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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | I just started reading the Bible and.... | OT general | petedavis6263 | 211304 | ||
Dear Keliv, I never got to respond to your post yesterday so I’ll do it now. Thank you for all the kind words you have given. I will try to give my concerns as politely as I can. Forgive me if I seem redundant and careless. I mean no disrespect. You Said: ““…a selection of passages that seem to be contradictory on the surface, but when lining them up with the whole of Scripture, God's wonderful plan becomes abundantly clear. Scripture will always prove Scripture. It is against God's nature for there to be a single contradiction. When there appears to be anything amiss, it is always us who possess the faulty wisdom and not God.”” I agree with you that it is not God's nature for there to be a single contradiction. He is all powerful, all knowing, ever present and the creator of all. He does not have faulty wisdom. Regarding your statement that it is always us who possess the faulty wisdom and not God, let me ask this, how then are we to know at what precise time our faulty wisdom is not faulty. Is our wisdom faulty only when there seems to be a contradiction? If there is a possibility that our wisdom is flawed then how can we be certain when it is not? My questions began as I was reading through the book of Deuteronomy. In chapter 10, God gives us the commandment thou shall not kill, a moral law applicable to all. He promises many blessings (Deut 11), if we earnestly obey His commandments, judgments and statutes. God warns us (Deut 12:32), "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it." He commands us to kill our brother or any other family member if they try to entice us away from Him (Deut 13:10). Baffling to say the least however, using your rationale, it is my faulty wisdom that is flawed and that is why I can’t understand how this is not confusing and blatantly wrong. You say that God’s wonderful plan of salvation becomes abundantly clear when we line those troubled verses up with the whole of scripture. Keliv, help me here please, how does killing your brother line up with the opportunity of salvation for all? Shouldn't your brother be given a chance to repent? Even if he doesn't repent, is killing him the correct message to send to other non-believers? If killing him is the right thing to do then why didn't God kill Lucifer way back in time before all of this mess began? How does it line up with the message of love, mercy and grace? How does it become abundantly clear that my wisdom is flawed about this passage? In a recent post, Tim Moran said it best, the moral aspects of the law never change. It is always wrong for everyone to lie, steal, kill or worship other gods. Exactly! This is what I feel deep in my heart, it is always wrong for everyone to kill. How then can it be explained that God commanded the killing of a family member? The Mosaic law of not killing applies to everyone, so to use the argument that we are no longer under the law is baffling. If we are still under the moral law of God, thou shall not kill, why shouln't we still be under God's moral law to kill our brother who tries to turn us away from God? Why is it okay to go against God claiming that this law was only for the Jews? Why then is it not morally wrong for the Jews to kill their brothers, but morally wrong for us? If we admit to our wisdom being faulty, we then concede that every bit of our mortal wisdom is suspect. Going forward to the New Testament you use your sometimes faulty wisdom to tell yourself and others that Jesus is the Son of God by which all of humanity can have eternal life. All we need to do is accept him. But then when the Son of God he tells you in Mark 10:21, sell all that you have, give to the poor, follow him and then you will have your treasure in heaven, you reject him. Your sometimes faulty wisdom prevents you from doing exactly as Jesus says. You use that wisdom to convince yourself that Jesus is only speaking to the Jews. Confusing to say the least. He died for all of humanity but only the Jews need to sell everything they own, give to the poor and then become his disciple in order to make it to heaven. Are you absolutely sure your faulty human wisdom is accurate? Tough questions I know, but they fiercely jump out at me. I want to know why. Thank you for all your help. God Bless, Pete |
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2 | I just started reading the Bible and.... | OT general | keliy | 211316 | ||
Hi Pete, thanks for responding, I have no problem with your timing, it is a non-issue with me, and it is always good to hear from you. Your questions are quite challenging, and thought provoking and that is why I come to this forum when I can. You asked: how then are we to know at what precise time our faulty wisdom is not faulty. That is an excellent question. But, if we could answer that, our wisdom would not be faulty, now would it? (o; What I said was, 'When there appears to be anything amiss, it is always us who possess the faulty wisdom and not God." -The key here, is "appears" and it suggests an impression that could be an erroneous one. (I think, therefore I err) In response to your next question, on Deut 13:10, you wrote, "He commands us to kill our brother or any other family member if they try to entice us away from Him" I would bring up certain rules of hermeneutics here relating to cultural context but time and space being limited, I will give you the short answer and if you still are at a loss, I would appreciate another reply. What the author is trying to get across here, concerns the dangers of idolatry. In the prior chapter (12:30,31) he had warned following in ways of the Canaanites. In this chapter he is warning against the rise of idolatry from among themselves. Satan often uses people that are closest to us as tools to draw us away from God. A stranger would be far less likely to have an effect, satan well knows. When the seducer does appear, as a brother, child, parent, or whatever, he must not only be strongly resisted, but also punished by the law of the land. In that culture, I believe it was getting stoned to death. This was to be done not hastily, or privately, but after proper trial and conviction; and you, as informer, would be given the duty to cast the first stone. So Pete, when you do have a question like this, it is good to go back into the time and culture of the original author and the original language