Laws of the Israelites

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psimmond
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Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by psimmond » Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:07 pm

Homer wrote: 2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB)

16. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

2 Peter 1:20-21 (NASB)

20. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21. for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.


The above scriptures clearly inform us of God's involvement in the writing of the scriptures. Admittedly they say nothing of the possibility of minor errors such as are seen in some instances. However, who can believe (except a skeptic) that there are errors of any significance given God's involvement?
Regarding the first passage, I don't see people questioning whether or not all scripture is inspired. The questions are about what the word "inspired" entails and whether or not it precludes errors.

Regarding the second, it is obviously speaking about true prophesy (as opposed to false prophesy), but I've never heard anyone say that all scripture is prophesy. In this context (2 Peter 1:20-21), Peter is saying that the prophesies of old (regarding the messiah) were confirmed to them (v19). I agree with Peter that those prophesies were fully confirmed to the disciples at this point in history.

Finally, you say there may be errors but you state your view that God would ensure no significant errors in the text. How do you know? And what qualifies as "significant"? We are right back to percentages!
Let me boldly state the obvious. If you are not sure whether you heard directly from God, you didn’t.
~Garry Friesen

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Paidion
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Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by Paidion » Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:24 pm

Homer wrote:The above scriptures clearly inform us of God's involvement in the writing of the scriptures...who can believe (except a skeptic) that there are errors of any significance given God's involvement?
Well, if God was involved, then He contradicted Himself. For supposedly He inspired Moses to write:

And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. (Deut 28:63 ESV)

So according to the word that Moses puts in the mouth of Yawheh, He not only ruins and destroys, but He takes delight in doing so.
But Ezekiel paints a different picture:
...As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?

So, according to Ezekiel God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. So which is it? Does He enjoy killing wicked, or does He take no pleasure in their death. It cannot be both. Yet, you think God was involved in both Moses' and Ezekiel's writings. There are more instances in which OT writers depict God in opposite ways.
Having said that I think it is an enormous mistake to believe the Old Testament paints a false picture of the character of God. I see no reason, reading Jesus' words or those of the Apostles, to think the God of the Old Testament is any different than the God pictured in the new.
The way He is pictured in the OT is sometimes VERY different to the way Jesus portrayed Him as being KIND to both ungrateful people and evil people. Jesus and the apostles quoted Moses and the prophets frequently. But have you noticed they NEVER quoted the parts which depicted God as a killer of people or ordering genocide.
And I do not know of any case where Jesus or the Apostles regarded the Old Testament as having pictured God falsely.
Do you know of any case in which they pictured Him as killing people or ordering genocide? What they believed is conspicuous by the absence of such references. Some in this forum have accused me of thinking that I trust in my emotions rather than in "God's word." But the apostle Paul also questions the position that none are to question "God's word."

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor 2: 15,16)

Here Paul quotes Isaiah 40:13. Like you, Isaiah asks, "Who dares challenge what God has said in the OT?" Paul answers in effect, "We who have the mind of Christ, that's who. For the spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one."
Paidion

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dizerner

Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by dizerner » Fri Apr 24, 2015 2:31 pm

I think your logic is really bad. This verse from Ezekiel where it says:

I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live

This is obviously God's will pre-judgement not post-judgement. Notice this verse is all one thought and is BEFORE the wicked has made his choice not after. The wicked at the point in time of this verse still has a chance to turn.

Do you really think God meant in Deuteronomy that God would delight to unconditionally bring ruin on his people? No, he would say the same thing, I have no pleasure in destroying you until you're past the point of no return. And this is the way God's judgments always work, just as he testifies of Wisdom crying out in Proverbs:

23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;
25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:
26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me


You really have to erase a good deal of Holy Scripture to get rid of God's judgments that would offend our sensitive emotions. We should pray for a deeper understanding of evil and a deeper fear of God.

