Results 241 - 260 of 701
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Author: Sir Pent Ordered by Verse |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
241 | what covenant did God make? | Gen 17:7 | Sir Pent | 112991 | ||
My answer........................................ Hello Kareem2812, God made a covenant with Abraham that God would give the land of Israel to his descendants, and would bless them. In return, Abraham and his descendants were supposed to be comitted to God and set apart to follow God's plan. This was to be symbolized by the act of circumcision. |
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242 | What did they do? | Exodus | Sir Pent | 18600 | ||
Further Support .................................. Dear Prayon, I agree with Nolan and Steve. There are times when we suffer hardships in life that are not a direct result of any particular bad decisions we make or sins that we commit. An excellent Bible passage that deals with this is John 9:1-3. Sometimes God allows times of suffering in our lives, because they can bring about His ultimate purposes. As Christians, we can be confident that this ultimate plan is also in our own best interest (Rom 8:28), even if it doesn't appear like it in the short term. P.S. Welcome back Nolan. I missed you while you were on "forum vacation". |
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243 | God refers to himself as "The great I Am | Ex 3:14 | Sir Pent | 114708 | ||
Identification of cults............................................. Hello Aniset, I understand that if you are a Jehovah's Witness that you probably feel that Kalos and possibly others on this forum are attacking your beliefs. Please do not take this personally. This forum is designed to be a Christian perspective on Biblical truth. And historically, the vast majority of the Christian church has considered the Jehovah's Witness religion to be a cult. Therefore, it is entirely understandable that Kalos would post information that would point out why the doctrines that are taught by that group are contrary to orthodox interpretation of scripture. |
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244 | Where are muslims in the Bible? | Ex 20:3 | Sir Pent | 21133 | ||
Contrary View ................................. Dear Searcher Steve, I appreciate your answer of mincc's question. I agree with everyone else that Islam is not specifically in the Bible, but it was good of you to point out the indirect connections that exist. I would like to disagree with one statement that you made. You said, "the view of God was changed slightly to be Allah." I would say that the word SLIGHTLY is a large understatement. The Muslim idea of Allah is very different from the Christian idea of God. Christians believe God is in 3 persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Muslims believe Allah is only 1 person (denying the deity of Jesus, and existance of the Holy Spirit). Also, Christians believe that God is loving and desires a relationship with human beings. Muslims believe that Allah desires merely to be submitted to. They believe Allah is very impersonal. In my opinion, these are major differences. In fact, they are so important, that I believe that Allah cannot be considered compatible with the true God at all. To imply that these discrepancies are SLIGHT can be dangerous. That belief is what has misled many into believing that Muslims will also be saved, due to their worshipping the same god, by a different name. |
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245 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16146 | ||
It seems that most of my distinguished forum colleagues are in support of the death penalty. Let me begin by saying that I respect your opinions, and believe that it is possible for Christians to be on both sides of this issue. That being said, I will attempt to give a reasonable explanation why my interpretation of scripture leads me to believe that the death penalty is wrong in today's world. Before, I do that, I will try to respond to several of the posts that have already been shared. Charis, you mentioned that it is inconsistent to support killing a murderer when they have a gun in their hand, and then oppose killing them after they have been caught and disarmed. I completely agree with you. I consider it wrong to kill that person in both cases. Tim Moran, you mentioned that if the death penalty is going to be used, that it should be applied fairly across racial and economic groups. I would like to say that I completely agree with that. You also shared a very logical rationale of the death penalty. (1. it was not morally wrong in the OT, 2. it was not forbidden in the NT, 3. it not morally wrong or forbidden today). I agree that it was not morally wrong in the OT. However, although it is not expressly forbidden in the NT (in which case, this would not be an issue for Christians today), I believe that through several passages, it can be seen that it is no longer appropriate for believers to commit. CDBJ, I found your comment sarcastic, but it did bring up an important verse about a person who "lives by the sword will die by the sword". The problem with using this verse to support capital punishment, is that it seems to me that Jesus was telling his disciples to NOT USE THEIR SWORDS. Retxar, you brought up a very good passage (Romans 13) where it talks about God using authorities to punish wrongdoing with the sword. I agree with RElderCascade that an important distinction is that the sword is given to the authority not to the believer. Another point is that throughout scripture God often uses people who do not have a good relationship with him to accomplish things by using means that He would not approve of believers using. For instance, He used nations like Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Egypt in the