24

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14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations,

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Matthew 25

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32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

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Matthew 28

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Therefore go and make disciples of all nations

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Mark 11:17

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And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written: " 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations' ?

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Mark 13:10

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And the gospel must first be preached to all nations

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.........and so on.I'd suggest this is on topic because in order to answer the questions in the OP we have to know how we are to understand the Scriptures.

As far as the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is concerned, I think we can get an understanding of it by using Christ`s own self understanding. Jesus often referred to Himself as ``The Son of Man``. This is an obvious reference to Daniel 7. Here is the pertinent part of that chapter.

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9 "As I looked, "thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. 10 A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened. 11 "Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. 12 (The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, but were allowed to live for a period of time.) 13 "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

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There are all the messianic texts in the OT but the Jews, didn’t anticipate that the messiah would be anything more than human and in general the plan was to lead them to victory over their enemies. However throughout their Scriptures there was this theme of a much more loving God and in particular there is the suffering servant in Isaiah. Then we get to this passage in Daniel with the Son of Man reference. In all likelihood Daniel would have thought that The Son of Man’ would be the Israeli nation.Jesus seems to have woven all these themes together to come to His own understanding of His relationship with Yahweh, the one He called Father and the one to whom He prayed.This Daniel passage is clearly set in God’s heavenly dimension. It is obviously written in Jewish apocalyptic style and we should understand it in that light.It has God the Father as the Ancient of Days Taking His throne and it has one like a son of man coming into His presence. Verse 14,( He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed), clearly outlines the role that Jesus was and is to play in God’s created world. It is less clear but I contend that Jesus would have understood that Daniel meant the passage to be about the nation of Israel and so understood that He, Jesus, was standing in for the whole nation.Jesus speaks of this in Matthew 24. In the first part of that chapter Jesus tells the disciples that the Temple buildings will be destroyed. This is part of His message that if the revolutionaries were going to continue to be the dominant political force the nation would face destruction. Then the disciples ask Jesus about His coming and the end of the age. Jesus then goes on to talk about the tribulations that are going to befall the nation, (once again as a result that His non-revolutionary message of peace and love was being ignored), and the general political upheaval which will come. Then in verse 29 and 30 he refers us back to Daniel 7 when He says this:

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29 "Immediately after the distress of those days " 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.' 30 "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.

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Verse 29 refers back to Isaiah 13:

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9 See, the day of the LORD is coming --a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger-- to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. 10 The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.

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All of this clearly is not about the end of time but it is again Jewish apocalyptical lingo for massive political upheaval and all that goes with it. So Jesus is saying in Matthew 24:30 that when that happens it will be shown that what Daniel was talking about has taken place. Jesus has been presented to the Father, His eternal Kingdom has been established and He has been given dominion over all the nations.Then He gets back to the disciples initial question in the Matthew 24 which was being referred to earlier verse 36.

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36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

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His message then goes on to say that they aren't to worry about it, and just to get on with building His Kingdom by taking His message of truth, peace, love etc to all nations, which is His message for us to this day.

Hi NoNukesI think to answer that we have to look at what is meant by the incarnation. Here is the Webster definition:

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a : invested with bodily and especially human nature and form
b : made manifest or comprehensible : embodied

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I think that both of these definitions (a & b) are useful.Let’s look at a first.The Jews always had a history of understanding that God had taken up residence on Earth. They had a whole temple theology built around it including specifically the Holy of Holies. This was where God connected with His people. This was His specific residence and this was where people would go to meet with Yahweh and to offer up sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins and for healing. So although, in a non-carnal or non-bodily sense, God was incarnate in the Temple.Here is a quote from John 2:

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19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." 20 The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

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That is the clearest quote but when we look at the actions of Jesus we can see that it was clear that Jesus understood that He Himself was the now filling that role. Jesus was going around healing people and forgiving sins — the role that up to then the Temple had always played. The Jews had believed that Yahweh’s place of residence was the Temple, but here was Jesus saying that His body was the residence or the incarnation of the Father. However, this was what the Father was doing through the Son. This is from John 5

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16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." 18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 19 Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

