aul was directed by Christ to go and teach. If we are to believe Christ is god, we must accept that as not being a mistaken directive, or we find god flawed and not god at all. You'd have to be more specific if you want to talk about the contradictions you've found. We could discuss them if you'd like, or we can just accept that I accept the teachings of paul. Smarter people than us have exhausted these topics. In the case of my beliefs, homosexuality Is immoral.
Of course they can. This is why verse 11 says, "And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." People are saved from their sins, whether it is drunkenness, idolatry, slander, thievery or homosexuality, or whatever else. But, it doesn't mean to continue in this sin. It means to be saved from that sin. This is why it is necessary to repent and turn away from sin. Sinless perfection is not achievable in this life, but one should live in a lifestyle of repentance, turning from sin and surrendering to God. Homosexuals can be saved, but not by willfully continuing in homosexuality just as any sinner can be saved but not by willfully continuing in any particular sin. Again, a lifestyle of turning from sin is necessary. While not being perfect in this life, if we do sin while attempting to live a life of obeying God's commands, it is necessary to repent. This is a continuous lifelong process. As Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, we are able to live in practical righteousness. This is not self-righteousness. It is imputed righteousness and it is important to live that out in obedience. Experience the effects of that position every single day of your life. This is what Paul’s talking about in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3. Your old self is dead so walk in this reality. Jesus died for you so that He might live in you. This is more than Jesus simply being your Savior. As awesome as that is Jesus is your life. Authentic spiritual transformation happening from the inside out. Jesus does not desire to improve you. Jesus desires to transform you. And Christianity is nothing less than the outliving of the indwelling Christ. Christ is being formed in you.
Its not humorous because it has a foundation of either ignorance or false premise. Humorous things have an element of truth---and your post lacks that. It's like.... bullying just for the sake of fun. It might be self-gratifying but it isn't humorous. Anything God directs and deems righteous is righteous. Reading the Old Testament helps you know God and the world we live in. It can be enlightening to understanding the world today. A person who reads it as written---whether written as history, as a poem and songs such as the book of Psalms or as prophecy as much of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekial---will understand it. Those who cherry pick for agenda are clueless. God was literally speaking to the Hebrews and the first five chapters are literally about the Hebrew covenant with God and God's plan to build and strengthen His relationship with the Hebrew people. To assume that I must follow those laws is to NOT take those books literally. In the Old Testament it literally tells us that a new Covenant will come in the future. Jesus made the 10 commandments a part of his covenant with us and added an 11th...love one another, as Jesus loves us, also love one another. I dunno....I'm sure there are a couple on this board. All I'm saying....is that those things would be a more valid question to people of Jewish faith.
But civilisations which predate the Old covenant also recognised homosexuality, though mostly done in private.
Unfortunately not. The world in which the Tanakh was written was completely different to todays world. Only when you understand the culture and background in which it was written can you really understand it. The 10 commandments were nothing new in the 'supposed' time of the 'supposed' Moses. Virtually everything mentioned was in operation in the world around. Even circumcision was nothing new. Some at birth, some at pubescence. If you know the history then you will see the errors in the TANAKH and equally in the New Testament. The Tanakh was written by the Jews, for the Jews, about the Jews around the 7th century BCE. Jesus the Rabbi spoke to the Jews, used the Jewish Scriptures which Jew would know. Some of his parables were based on the Tanakh writings. The Shepherd, the vineyard and others. Jesus never preached to the Gentiles and specifically only dealt with them when they came to him. The woman at the well? He was doing what a Jew would do. Waiting for someone to offer him a drink. It happened to be a Samaritan, which is not surprising as he was passing through Samaria. Technically Jesus was not a Rabbi, but teacher. 'Rabbi' came in late
Maybe not... He broke the laws of the Levites in various stories.. Working on the Sabbath, refusing to stone Mary Magdalene and so forth.