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psimmond
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Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by psimmond » Fri Apr 24, 2015 6:13 pm

dizerner, should it not offend our "sensitive emotions" when we read that God delights in the destruction of men, women, children, and even babies?

I know there are Calvinists who would say things like, "Those babies were rotten to the core and were enemies of God," but do you really believe this? And even if you believe that the babies were born guilty of sins (which I don't), do you really think it delighted God to see them run through with swords? This is Yahweh we are talking about, not Baal.
Let me boldly state the obvious. If you are not sure whether you heard directly from God, you didn’t.
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Paidion
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Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by Paidion » Fri Apr 24, 2015 9:05 pm

Dizerner, you wrote:Do you really think God meant in Deuteronomy that God would delight to unconditionally bring ruin on his people? No, he would say the same thing, I have no pleasure in destroying you until you're past the point of no return.
Where do you get this "point of no return." If such a point exists, wouldn't you expect to find it in the teachings of Christ and His apostles? But nowhere is it found.

Would you be willing to wipe out a people if you thought God told you to do so? Would you be willing to bash babies' heads against a rock, if you thought God told you to do so. Well, quite a few people did think God told them to carry out such violence. That's why the Anabaptists in the middle ages were put to death by being burned at stake or drowned. Their killers thought they were obeying God in doing so. And why not? It was easy for them to show that God did such things—according to SOME of the stories in the OT. Others deny that God does such things. Some of the faithful prophets questioned the whole idea of God's supposed violence. The real God is LOVE as John affirms in I John. And Jesus, who was the exact imprint of God's essence, taught His disciples NOT to resist evil people—quite the opposite of what Moses instructed the Israelites to do, supposedly at the command of God.

Those who have the mind of Christ would never wreak violence on anyone. And where do they get the mind of Christ? By reading His instruction in living in such passages as Matthew 5, 6, and 7. You would never acquire that mind by reading Moses, or even David who went along with violence is some of the Psalms. Instead of expressing love for his enemies, he said in one psalm, "I hate them with a complete hatred!"
Paidion

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steve7150
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Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by steve7150 » Sat Apr 25, 2015 7:45 am

But have you noticed they NEVER quoted the parts which depicted God as a killer of people or ordering genocide.










Paidion,
What about Jesus referencing the flood "as it was in the days of Noah they shall be eating and drinking but then destruction rained down on them" , who caused the destruction? Was it God or just bad weather?
Also Jesus referenced Sodom and Gemorrah and their destruction. Isn't Jesus validating that God caused destruction. Isn't God killing people in these examples?

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psimmond
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Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by psimmond » Sat Apr 25, 2015 8:38 am

steve7150,
Those are good points. I need to think more about this because when God uses a natural disaster it seems different to me, but maybe it isn't. It seems like God can and does judge people for their actions and these judgments aren't all withheld until the day of judgment.

My biggest issue is not "Did God cause fire to rain down on the people of Sodom?" but "Did God command humans to do things that he also told humans not to do because they were sinful?" In other words, when it comes to morality are God's laws for us inconsistent and flexible?
Let me boldly state the obvious. If you are not sure whether you heard directly from God, you didn’t.
~Garry Friesen

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Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by jriccitelli » Sat Apr 25, 2015 10:25 am

dizerner, should it not offend our "sensitive emotions" when we read that God delights in the destruction of men, women, children, and even babies? (Psimmond, Apr 24)
I did not read that Diz meant it like that that, I read his post and the text from Proverbs explaining that God told them to repent and they did not, therefore the judgment stands. i hope your not suggesting that Gods commands, if broken or disobeyed, are inconsequential. Or, what God said would happen, never ever actually comes to pass (because God is too loving to bring it to pass). In theory this makes God the false Prophet, and or at least a prophet of whom we will never ever know was true, because we want to interpret Gods Love to mean God will postpone and extend all final Judgment beyond the point of ever coming true.