Old Testament as part of His plan at different times. However, I think that we would all agree that some of their actions (while tools of God) would be completely wrong for Christians to do today. Also in the New Testament, the God ordained authorities crucified Christ. Yet we would definately not want Christians today to do such a thing if given the opportunity. Brian G, I was encouraged when reading your post that I am not alone in opposing the death penalty. I completely agree with you that when we kill another person we are cutting short their time to repent and come to relationship with God. I must also disagree with Charis response that "Our system of justice provides a convicted murderer with plenty of time (too much) to repent of their sin before God." It seems to be incredibly arrogant for us as humans to decide how much time a person should be allowed to ask forgiveness. What would you have done if you were with Joshua preparing to cross the Jordan River into the promised land, and the front of your lines (the priests) are already in the river (their feet were wet), and nothing was happening? Do you decide that you had given God plenty of time, and start building boats? My point is that God's time is not our time, and because we cannot know it, it is wrong to decide that a person?s time is up. Steve Butler, I agree with you that God commanded wars and executions in the Old Testament. I was a bit confused by your second statement. Are you trying to say that all people who oppose war and execution do so out of fear instead of conviction? Kalos, I am saddened by your inflamatory post. It is not helpful to the discussion, nor accurate that all the Christians, who believe that capital punishment is wrong, are completely disregarding (ripping out the pages) the Old Testament passages on the subject. |
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246 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16178 | ||
The terrorists who attacked two days ago were indeed extremely arrogant to believe that they had the right to end all of those lives. I completely agree with you that what they did was wrong, sinful, and will (barring true repentance) result in them spending eternity in hell. However, my point is that just because they sinned does not give us, as Christians, license to go against the will of God. I believe the death penalty to be wrong, and two wrongs don't make a right. You also point out that the freedoms which I enjoy today were bought by the deaths of the people who have in the past tried to take it away. On the one hand, I have a great appreciation for their sacrifice. On the other hand, I feel that the cost was greater than the reward. I realise that by not defending my freedom (to the point of killing), I could end up losing it. However, I can't justify ending another person's life (and chance for redemption), just so that I can have the freedoms in this life that I so enjoy. Finally, I'd like to respond to is your point that we don't live in Utopia, and therefore my ideas just won't work. You imply that I am irrationally idealistic and optimistic, and you would not at all be the first or the last person to see me that way:) However, I believe that just becuase the world is not perfect, does not mean that we shouldn't do our part to live that way (as much as possible). I also believe that our actions should be based on what is right, not what is effective. We should not refuse to kill our enemies because we believe that they will stop on their own, or because we know that God will stop them for us (although this might happen). Instead we should refuse to kill our enemies because it is right, and be willing to live with the consequences. Once again, I would like to say that I understand that this is an issue which Christians can be and are on both sides of. I hope that through this thread people from both perspectives will be able to see each others interpretation of scripture which leads to their conclusions. P.S. Charis, you consistently share excellent posts with this forum. Therefore, I was dissapointed at your last statement, characterizing the belief of "free will" as putting salvation in the hand of humans own "whim and fancy". This is not at all a fair or accurate portrayal of the beliefs of a very large number of committed Christians. |
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247 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16191 | ||
My belief IS based on the Bible, Kalos, I understand that you think it is "absurd" to believe "that capital punishment is not the will of God". I also understand that you have a biblical basis for that belief (almost exclusively from the Old Testament). What I hope that you can begin to understand is that I too have a biblical basis (incorporating the Old and New Testaments) for my belief. The death penalty is not wrong because Sir Pent says it is. It is wrong because the Bible in it's entirety says that it is. I will attempt to (using many biblical passages) explain to you my reasoning for this belief. Let me begin by agreeing with you that in ancient Israel, it was right to kill people for certain reasons. For instance God specifically commanded stoning to death for certain sins (1 Samuel 15), and specifically commanded killing certain kings and enemy nations (Exodus 19:10-13). However, I the Bible also documents a fundamental change that occurred, which causes killing for any reason to no longer be an appropriate action. This fundamental change happended between Christ's death and resurrection. During that time, Jesus preached to all the people who had died before that time (1 Peter 3:19). Therefore, it seems that although the people in the OT were killed in the body, they still had a chance to later hear Christ's message to them. However, from that time on, people have had the opportunity to hear the