Results 1 - 8 of 8
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Problem sharing our faith? | Ex 20:1 | kamschoolgrad | 211870 | ||
My boyfriend was given this editorial at work by one of his co-workers. The question is why does God have conflicting commands? Letter to Editor of local newspaper: "Just imagine for a minute that the Hawaiian nation was given its sovereinty. King Kaipo Makua was chosen to rule his nation and within the Palace grounds was a cache of treasure that amounted to over 50 trillion dollars. Money was not an issue for King Makua. He had anything and everything at his disposal to thoroughly bless his people. It would be very easy to keep his nation prosperous. Continuing on this fairy tale trip, imagine the king establishing a bunch of laws. Among them he commands "thou shall not kill." Everyone agrees, this is a good law for it is better to be respectful of others and to cherish human life. Then a week or so after the king established well over 600 laws, statutes and commands, he issued another command that stated if anyone should speak evil against the king and his laws, that person shall be killed. Wait a minute, is he crazy? Is this real? Kill that person who speaks evil against the king? What kind of loving leader would issue a law like that? Isn't that what Sadaam, Mao, Hitler and Stalin all tried? With a seemingly unlimited budget to rule his people how could King Makua be doubtful that he could make everyone happy? Who in the world could, other than a robot or a puppet, endear to a leader like that? Was King Makua insane? Well, we all know how preposturous it would be for such a story to be true, yet this is exactly what the god of the Christian bible did. Deuteronomy 5:17, "Thou shall not kill." Deuteronomy 13:9, "but you shall surely kill him." When are the people of the real world going to realize that although some of the bible stories may be historically truthful, most of them are fairy tales that can't be taken seriously?" (end) My question is why is God contradicting Himself in Deuteronomy? How should my boyfriend explain this problem in order to share his faith? Aloha, kamschoolgrad |
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2 | Problem sharing our faith? | Ex 20:1 | Rolff | 211871 | ||
Dear kamschoolgrad, Your question in part, “Well, we all know how preposterous it would be for such a story to be true, yet this is exactly what the god of the Christian bible did. Deuteronomy 5:17, "Thou shall not kill." Deuteronomy 13:9, "but you shall surely kill him." When are the people of the real world going to realize that although some of the bible stories may be historically truthful, most of them are fairy tales that can't be taken seriously?" Mahalo, actually, this is one of the best reasons for donating the King James to the library of antiquities. I love the KJV, but it is a foreign language to 21st Century readers. Thou shalt (not even in my word-processing spell-check dictionary) not kill is not a good translation for 21st Century readers. Second, your question is about definitions. In Exodus 20:13, Deut 5:17 both read, "You shall not murder." NASB. The language the Old Testament was written in, Hebrew uses the same word in both verses, ratsach, which is murder. The same Hebrew word is used six times in the Old Testament, let’s look briefly at them. EXO 20:13 ¶ "You shall not murder. DEU 5:17 ¶' You shall not murder. PSA 62:3 ¶ How long will you assail a man, That you may murder him, all of you, Like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence? PSA 94:6 They slay the widow and the stranger, And murder the orphans. JER 7:9 "Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, HOS 4:2 There is swearing, deception, murder, stealing, and adultery. They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed. HOS 6:9 And as raiders wait for a man, So a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem; Surely they have committed crime. Regarding murder, Miriam Webster’s Online Dictionary states: “The crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice or forethought.” There were six cities of Refuge, given by God to protect the person that took the life of another without intent. The example that is used is if the ax head comes off while chopping an tree and another dies. The one living could run to one of the cities of refuge until the high priest died and then go home. Numbers 13:35f . A person died, but the life of the one taking the life was saved by God’s decree because it was accidental. War as horrendous as it is, is not forbidden in the Bible. War is not murder. Accidental killing, be it by car, stupidity or accident is not murder. Murder is a drive-by shooter taking the life of a friend of mine. Murder is intentionally taking a weapon and using it until it removes the life of another. In Deuteronomy 13:9 kill means kill. The Hebrew word is harag according to my Hebrew lexicon means kill. Miriam Webster’s Online Dictionary states, “transitive verb, to deprive of life : cause the death of “ Quell is from the same etymological root. Capital punishment is not murder. Which begs to your question; If one takes the life of another, Deuteronomy 5:17 that person should be put to death Deuteronomy 13:9. [When I was a boy there was little murder because the murderer was a dead man in short order. He did not want to die, so he didn’t take the life of another. The more lenient we get on murderers the more murder occurs. The Bible never talks about prison, but it does tell us to remove the murderer from among the living.] Aloha, Rolff |
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3 | Murder vs Killing | Ex 20:1 | kamschoolgrad | 211874 | ||
Murder is not the question. I am sure my husband's co-worker will agree with us there are differences between killing and murder, but that is not the problem. We can unanimously agree that committing murder is always wrong but killing although sometimes wrong, is sometimes necessary and justified. The problem my boyfriend and I have trying to explain this is overcoming the cruelty of King Makua issuing an order that anyone speaking evil against the king shall be put to death. In Deut 13:10, God commands that a person who tries to sway a family member away from the Lord shall be killed. How do we explain God's justice and mercy in this situation? How do we reach out to our friends when they ask the question, why is killing a family member who has a different opinion not murder? Is killing a family member for going against God necessary and justifiable? |