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It is very clear all through the Gospels that there are the two separate persons but that Jesus’ authority was the authority of the Father given to Him and working through Him.So when we look at the b part of the definition above we can see that Jesus understood that He was the embodiment of the return of Yahweh to His people. He was the manifestation o the Father and as per the definition He made the Father comprehensible to mankind. There are many contradictory images of God in the OT and Jesus was incarnated so that the Father would act and speak directly and clearly through the Son.So yes, I have no problem understanding Jesus as divine but it is a divinity conferred on Him by the Father to whom He prayed, and who He served. Once again it is, IMHO, the point that God will be incarnate in Him. He will embody Yahweh’s return to His people as many of the prophets had suggested He would, although not in the way that they thought He would do it. Even Faith agrees that the Trinity is made up of three persons. If we simply call them all God then we don’t differentiate. I would say that all three are part of the Godhead but that they each fulfill their own role.Edited by GDR, : typo

I thought I might wade in on this from another angle. Let’s look at how John starts out.

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1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. 6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " 16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

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John is giving us the foundation for all that he is going to write about in his Gospel. First off we see that what existed in the beginning was God and His Word. He is going back to the very beginning with this obvious reference to Genesis 1. It seems to me that in one sense when we speak, the words we use reflect our wisdom, (or lack of wisdom), so in that sense God’s Word is also God’s wisdom.John goes on to tell us that the Word became flesh. The Word, or God’s Wisdom was made incarnate in Jesus. However, he also says that Jesus was begotten. Jesus had a beginning as a human but the Word or the wisdom of God the Father was there from the beginning. Jesus died a physical death but the Word of God which He embodied is eternal.The resurrection of Jesus by the Father is God’s vindication and endorsement of the life and words of Jesus.When John gets close to the end of his book is where he tells of Thomas saying to Jesus My Lord and my God. He is bringing it full circle. It is through the man Jesus that Yahweh returned in wisdom to the world for the world.All this is of course JMHO, but when the whole narrative within the Gospel of John is taken into account I contend that my view is completely consistent with what John wants us to understand. I also contend that he has faithfully recorded Christ’s life and message.

I did not say that I don't worship Jesus as God. As you yourself say they are three different persons. Jesus prayed to the Father. They are different manifestations and in Jesus we see God's human manifestation. I don't understand why you are determined to believe everything in the Bible except for the Gospels. Just read what Jesus said. The problem is that doesn't fit with your pre-conceived beliefs so you reject the words of Jesus.

The trouble is Faith you prioritize Biblical inerrancy over the words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels. As John writes, it is Jesus who is the Word of God and it is through the message of the Jesus, the one who embodies God's Word that we are to understand the Bible in its entirety.

I have tried using the Gospels with you Faith but you reject those readings. Let’s try reading a piece from Paul’s second letter to the Philipians.

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1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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The point of being Christian as Paul points out is that we are to be united with Christ. As Christians it is Christ that is to be central in our life and specifically that we would have the same love, spirit and purpose. To be very frank Faith, when I read your posts, whether to me or anyone else, I’m just not feeling the love. ( I do not pretend to be perfect in that regard either, so we should probably both clean up our act. )Paul then writes that Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but became a humble obedient servant and as a result was exalted by God. Paul writes that this was in spite of being in very nature God. God made Jesus, (The Son of Man in Daniel 7) Lord of all. Jesus became part of a triune unity with the one true God.Also as a point of interest Paul talks about under the earth. If we are to get scientific facts from the Bible I’m curious as to how you would explain that.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

I think that we would agree that Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh. Read the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' whole message is that we are to love our enemies. We are to forgive, go the extra mile, turn the other cheek etc. Jesus lived in what was supposed to be the promised land but they were being cruelly and exploitively controlled by the Romans, yet he tells them that those that live by the sword die by the sword.With Jesus giving us the word of God without any cultural or personal conditioning there is no way as Christians that we can then understood that it would be part of the nature of God to have His chosen people commit genocide or public stoning.It is easy to say that God is beyond our understanding but remember that we are made in His image so that argument just doesn’t cut it. We know that genocide is wrong. We know that death by public stoning is wrong for any offence let alone for picking up firewood on the Sabbath.As Christians it is Jesus who we look to for our understanding of the Father, and it is Jesus that we look to so we can understand what God has to tell us in the Scriptures.So what do you believe? Do you believe the words of Jesus in the Gospels or do you believe in a god that is capable of ordering genocide and public stoning. You may protest that you can, but in truth you can’t have it both ways.For myself, I worship God as revealed in Jesus, and the God we see in His interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. I reject the notion of God that is portrayed as a cruel and vengeful tyrant.