message of salvation during this lifetime, so that when they die, their eternity is set (Hebrews 9:27). This is why I think that killing people now is so terrible. It not only kills their body, but also takes away any chance that they would later come to know Christ and be saved. I think that it is interesting and somewhat supportive that never in the NT is it presented as good for a human to kill someone. In fact the only times when death is seen as a good thing, it is done by God Himself or His angels. Some instances are Annanias and his wife Saphira (Acts 5:1-10), King Herrod (Acts 12:21-23). I want to close by just restating that the point I am making is that the system changed, not that God changed. (James 1:17) I think that the sacrificial system of the Old Testament is a good parallel. In the Old Testament it was not morally wrong to kill a sheep for the reason of cleansing of sin. However, there was a fundamental change in the system (Christ death once for all), which makes it now morally wrong for a Christian to go around killing sheep to cleanse themselves from sin. Of course, the change with regards to sacrifices is much more obvious in the Bible, and that's why we don't have modern Christians discussing it on internet forums. I believe it is because the change with regards to killing people is less obvious that there is such confusion today. |
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248 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16212 | ||
Tim, While I, too, can respect your belief, I would have to disagree with your interpretation of the passage in 1 Peter, chapter 3. Verse 19 does not say Christ "preached to the righteous spirits", it just says He "preached to the spirits". That seems to be pretty all inclusive. Also if you look at the context of the next verse, it even seems to imply that Jesus specifically preached to the unrighteous, or those who were disobedient towards God. I would be surprised if most Christians would believe in the limited interpretation that you propose. It does not seem to match up at all with what the biblical context clearly seems to indicate. 1 Peter 3 18: For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; 19: in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20: who formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. |
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249 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16213 | ||
I appreciate your courage in being willing to state your belief although we are in the minority. However, I think that the "risk of being flamed" is minimal. If you look through this thread, I think you will find that both sides have conducted themselves with great self-control and patience. With the possible exception of only one person, the posts have stayed focused on the issue instead of personally attacking any individuals. In fact, I would like to compliment all forum members for how well this very difficult, and potentially divisive subject, has been handled | ||||||
250 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16347 | ||
Tim, After looking up "dogmatic" in the dictionary I found that it meant "dictorial". After looking up "dictorial" in the dictionary, I found that it meant a "total or absolute ruler". At that point I decided for sure that I did not find you last point to be dogmatic at all :) As for your comments on the passage in 1 Peter, I think that it's really not that complicated. I think that if a person just reads the verses below, it God?s message would be pretty obvious. However, I will try to respond to your points. You mentioned that there are three different views of these verses. 1. Christ went up or down. (I say it doesn't matter what direction He went) 2. Christ preached to Old Testament people. (I say that is correct) 3. Christ preached through Noah. (I say this goes against the passage clearly saying that Christ preached Himself, and if through anybody, it would be the Holy Spirit). You also mentioned that there are four different questions on these verses. 1. When did Christ go, before or after resurrection? (I say it doesn't matter, the point remains that he preached to the people who had died in the past) 2. Where did Christ go? (I say it doesn't matter, the point remains that he preached to the people who had died in the past) 3. Did Christ preach to people who died in the past or to demons? (I say that it is obvious in the passage that He preached to humans) 4. What message did Christ preach? (Although it is not difinatively stated, I think it is obvious from the context of verse 18 that this passage is talking about salvation, and would therefore have to assume that it is most likely that salvation was Christ's message) My overall point is that these "views" and "questions" are actually not a big deal at all. Let's just look at what the verses say, and add as little of our own interpretation as possible. I am not saying that you are doing that, just that the commentators that you quoted seem to be doing that. 1 Peter chapter 3 (I used NRSV last time, so this time I?ll quote NIV) 18. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19. through whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison 20. who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, |
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251 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16353 | ||