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4 | Murder vs Killing | Ex 20:1 | DocTrinsograce | 211878 | ||
Hi, Kam... We do not judge God's character by what He does. Instead, we understand his actions in the light of His character. God is perfect in goodness, holiness, and righteousness. As the Creator He is perfectly right doing whatever pleases Him. And that is what He does: all things that please Him, without consulting any. He provides the standard for our morality, commanding us as He sees fit. In Him, Doc |
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5 | Murder vs Killing | Ex 20:1 | Val | 211884 | ||
Doc, what do you make of the recent slams against the word from the Prop 8 fallout? | ||||||
6 | Murder vs Killing | Ex 20:1 | DocTrinsograce | 211893 | ||
Psalm 2 sums it up pretty well. | ||||||
7 | Murder vs Killing | Ex 20:1 | kamschoolgrad | 212006 | ||
Greetings, Doc, Val, John, Rolff and Jeff, My boyfriend and I have spent the last few days studying your answers. Frankly, we have been struggling to comprehend your rationale. Jeff, you said "context, context, context and then context." This is exactly what we did. We deliberately consider the context. Reading carefully the book of Deuteronomy, the true context is obvious. God is establishing standards for true prosperity. He has delivered His people from the bondage of Egypt and is setting them up as a model society. A model society for the world to witness the blessings available to those who live their lives as God has commanded. He promises them tremendous blessings if they would merely follow His commands. In Deut 12:32, He says do not add to nor diminish from any of His commands. There can be no misinterpretation of this directive. As John answered by quoting Deut 32:4, His work is perfect, For all His ways are just. Psalm 111:7-10, says that He has commanded His covenant forever. The context is obvious. God does everything right and it lasts forever. Nothing is temporary. The context cannot be misunderstood. God is eternal and does not change. Ecc 3:14, Whatever God does shall be forever; nothing can be added or taken from it. The context is an unchanging God commanding that You Shall Not Commit Murder, Deut 5:17, and then He commands the killing of a dissenting family member in Deut 13:9-10. Further, in Deut 11:32, "And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and judgements which I set before you today." If God wanted some of His commands to become obsolete and outdated, as you seem to feel, don't you think He would not have been so adamant about them being established forever? The true meaning is the true context of what God intended. Who are we to change what God has done? Who are we to say that God commanded Do Not Murder as being forever but Kill Your Dissenting Brother as being only temporary? Doc answered that God provides the standard for our morality, commanding us as He sees fit. He has commanded us not to commit murder and we all accept it. He has commanded us to kill our dissenting brother, but here we all object, doubting that God knows best. Val answered that it is God's character, holy, pure, righteous, just and eternal, however God was only speaking to the nation of Israel, not to my family. That is hard to swallow since we are all children of God. How can you explain that God made everything perfect and just, pure and righteous, holy and eternal for the children of Israel, but the rest of His children are given different standards? If God was speaking only to the children of Israel then why did Jesus teach us Christians that heaven and earth must pass away before any part of God's law fails? The context of Deuteronomy is God was outlining the parameters for a model society where blessings would abound if all of His commands were adhered to. Rolff answered that "if we could understand God, He would not be God." How is this not totally against Christianity? If we can't understand God, how are we to understand salvation? We all presume to understand God when He says Do not commit murder, but then you claim we can't understand God when He commands us to kill our dissenting brother. Why should it be anything different then just what He says? Why is "Do Not Commit Murder" applicable to all of God's children, but "Kill Your Dissenting Brother" only applicable to the children of Israel? God has made it easy to understand, we just don't want to accept what we must do, do we? The tragedy is that if Rolff is right and we really can't understand God, then how are we to share our faith? kamschoolgrad |
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8 | Murder vs Killing | Ex 20:1 | skccab | 212010 | ||
Dear Kamschoolgrad, You've got it pretty right on. I, too, have many disconcerting questions about things that we are supposed to do (or not do) but for one reason or another we don't or cannot. These, I just have to put down to Deut. 29:29 and figure we'll get the answers we need soon enough. Doesn't that sound like a horrible cop-out? But after much prayer and advice-seeking from pastors and rabbis that's the best I can do. And the best I can say is - observe to do what God commands in His glorious Torah to the best of your ability (and of what the law of your land allows you to observe and do) - and that is ALL that you can do with a good conscience. And, remember, that thru Messiah's finished work on the cross, we are not BOUND to or UNDER the curse of not observing all the Law, but we are FREE to receive the blessings of observing the commands of the Lord. Hallelujah!! Praise God for His Mercies endure forever. Amen? Amen!!! Sorry I couldn't be of MORE help. Cheri |
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