However, I deem it inconsiderate of you to classify my refusal to answer your question about why I would waste my time with the Greek text of Paul's letters, when I already know more than he did about Jesus, God, and the Scriptures— with my failure to answer your other questions as soon as you'd like. I must admit I didn't believe this question to be ingenuous. How did you expect me to answer? Maybe this answer would satisfy you: “I don't have much to do since my retirement, so I thought I might as well find out what Paul actually said and meant, although I know he's wrong.” No, that can't be it, since I was intensely interested in Greek ever since I took my first class in it in a Bible school which I attended for a year when I was 21. I wanted to know what the New Testament writers actually said, rather than be content with what people thought they said. I realized that translations of words and phrases from the NT were often coloured by the translators' presumptions. I don't think this was deliberate in most cases. Generally these translators did their best with the manuscripts available to them, and the knowledge of Greek which they possessed. But they couldn't help bringing their already-formed theological presuppositions into their translations. I don't blame them for this. I just wanted to know what the NT writers actually said and meant.
I don't think I indicated at any time that I “don't trust what Paul wrote” or that I “already know intuitively more than Paul did about Jesus, God, and the scriptures.” However, I do not think Paul was infallible, even though his letters have now been included in “the canon of Scripture”. I think your assessment of my mindset is grossly exaggerated, to say the least.
Yes, I intend to answer your questions, but I think the burden of proof is on you to show that God kills people in a more convincing manner other than just “The Bible tells me so.” You need to show first that at least some of the deaths of individuals and disaster to cities or other people groups are God's doing, and secondly that these deaths serve to bring about an important, beneficial, and desirable outcome.
You stated that you would not deny my assertion that all of God's judgments are remedial. Yet you affirm that God kills people in judgment. How can the death of a person be a remedy? Or the death of a whole city or people group? One might claim that such death would be a deterrent to others, and therefore a remedy for the society in which the person lives or the city was located. But how could that be? If there is no consistency... if God's “direct judgment” is “so unusual” as you wrote to Jepne, why would these rare instances deter anyone? Also in order that such judgment be a deterrent in a society, the society would have to recognize these deaths as resulting from God's judgment. But who does? In our day, many of the TV and radio evangelists and Bible teachers declared that the destruction of the towers in NY was God's judgment on the U.S.A. If it had been God's judgment, it doesn't seem to have done any good. There was no nation-wide repentance resulting from 911. There was no noticeable turning to God.
You have inferred that because I don't believe God kills people, that I therefore believe that He is Mr. Nice Guy (my term)—that He never brings pain or discomfort on anyone. I have never made such a claim. For many years, I have believed that God brings discomfort both in this life, and in the after-life in order to bring people to repentance and into fellowship with Himself.
Every Tsunami, flood, earthquake or other “natural” disaster are importunately touted by religious extremists in the media as “God's judgment”. None of this preaching leads to repentance. Instead, people who believe these extremists tend to driven farther away from God than ever. Their thinking is, “If God does those things to people, I want nothing to do with Him.”
Six times in the NT it is affirmed that God shows no partiality (Acts 10:34, Rom 2:11, Gal 2:6, Eph 6:9, and Col 3:25.)
Yet, you indicate by your belief that He does show partiality among people while they are alive in this world. You say that God kills/killed people as a judgment for their sin or wickedness, but only rarely. Isn't it partiality to punish a select few for their sin by death while allowing the vast majority of sinners to live out their lives until they die from natural causes?
Jesus brought up Pilate's killing some Galileans and mingling the Galileans' blood with their sacrifices, and also an unexpected disaster, the tower in Siloam falling and killing 18 people from Jerusalem. Jesus asks whether the people who died were worse sinners than anyone else from their area. Then He says, “No, I tell you [they were not worse sinners]".
So if these deaths were a judgment from God, it was not a judgment on sin. (Luke 13:1-5)
However, Jesus also said, “... but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish [or be destroyed].”