Dear EdB, I would like to take this opportunity to agree with almost your entire last post. You said that God established life and death. I say that I totally agree. You said that God said not to murder, but supported (in the OT) execution sometimes. I say that I totally agree (with parenthesis added). You said that Jesus died to cleanse us of the eternal consequences of sin. I say that I totally agree. You said that Jesus forgiveness does not cancel out earthly consequences of sin. I say that I totally agree. You said that the Matthew 26:52 (below) is only saying that if you kill you will be killed, not that it is wrong. I say that on this one point I would have to disagree with you. If we look at the context of the verses around it, Jesus does say that if the disciple lives by the sword he will die by the sword. However, He also says to put the sword away, and that using the sword indicates a lack of faith in God the Father's ability to protect. Also if you read the parallel passage in Luke (also below), Jesus tells the disciples to not use their swords anymore, and heals the damage done by the first strike. This also indicates that He did not approve of that action. Matthew chapter 26 51: And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. 52: Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. 53: Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? Luke chapter 22 49: And when those who were about him saw what would follow, they said, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" 50: And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. 51: But Jesus said, "No more of this!" And he touched his ear and healed him. |
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252 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16612 | ||
Dear RElderCascade, In your post you admit that you do not think war is good. In fact you go further by saying it is evil, when you say, "It (war) is the lesser of two evils." If you truly believe what you say, then why would you ever choose to support something that you knew was evil? As believers, if we are presented with a choice, and we believe all options are evil, then I would say that we should refuse all given options and seek out an alternative until we can find the choice that God would want us to make. God doesn't give us more than we can handle (1 Cor 10:13), and He doesn't want us doing evil things. You also asked a valid question, "What does the Bible say?" I came across this passage in my own Bible reading just over a week ago. "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds." (2 Cor 10:3-4) The last point that you made that I would like to respond to was that those of us who are contientous objectors should "stop saying that we should be also". I hope that you are not referring to me, but just in case, I would like to just quote the very first statement that I made in my very first posting in this thread. "It seems that most of my distinguished forum colleagues are in support of the death penalty. Let me begin by saying that I respect your opinions, and believe that it is possible for Christians to be on both sides of this issue." |
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253 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16613 | ||
Dear EdB, You said at the end of your post that you were sure that I would find it absurd to tear out the Old Testament and just put criminals on "time out" for a while. You are completely correct, I do think that's absurd. You also referred to the ineptness of our justice system, as compared to ones in other countries. I would have to completely agree with you again. I do not think that our justice system is as good as it could be. I also think that there should be tougher punishments for crimes. Although specifics would have to be worked out, I think that having criminals work to repay for damages or theft, could be a great idea. In fact, although it seems barbaric, I also see some logic behind other countries laws requiring castration for sex offenders. That would be both a deterrant to first crimes as well as making repeat offenses impossible. Going into more detail as to how the justice system should punish specific crimes should probably be a seperate thread. But I just wanted to let you know that just because I am against killing fellow human beings, doesn't mean that I am against there being serious consequences of crime. |
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254 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16620 | ||
Dear EdB, You bring up several really good points. For instance, why did the disciples have swords to begin with? Oddly enough, it is because Jesus told them to bring them. (Luke 22:36). The obvious question is why would Jesus tell them to bring swords, and then when they were actually in the garden, tell them not to use them. I do not think that Jesus wanted them to be able to defend Him. Jesus said that 2 swords was enough, (Luke 22:38) although that would obviously NOT BE ENOUGH to stop an entire company of soldiers. It seems that instead Jesus just wanted to make it obvious that He was choosing to allow Himself to be arrested. The fact that they had at least a couple of swords, but still didn't use them showed that Jesus was not taken against His will, but within it. This made His sacrifice for us and our sins even greater. You also made a couple points about humanists, and imply that possibly I am one. The first was that "humanists believe they are god". That is probably true of extreme humanists, but it is definately not true of me (I do not consider myself a humanist at all). Your also said that "to a humanist life is far more important than salvation". This is also completely not true according to my beliefs. In fact, I think this thread would greatly go against that thought. My basis for being against killing humans is that it removes the chance for them to come to salvation in the future. In fact, in the case of me allowing a criminal to kill me or my family instead of me killing them shows that I value their chance for salvation more than my own life or even my family's life. In fact, it is the position of my opponents who say that the lives of people on this earth are more important that the eternal life and salvation of the criminal. You make one more good