The bible doesn't contradict itself.
1 you don't understand
2. God has not revealed to you yet what is being said
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The bible doesn't contradict itself.
1 you don't understand
2. God has not revealed to you yet what is being said
There is no contradiction and I never claimed there was. There are exceptions to many of the restrictions on behavior. Here are just two that have been mentioned before:
We are not to kill people. However, the Bible commanded capital punishment for murderers, allows for acts of self defense and doesn't condemn soldiers who go to war.
The Jews were not to work on the Sabbath. Yet Jesus said it was OK to do good work on the Sabbath.
In general, we are to tell the truth. But there are instances where deceit is justifiable. See posts 26 and 34.
If you can tell me where I am wrong in post 34, I'd like to hear your opinion.
Well, I tell you what if Jesus tells you can tell a lie. Then feel free
If not, if you tell a white lie, ask Jesus for forgiveness he died for your sins
You know it doesn't work that way. As Christians we are to educate ourselves on what is a sin and what is not. This means hard work within the pages of the Bible. We are not going to hear a voice from heaven. Like I said before, many behaviors are not black and white, and lying is just one of them.
I gather you are not interested in addressing the passages I talked about in my post #34.
Well maybe but if you are Catholic, it is number 8.
1: “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have any strange gods before Me.”
This commandment forbids idolatry, the worship of false gods and goddesses, and it excludes polytheism, the belief in many gods, insisting instead on monotheism, the belief in one God. This commandment forbids making golden calves, building temples to Isis, and worshipping statues of Caesar, for example.
2: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
The faithful are required to honor the name of God. It makes sense that if you’re to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, then you’re naturally to respect the name of God with equal passion and vigor.
3: “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.”
The Jewish celebration of Sabbath (Shabbat) begins at sundown on Friday evening and lasts until sundown on Saturday. Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians go to church on Sunday, treating it as the Lord’s Day instead of Saturday to honor the day Christ rose from the dead.
4: “Honor thy father and mother.”
This commandment obliges the faithful to show respect for their parents — as children and adults. Children must obey their parents, and adults must respect and see to the care of their parents, when they become old and infirm.
5: “Thou shalt not kill.”
The better translation from the Hebrew would be “Thou shalt not murder” — a subtle distinction but an important one to the Church. Killing an innocent person is considered murder. Killing an unjust aggressor to preserve your own life is still killing, but it isn’t considered murder or immoral.
6: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
The sixth and ninth commandments honor human sexuality. This commandment forbids the actual, physical act of having immoral sexual activity, specifically adultery, which is sex with someone else’s spouse or a spouse cheating on their partner. This commandment also includes fornication, which is sex between unmarried people, prostitution, pornography, homosexual activity, masturbation, group sex, rape, incest, pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia.
7: “Thou shalt not steal.”
The seventh and tenth commandments focus on respecting and honoring the possessions of others. This commandment forbids the act of taking someone else’s property. The Catholic Church believes that this commandment also denounces cheating people of their money or property, depriving workers of their just wage, or not giving employers a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. Embezzlement, fraud, tax evasion, and vandalism are all considered extensions of violations of the Seventh Commandment.
8: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
The Eighth Commandment condemns lying. Because God is regarded as the author of all truth, the Church believes that humans are obligated to honor the truth. The most obvious way to fulfill this commandment is not to lie — intentionally deceive another by speaking a falsehood. So a good Catholic is who you want to buy a used car from.
9: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”
The Ninth Commandment forbids the intentional desire and longing for immoral sexuality. To sin in the heart, Jesus says, is to lust after a woman or a man in your heart with the desire and will to have immoral sex with them. Just as human life is a gift from God and needs to be respected, defended, and protected, so, too, is human sexuality. Catholicism regards human sexuality as a divine gift, so it’s considered sacred in the proper context — marriage.
10: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”
The Tenth Commandment forbids the wanting to or taking someone else’s property. Along with the Seventh Commandment, this commandment condemns theft and the feelings of envy, greed, and jealousy in reaction to what other people have.