What did Jesus mean by those words? Much seems to rest on the meaning of the word translated as “likewise”. At least one lexicon gives “in the same way”. But that can't be it. In that case, Jesus would be saying that those who didn't repent would be killed by Pilate or by having a tower fall on them. The “likewise” must mean that unless you repent, you will also perish. For they perished. Surely He didn't simply mean that they would die a physical death as the Galileans and the 18 did. For everyone eventually dies a physical death whether they repent or not. It would seem that He meant that they would die in a different sense if they didn't repent. Was He saying that they would be annihilated? That seems consistent with Jesus' words. Or was He saying that they would die a “spiritual” death, in being separated from God in the afterlife for a period of correction? That, too, seems consistent with Jesus' words.
I don't believe as you do, that all human death is somehow caused by God—that He takes them, that the moment of their death has been fixed, or as you put it, “God determines the day of my death.” I regard this as pure speculation. The causes of peoples' deaths are disease, automobiles or other machines, stumbling and falling off a cliff, bullet wounds, attacks from animals, poison, decapitation, hanging, deprivation of the essentials of life such as air, food, or water, etc. etc. God has nothing to do with it. Man dies either from “natural processes”, from attacks by people or animals, or from “accidents.”
I wrote:How do you explain (according to the OT) that God supposedly punished minor offences, even with death, while seemingly doing nothing about major atrocities which some people wreaked upon others? And this continues to be the case right to the present day.
Then you wrote:First, you are determining, without warrant, that the offenses which God punishes are "minor." I have read my Bible, too, and I would not be prepared to say that any willful disobedience against God is minor.
Perhaps not. So what about stumbling or non-intentional disobedience? Or even ignorance? Would that be “minor”? It seems that Uzzah was killed for steadying the ark of the covenant when the oxen stumbled. Was Uzzah at all aware that Yahweh was opposed to this action or that He would get angry? I looked up every reference to “ark” and found no prohibition of such an act. The passage reads as if God had killed him out of anger for steadying the ark. Do you have any idea why God would get so angry about that? One would think it would be a deed to be applauded. Was Uzzah even aware that there was anything about his act which would displease God?
When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of god and took hold of it (“steadied it” [Septuagint]), for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there because he put forth his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God. (2 Sam 6:6,7)
I wrote:to physically injure or kill someone does not describe a loving action.
“A loving action”is an action which helps or benefits its recipient.Then you wrote:Your definition of "a loving action" is....what?
Physically injuring or killing someone is not a benefit but an injury, in the case of killing, a permanent injury (until the resurrection).
So you are saying that if God acts “to eliminate corrupting elements” (I presume you mean people) that threaten His own people, it may be a loving action. In other words, it is loving to kill some people in order to protect others from threats. Isn't that exactly what the the burning or drowning of “heretics” were supposed to accomplish? Were they “loving actions” because they protected the Catholics and Protestants from the “heretics” (corrupting elements) which might result in deceived Catholics and Protestants going to hell forever, a fate much worse than mere physical death? And the Crusades. Were they “loving actions” because they protected the Catholics against “corrupting elements” (the Muslims, pagans, heretics, and excommunicated Catholics)? Whether some of these measures were to protect from heretics or people threatening war or death, the people were still perceived to need protecting.You wrote:If God only acts in love (which I believe to be the case) and yet finds it necessary to eliminate corrupting elements that threaten His people, then I am forced to conclude that such actions, on God's part, must fall within the realm of possible loving actions. On what authority do you exclude them?
No, by asserting that "God is fair to everyone," I do not mean that assertion “is supposed to reflect some reality about His distribution of earthly lots to individuals.” Rather I mean that God shows no partiality, which as I have mentioned above,is asserted 6 times in the New Testament. However if He kills some people here on earth, but leaves alive others who are just as wicked, that definitely shows partiality.You wrote:Also, if your affirmation that "God is fair to everyone," is supposed to reflect some reality about His distribution of earthly lots to individuals, I think Job and David, Joseph and Jesus, and many others would have to disagree with you. They were not treated fairly at all. If "fairness" means that He gives people in this present life only what is deserved, then Job's comforters were right, and Job was wrong. I agree that God is fair, but I believe that He is not limited to the present life to settle all scores and balance all the books.