point that I would like to comment on. You said that I seem to be limiting God by arguing that we as humans can take away a person's chance for redemption. This issue really just comes back to the question of "free will" versus "predestination" that comes up so often on this forum. If you believe in predestination, then my entire argument is useless. If God already has decided who goes to Heaven and Hell before they are born, then it doesn't really matter what we do to a person in this life. This life is so short in comparison to eternity, that it is almost completely insignificant, and so who cares if we kill someone 40 years before they would naturally die. Conceeding this point, I would have to say that on the other hand, if a person believes in "free will", then they believe that God has limited His own abilities enough to give people a choice. God could have created people so that they would have to follow Him and love Him or so that they would have to not do those things. However, if they didn't have a choice then it would have been empty and meaningless. But this has been thoroughly covered in other threads. I would suggest that instead of rehashing all that, we just focus on whether the death penalty is appropriate from a "free will" perspective. |
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255 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16633 | ||
Dear Charis, There were a few comments from your post, which I would like to respond to. The first was that "unilateral disarmament will not bring the world about". My question is how do we know? It's never been tried. On the other hand unilateral armament has been tried throughout history, and all the wars that have resulted definately have not brought the world about. Another comment was that criminals take away the chance of their victims to come to a relationship with God later in life, so why should we give the criminal that chance. Quite simply because we are Christians. As followers of Christ we are called to not only give mercy to those who deserve it (even the non-Christians do that), but also to those who do not deserve it. If we remove the criminal's chance for salvation then we are lowering ourselves to the level of the criminal. Another comment was that "Free Will negates the sovereignity of God." Simply put, that satement is not true. This is extensively dealt with in other threads. I'd prefer to limit that dicussion to the threads dedicated to it. A final comment was that "we have a responsibility to protect ourselves and others from anti-social behavior." If a person looked at the life of Jesus would they see someone who was willing to kill people in order to "protect Himself"? Is the definition of the "others" that we have a responsibility to protect limited to not include sinners who we kill? Does this "protection" require killing people, or is it conceivable that there could be other ways? |
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256 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16645 | ||
Dear Tim, You have some good points, and I agree that it is theoretically possible to interpret the passage in 1 Peter 3:18-20 differently than I suggest. However, I still think that the most common interpretation is also by far the most logical. Your questions 1 and 2 indicate that Jesus could have gone to a different prison than the one that the dead from the past were in. Once again, just looking at the verses, it says Jesus preached to "the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago ... while the ark was being built". I think it's safe to say that all the people who were alive when the ark was being built were dead. Your question 3 indicates that the "spirits" might not be human. I think there is a vast amount of Biblical support that angels and demons are not put into any kind of prison until the end of time. There are also numerous passages which refer to Hades/Sheol, and the people that have died inhabiting them while waiting for the judgement. It definately seems to be most logical that the "spirits" were the people who had died during Old Testament times. Your question 4 indicates that the message Christ preached is not clearly indicated. However verse 18 starts with "For Christ died for sins once for all", and verse 20 talks about the salvation of Noah and his family on the ark. "In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water." Based on the context that verse 19 is both preceeded and followed by verses about salvation, I would find it to be quite a stretch to assume Jesus message was about anything else. I guess to sum up, I agree that there could be other ways to look at this, but they just don't make much sense. I also want to say that I understand where you are coming from. If you don't find this passage to be convincing that Christ gave a second chance to the people who died before He came to die for our sins, then you would not see the change that I see between the Old and New Testaments. I also understand that you do not see any New Testament passage which specifically condemns the death penalty. Let me just share one more passage of scripture, 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 talks about how we should no longer fight wars like the rest of the world, yet in the Old Testament there are many times when God commands the Israelites to fight wars. I think this is another good example of a place that indicates that something big has changed. "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds." (2 Cor 10:3-4) |
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257 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16653 | ||