Tim
If you tell a lie that hurts no one and regret needing to lie to spare someone from evil you have already met the necessary criteria for forgiveness. You need to regret the sin, strive to avoid the occasion of such sin and do your best to correct any damage done by your sin. White lies are sins that are automatically forgiven.
The penance for white lies is always trivial.
Tim
I have found it is frustrating at times to have much of a discussion with either a rabid Christian or atheist. But the Christians are just a bit worse because they easily dismiss logic, and fall back on faith or their understanding of scripture.
Having been an atheist, I believe many who profess not to believe in God, are not 100% certain He does not exist. That sliver of doubt allows them to listen a little bit more.
Many Christians do not realize how screwed up they are. This thread demonstrates that. And history proves it. Hundreds of Bible translations, and 1200 denominations is the US alone. New Christians have such a tough go of it...picking and choosing which denomination interprets the Bible as they want it to be. Most Christians raised in a certain denomination suffer from "group think" or go with the flow and never ask the hard questions. BTW, it is not the atheists who needed those 1200 denominations, but Christians who wanted to change the "rules".
One reason that various English translations have been generated is that our language changes over time. For example, no one speaks in 1611 English (KJV). Translators may also try to develop a product for specific audiences (i.e., keeping the translation at a certain reading level, for children or for scholars). There are then the differences in agreement on how certain passages should be translated that sometimes generate another English translation. The bottom line is that there are very few doctrines that hinge on one word or even one sentence in the Bible. Therefore the English reader should pick a respected modern translation that they can easily read and understand. Someone looking for nuances that might be found in the original languages are better off reading a scholarly commentary versus thumbing through various translation (not many people know this!).
Christian denominations have not come about only because they wish to "change the rules." Sometimes an issue rears it's ugly head and it's best if a group make a split for the good of everyone involved*. At times the issue is so serious that a split is necessary to preserve the truth of the Gospel (e.g., Protestant Reformation). Some denominations are formed because a group does not want to be governed by a larger organization. There are many choices for someone looking for church, and that is good. The problem comes when a Christian blindly follows their church's teaching without doing their own research or thinking.
* It looks like the United Methodist Church may split over the issue of gay marriage and gay clergy. Apparently they have come to a point where each group wants their way. It is best for them to split instead of continuing on in strife and being of little value to their communities.
Two things we all need to be aware of:
1. "Denominations" - About that "1,200", I doubt that number, at least not in the USA. Some college "researchers" have posed such large numbers in order to make their findings more sensational. To do that many have assigned "denomination" to every non-denominational/independent congregation; that's foolish.
2. Bible translations and versions - it's usually the KJV ONLY folk who make an issue of that but they are wrong to do so. First, the 1611 KJV team did little translation as we would expect it to be, they had none of the oldest (Greek/Aramaic/Hebrew) texts to work with. They used the Latin text (Jerome's work for the Roman Catholic Church) because that was all they had.
* Fact, all "translations" of anything are "versions"
> There are many words in different languages that simply have no direct equivilants in other languages so each translation team has to chose what seems best to them and each team can honestly disagree with other teams.
> Words in ancient languages changed meanings over time, thus the translators have to guess what each word meant at the time it was written. And our English words drift in meaning over time as well. I remember when "gay" meant "happy"; just keeping up with current English word meanings can be a full time job.
> Grammar is not the same between languages. We literally could not grasp much of the Bible if we had a literal translation in our hands. Translators not only have to find the right words to print they have to figure out what the often convoluted grammer meant and then put the original thoughts on paper in English; that can be quite difficult to do.
I highly admire those who make a serious effort in translations and I also love those who struggle to provide paraphrases that are more readable and, therefore, more understandable. I do love my old KJV, it's what I grew up with and still study from but I also know it's the least "accurate" of the various orthodox Bibles we have.
NOTE: All of that meandering is for orthodox Christian Bibles. I do NOT respect the diabolical and deliberately distorted writings of Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Univeralists, Christian Scientists, et al, and suggest that everyone avoid them.
I understand that the church has and will continue to fragment over a variety of issues. It makes sense in order to keep peace.