So, rather than believing God is capable of relating words to thinking adults, we instead believe a lie that 'the disobedient and unrepentant are eternally children in their ability to think, and who will need ages upon ages to finally mature enough' to simply believe God meant what HE said, in His Word. The idea that the future holds untold millions of opportunity’s to repent is a repackaged lie. God Himself instituted the death penalty, it is called death.

In the same way that I have no 'pleasure' in spanking my own children, I must follow through with my warning to them for their disobedience. Because it is a fact that they will soon be adults, they will have to make up their own mind, and they will be be responsible for their own decisions. God knows what He created, and He is fully aware of what we can understand and that we should be capable of understanding His Word. God’s word says we ‘should’ understand, but that we refused to understand. To infer that post-judgment God 'delights' in the destruction of the rebellious is to add unto Gods words. God simply said He will destroy, and that we will die.
Second, to stone a prophet, you have to prove that his prophesy was false. How could their contemporaries do this? (Psimmond Apr 21)
You can go to almost any church in America today and hear people say "God is telling me..., Yesterday, God told me..., I'm waiting on the Lord, and when he tells me..." (Psimmond Apr 21)
Just wanting to answer this, since I am sickened at the modern view of modern prophets and apostles in the church. First, I think we misunderstand if we think the only prophecies made by biblical Prophets were the ones we have written down, when actually it seems the Prophets had 'already' established themselves with Prophetic statements that came true 'in their own contemporary time' and thus established their ability to reveal the oracles of God. Secondly, because of a shallow concept of prophecy modern persons often glibly use the phrase God told me or spoke to me, and then in some cases assume some prophetic gift if they mutter this statement enough. But assuming our conversations with God are giving us an authoritative word, office, title or justifying us as having some further divine communication, that involves others, would be stepping into the oath a biblical Prophet had to accept, that of death for giving a false prophecy.
Last edited by jriccitelli on Sat Apr 25, 2015 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

dizerner

Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by dizerner » Sat Apr 25, 2015 11:19 am

psimmond wrote:dizerner, should it not offend our "sensitive emotions" when we read that God delights in the destruction of men, women, children, and even babies?

I know there are Calvinists who would say things like, "Those babies were rotten to the core and were enemies of God," but do you really believe this? And even if you believe that the babies were born guilty of sins (which I don't), do you really think it delighted God to see them run through with swords? This is Yahweh we are talking about, not Baal.
I realize this is a serious and difficult question, that can even cause people to lose their faith. But I believe God delighting in the instance of his curses towards Israel was a euphemism for the intensity of his hatred towards sin, not that God actually wants people to sin so he can hurt them. So I'm sensitive to the issue of casting an aspersion on God's goodness or God's morality, and I do reject Calvinism and divine determinism because I don't think Scriptures teach that.

However, and this is an important point, many things about Scripture and many things about this physical life offend me greatly already, even if God never commanded people to be put to death. And another important point is the state of the afterlife and what God says about it, that its importance is far more than this mere "vapor" of a life as the Bible calls it. I have endless things I want to be offended at God for, or could be offended at him for.

So I take very seriously putting God's authority, power and holiness above anything my emotions feel or want to dictate to me. Does that mean logically I'm making God evil in character? It's an unsolvable paradox for me in many ways but I'm completed 100% committed to putting God over all no matter what, and I do think we need grace to get to that level—"though he slay me, yet will I trust him," and "should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?"

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Paidion
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Re: Laws of the Israelites

Post by Paidion » Sat Apr 25, 2015 3:19 pm

Steve 7150 wrote:Paidion,
What about Jesus referencing the flood "as it was in the days of Noah they shall be eating and drinking but then destruction rained down on them" , who caused the destruction? Was it God or just bad weather?
Also Jesus referenced Sodom and Gemorrah and their destruction. Isn't Jesus validating that God caused destruction. Isn't God killing people in these examples?
Whatever we may think about it, it is still the case that even in these examples, Jesus didn't say that God did it, even though the OT clearly says that He did.
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

Avatar shows me at 75 years old. I am now 83.

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