Dear Tim, Thanks for pointing out those refs about angels in prison. I would have to agree with you that I suppose there are some there. Overall, it looks like we'll just have to agree to disagree on the subject of the war and the death penalty. It's too bad though, because if one doesn't see that things have changed from the Old to New Testament in that area, then one has to come up with another explanation for why a loving and just God would command his people to go kill entire cities (including women and children). I of course have heard many explanations for this, and there's probably another thread on that already. But they all seem either arbitrary (which of course, God is entitled to be if He wants to) or Machievellian (sp?) in that "the ends justified the means" (preserving the purity of Israel justified the extermination of the contaminants in the land). However, that's a little outside the scope of this thread. When it all comes down to it, we do agree that we need more peace in the world, and the Jesus is the only way to get there completely. Live long and prosper :) |
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258 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16767 | ||
Dear EdB, I'm glad you don't think I'm a humanist, nor do I think that you are. I also agree with you that God works in mysterious ways to bring people to Himself. Those are powerful stories that you mentioned about people understanding a salvation prayer in a language that they don't know. I would disagree with you that we cannot do "anything to mess any of these incidents up". For instance, that woman could have decided to not go to church that night. If she had not been open to God's leading, then she would have missed out on the gift that He wanted her to have. I agree with you that God calls us first, and with so many other things that you have said in this thread. I just come to some different conclusions, and I appreciate that we can disagree in love. |
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259 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16769 | ||
Dear RElderCascade, I have just a couple of comments. The first is in regards to your usage of the word "evil". I will grant you that you probably did not intend to use that word to mean what the dictionary says it means "morally reprehensible". However, I think that it could be considered a "Freudian slip". Imagine a Christian who had to pull the switch to electrocute someone, pull the trigger to shoot a person in war, or stab a person who breaks into their house to harm their family. I am fairly confident that in all of these instances, that Christian would have a first reaction that it was "evil" and "the wrong thing to do." Only after that, would the person rationalize why "in this case" killing a person was "the right thing to do." My second comment is on the verses in 2 Corinthians that you commented on. I had just come across those in my personal devotions, and had not thoroughly researched the passage. Therefore, I had only read it in the NIV, where it seems to apply more to literal war. However, upon further reflection and after reading comments on this forum such as yours, I believe that I was wrong. I apologize for my mistake. The passage does seem to be talking about warfare in a spiritual sense as opposed to a literal one. |
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260 | 'Conscientious Objection' Biblical? | Ex 20:13 | Sir Pent | 16777 | ||
Dear Charis, You said "unilateral disarmament has been tried historically numerous times", however, it has never been accomplished on a global sense. On a smaller scale, Ghandi was able to use passive resistance very effectively to defend freedoms in both South Africa and India. As for whether this is even possible to accomplish on a worldwide scale, you and EdB both bring up an important point. The Bible says that there will be wars all the way to the end of time. Therefore, we know that worldwide peace will not come unitl Jesus comes back. I completely agree with that. However, the Bible also says that the way to destruction is wide, that there will always be a remnant (implying small minority) of true believers, and that the way to salvation is narrow. This seems to clearly say that there will also never be a worldwide conversion to Christianity. But just because we know that we WILL NOT be completely successful at worldwide fulfillment of the "great commission" does not mean that we shouldn't at least attempt to accomplish it in our own lives. You also said that there was a difference between choosing "to submit to earthly authority for the sake of the name of Jesus, but quite another to submit to the whims of an immoral society". I would agree with the statement, but I don't think I agree with the intent. In my perspective, when I allow a criminal (or enemy in war) to kill me instead of me killing them, I am doing it for the sake of Jesus. I am laying down my life so that they may live longer and have a chance to repent and develop a relationship with God. Of course you said that for me to think that this decision on my part or any decision on their part cannot affect their salvation in any way. If you (and many other forum members) are correct, that nothing we do has any affect on our own or anyone else's salvation, then sure kill the people. But at the same time that would mean that there are only selfish reasons to send missionaries anywhere, or to strive for holiness in our own lives. Finally, you also mentioned that this thread "lapses into tedium". Unfortunately, I would have to agree with you. I think that I have shared all the ideas that I have, and almost everyone else is on the other side of the issue or staying silent. Therefore, perhaps it is time for there to be a wrap-up post to summarize a consensus of what has been discussed. Since you started this thread, I would nominate you for the honor. P.S. That was a nice touch quoting the verse which my user ID is related to. How can I argue with that :) |
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