WRT to the situation in the United Methodist Church, it is a sad. My best friend is UM and he is very troubled by it. The gay issue is strongly argued by both sides. My understanding is the OT declares it a sin, but then we have the concept that God loves us all and that we should also love everyone. Likely a gross simplification...correct me if I am wrong. In this case, the Bible is used to argue and justify both sides.
I do not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and this case is one reason. This should not be a gray area, yet it is. Either the Bible is contradictory at times, or it is 100% correct and the inspired word of God. We either do not understand it, or do not wish to understand it if it does not fit our desired narrative. Thus the "need" for hundreds of denominations. Men have corrupted churches in the past and will continue to do so. I fear man has corrupted the Bible as well, either by omission of certain books, through translation, or by modification.
It is sad.
Homosexual behavior was a stoning offense under the Law. We know the Law doesn't apply to Christians, but this moral issue gives us an idea of what God does not want us to do.
Paul in the New Testament lumps the sin of homosexual behavior in with lists of other sins which cannot be practiced by individuals expecting to inherit eternal life. It's significant that fornication is included in Paul's listed sins. Traditionally, churches have been more tolerant of fornicators than homosexuals. This was not so with Paul.
With the recent acceptance of homosexuals by society, some churches have felt the need to change as well. This is good when it involves welcoming people into the congregation. But when a church claims homosexual behavior is OK with God, performs marriage ceremonies and ordains practicing homosexual clergy, it is ignoring the Bible's warnings. This, of course, is taking Paul's (the Bible) word on the matter as eternally valid.
There are some Christians who see the Bible differently. They see the Bible's prohibitions on homosexual behavior as a product of the original audience's time (e.g., see Paul's comments about long hair on a man). Since we are in another time, maybe the prohibitions don't apply to us. Who is correct?
God's guidance is given to man because he loves us and wants us to avoid as much pain as possible. So one question we could ask is, "Does homosexuality harm its practitioners today?" If a behavior is harmful to the one who does it or other people, it is a sin--plain and simple.
God loves all the people he created. He welcomes them into his family. However, because of his love he cannot allow them to live a life mastered by sin. This is the old "Love the sinner, hate the sin" idea. Churches are supposed to behave in the same way. Paul chewed out the Corinthians for not confronting and dealing with sin openly engaged in by its members. In my judgement churches that condone homosexual behavior are not doing their job.
Homosexuality is condemned in both the OT and NT. In fact, it's decried more in the NT than the OT so that argument falls flat.
Congregations deciding sin is not sin for a "newer, more cosmopolitian group like itself" is nothing new, it's been going on since soon after the Flood. There's no rational reason to think any man or group of men has yet been given the right to declare any point of sin in the Bible no longer valid. (see I Cor 5)
ALL scripture is inspired by God and delivered to men by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, there should be no higher value automatically given to the red letter parts than what Paul/Mark/Peter/John, etc., say.
The Bible, in its original form, did not contradict itself. But man's comprehension and application of some parts of it often does. If something appears contradictory then the reader simply isn't paying attention to the whole of scripture; keep reading, studying and praying about it until it's clear.
Not every untruth is a lie. Like other sins, lying is a matter of the speaker's heart, or motivation, and God measures the heart.
Lies are known untruths told to cause harm to others, like our dominant Democrat "news" people constantly speaking lies about the President and conservatives. Therefore Christians may safely tell the Gestapo we don't know where Anne Frank lives and tell a homely fat lady she looks nice today even tho neither is true because no harm is done. An untruth done that way, means the Franks could live and the fat lady will be uplifted, not cruelly beaten down by some false understanding of a semi-rigid truth. Therefore, even though both stories are untrue, they're told to do good, not evil. They are nowhere close to being a mean, slanderous "false witness against a neighbor" ... and unkind harm IS exactly what God hates!
All you bacon eaters are going to hell.
Tim
Ickisrulz and 1hole, thank you for your posts. Clarity helps.
This is derailing Tim's thread so I will start another.
Sorry Tim...my bad.