But Faith, it is you that is calling God unrighteous. It is you that is saying that mass slaughter is a righteous act. It is you that is saying that public stoning is a righteous act and that those actions are part of God's nature. It has nothing to do with being arrogant. I humbly worship the God that I see incarnate in Jesus.If we are made in the image of God, and if it is ok for God to order mass extermination, then why on earth would it be wrong for us to do it now? Why, would it be wrong to drop nuclear weapons on all so-called non-Christian nations? Why don't we engage in cruel public executions for everyone who doesn't agree with what you like to call orthodoxy? Maybe you think that is what we should be doing. Is that what Jesus would want?

I completely trust in God’s judgement. One of the great truths that I believe from Genesis is that in some way we are made in God’s image. If that means anything it means that we have a knowledge of good and evil and the knowledge of which is which. We are both theistic which means that we believe in a God that is active and interested in what it is that has been created. We would also both agree that He has given us the ability to choose between good and evil, and from your post I would assume that you believe that it would be evil for us to engage in genocide or public stoning.Let’s now go back to our agreement that we are made in the image of God and what that entails. We live in democracies. From your posts in other threads I gather that you are not a huge fan of Obama, however you would agree that he is the President. You are in the situation that you acknowledge him as President but you don’t support him. However, I think that you would agree that he is sticking reasonably close to his platform. Now let’s say that you had someone running for President whose platform laid down laws for the nations to follow, but says that they don’t apply to him and furthermore they don’t apply to you when he thinks that it is in his best interest. Would you vote for that man? I f he actually was elected would you support him even though you might be asked to do things that you knew to be wrong?If we are made in the image of God then how can we believe that He is a God that has one set of rules for us and another set for Himself? Worse than that however, when He feels it is necessary to engage in something that is normally deemed evil, he doesn’t do it himself but gets the ones that he has entrusted with His message to commit the evil on his behalf. If I had a President or Prime Minister like that I certainly wouldn’t be one of his/her supporters, so why would I support a god like that. Fortunately I don't have to because God as we see Him in Jesus isn't like that.If you believe that God has given us a moral code to live by but doesn’t live by it himself then I don’t see how you can possibly believe that we are made in God’s image.Furthermore we have the ultimate example of what it looks like when God wants to act decisively against evil. We have the cross and then the resurrection. Evil did its worst and then God conclusively demonstrates that evil does not have the last word. There is no need for God to engage in mass slaughter.Human history has got to tell you that when you use evil to fight evil then evil is obviously going to come out the winner and stronger than ever. The God that we see incarnate in Jesus would never use evil to fight evil. The slaughter of the Canaanites is the complete opposite of what we see God the Father doing through the Son.I know that you don’t accept this but there is a choice that we make as Christians. Are we going to believe that God is capable of being a vengeful, non-forgiving tyrant, (even if just occasionally), that we sometimes see in the OT, or are we going to believe in the loving, just God we see in Jesus, but also who can also be found in the OT in many places? No matter what you think, you can’t have it both ways.I assume we both believe that through the ages God has spoken into our hearts and minds. If we also consider that God inspired people to record their thoughts, but however as He seems to have made the decision to work through humans in general, (even when He returned He did it through the man Jesus), we wind up with views that are imperfect images of the truth. However, we can then consider that these writings are God breathed and that He is able to reach out to our hearts, minds and imaginations through what these humans have written.I believe very strongly that God does reach out to us through the Scriptures, but I also believe very strongly that if we consider that those Scriptures are inerrant in reflecting God’s nature and desires for us, we will gain a distorted picture of a God who is loving, just, forgiving and merciful.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.