to translate for yourself, -after praying for understanding, and God will be faithful to help your understanding become more complete. We are actually commanded to do this, in 2Tim 2:15: Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. (NASB) Is rendered in the (KJV) as, Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Notice, for example, where the NASB writes "accurately handling", is in the Greek, "orthotomeo" Let us get an answer from: A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, by Arndt and Gingrich (p. 584), The Greek word orthotomeo is found once only in the New Testament, hardly enough to dogmatically state it means "dissect," and the authoritative source—A Greek-English Lexicon—says perhaps it means "guide the word of truth along a straight path." This is ample proof that to translate orthotomeo as "dissecting" is STRICTLY AN INTERPRETATION. Furthermore, the Septuagint shows the King James Version translators correctly rendered it "divide." I need to split this into two parts for sending, -More to follow (o: keliy |
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3 | I just started reading the Bible and.... | OT general | keliy | 211317 | ||
Pete, Sorry for the interruption, I exceeded the maximum characters. Here is the rest of my letter: You also asked, "why didn't God kill Lucifer way back in time before all of this mess began?" This goes back to the beginning of God's plan, and why did God, who knows the end from the beginning, ever create Lucifer in the first place? (?!) A parallel question would be, Why did God even put that tree in the midst of the garden if Adam and Eve were not to eat of it? Again, God knew beforehand exactly what would happen. These questions lead up to this: "Why did God even give us the Freedom of Choice? Without the alternatives I just mentioned, would there be a Choice? Could we possibly choose not to sin if sin did not exist, and therefore there was no temptation? Could we ever make a valid decision for ourselves? The answer is quite simple to understand, If there was no choice, there would be no true Love. We would be as robots. God could have made us into holograms that walk around saying, "I love You" all day long, (but I think you get my point.) You also stated, "The Mosaic law of not killing applies to everyone, so to use the argument that we are no longer under the law is baffling." Yes, baffling is a good word here. But Sometimes the laws are broken for the greater good, such as putting a murderer to death. I always try to remember that God is sovereign, He created life, and it is up to Him to decide if a certain life should continue or not. What we look at as a horrible tragedy might be a good thing in the big picture of God bringing His will to us. This is hard, I know, but His ways are higher than our ways. (Isa 55:9) On the other hand, being no longer under the law, I was referring to Jesus' 2 greatest commands. As Jesus said, If ye love me, keep my commandments. (John 14:15) There is no way we can keep the commands of Jesus and break one of the ten commandments at the same time. You mentioned your quote about Mark 10:21, "sell all that you have, give to the poor, follow him" and then you comment, "He died for all of humanity but only the Jews need to sell everything they own" This, again, needs to be looked at in context, what is God's purpose for that line being in the Bible. If we each interpret this passage on our own, well then we end up with as many interpretations as we have readers. God's Word is much more truthful than that. The context of this verse is a person coming to Jesus with a question: And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? (Luke 18:18) Jesus responded as He did, because the man was asking what he could DO to inherit eternal life. Do you get this? There is nothing that we can DO to inherit eternal life, so Jesus gave this ruler something to do that Jesus knew was beyond his capabilities. That salvation by works is something that is beyond human capabilities is the message that Jesus is teaching to us all in these words. And also, any time we take Jesus words at face value, we are likely to interpret Him falsely, this is intentional, our Lord explains in Matt 13:15: For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.' I hope that many of your questions are sufficiently addressed, the ones that are not, are solved by using many of the same principles. Notice how I keep referring back to the Gospel of Matthew? May God continue to Bless you in your studies, keliy I have written this letter longer than I should, because I didn’t have the time to make it shorter. -Pascal |
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4 | I just started reading the Bible and.... | OT general | petedavis6263 | 211328 | ||
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5 | I just started reading the Bible and.... | OT general | skccab | 211335 | ||
Pete, May I interject here? I think I may see part of the problem. You've just finished in the last day or two reading Matthew, you're finishing up with Luke and expect to be through John by morning? That's like eating a New York cream cheese cake in one sitting (my all-time favorite food). I'm gonna be a mighty sick puppy and then be all hungry again. You're reading far too fast. Slow down. Let your spirit digest what you're taking in. Go back to Matthew, read a few chapters, and find a few on-line commentaries and read those and then let your mind and spirit mull all that over before continuing with a few more chapters the next day. Follow the references that your bible affords you, those take you to other places in the bible that covers the same idea, or where words are used in like manner. If you slow down, you may find it's much easier to understand. Seriously, give Matthew about a week's worth of attention before moving on. Give it a try and see if that doesn't help? Shalom :o) Cheri |
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6 | I just started reading the Bible and.... | OT general | stjohn | 211336 | ||
Good post sister Cheri! By the way, it's so nice to see you are up and posting at the forum. :-) God bless John |
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7 | I just started reading the Bible and.... | OT general | skccab | 211338 | ||
Thank you, John, for the encouragement. :o) |
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8 | I just started reading the Bible and.... | OT general | stjohn | 211340 | ||
:-) |
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