Or did he? This is a complicated discussion. 1. The commandment says not to work on the Sabbat. But the Levi's are commanded to do their duties in the Temple. This is their work, and it's on the Sabbat. This however could be considered a spiritual duty. 2. Jesus considered himself to be following in the steps of Moses etc. His position in preaching and teaching was the equal, spiritually, of those duties performed by the Levitical priests 3. David sinned by taking the shewbread meant only for the priests. But there is no indication that the Jews ever condemned David for that. He was a hero to them. Jesus brought the subject of David up to get a reaction. Could the Jews condemn David and compromise themselves in front of the people. They couldn't. 4. Jesus quoted Hosea 'I require mercy, not sacrifice'. 5. Note that God told them to work on the 7th Day at Jericho. Marching round for 6 days and on the 7th take the city. This included the Sabbat. Oh dear, no day of rest. Actually, what is Sabbat work? The Torah doesn't actually tell us. Most of what we have is in the Oral Torah, there's no specifics in the 10 commandments. Is it the daily labour of our working life. Does it exclude 'work' in the sense of what we do to rest and relax. Gardening, hobbies etc? The oral Torah and the rulers later added their own ideas. The reason for not stoning Mary? The Jews were perhaps testing Jesus. They could not stone Mary, neither could Jesus. If either had they would have brought down the wrath of the Romans upon them. Jesus turned the tables on the Pharisees.
This isn't simply a question of who said what first. This is trying to see what in the Bible is applied to whom. Time frame of what God said is very important. - - - Updated - - - Luckily, this isn't a matter of determining what He likely taught. We have it very well recorded.
Why? The scribes of the Hebrews wrote the Tanakh in the middle of the 1st century BCE. Around 700 years after the 'supposed' events took place. That's why there are many errors in the Tanakh. And in the New Testament as well.
Which errors? Hasn't this been debated, again, by much smarter minds than ours? Either God is infallible, and commissioned a group of people to teach us, and we can accept that teaching, or God is not infallible, and therefore there is no God, at least, not the God of the Bible.
This guy, Paul, that wrote the Corinthians thing. What gave him the authority? He was just another writer, no? Never even met your Jesus character, I understand. But, back on the sin thing. Your guy, Paul, just said you wouldn't inherit the kingdom of God. I don't see where he used the word "sin". Isn't the sin thing going back to Leviticus, which I thought no longer applied? The other part you didn't answer. Not that you have to anyway. So what if they can't inherit the kingdom of God? How does that justify denying them privileges when on this side of the divide?
Why should anyone do that when the Bible says to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die? Ecclesiastes 8:15 (NKJV) = "So I commended enjoyment, because a man has nothing better under the sun than to eat, drink, and be merry; for this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his life which God gives him under the sun."
Paul saw Christ on the road to Damascus, and was directed to the Saints. Barabbas was largely responsible for Paul being accepted, but Paul was accepted nonetheless, and worked with the apostles, who despite a few disagreements, accepted him. The apostles with directly commissioned to teach, by Christ, in Jeruselum, in Acts 2. Read Acts. As far as the difference between "inheriting the kingdom of life" and "not sinning", I'm not sure I follow, nor that there is a Biblical basis for such. Those that live in sin don't inherit the kingdom of life. Wages of sin are death. That said, I don't know that any of this matters in context to your issue. Your question seems to be about justification for how Christians treat homosexuals, and what in the Bible authorizes this treatment. I think it's important to make the distinction between actions of organized religion and what the Bible directs. In the past, organized religion under its differing leaders has burned people at the stake, blown them up, raped them, all sorts of nasty business. Trying to draw determinations about what the text says by the actions of its adherents is actually pretty impossible, which means that trying to change adherents actions by explaining what the text says is futile. All of that to explain that there is direction in the Bible that says homosexuality today is wrong, which doesn't matter to pro-homosexual Christians, and there isn't justification to hate them, which doesn't matter to the anti-homosexual Christians. They're both unBiblical hypocrites. Pro-homosexual non-Christians have no reason to be required to Christian ideals to stay out of sin, since Christianity is required to be forgiven for sin anyway. Anti-homosexual non-Christians don't seem to have much rational for being anti-homosexual other than "they just don't like it", and there is nothing worse than an irrational opinion.
Yes, it has but in recent decades we are finding out things they didn't know. Have you looked at archaeology, history of the ancient world and its cultures. There's zero evivdence for the Exodus from Egypt. Even many Jews accept that. There's little evidence for a forced entry into the 'Promised land', and what there is can be put down mainly to other events. Cities conquered by Joshua were already in ruins, and had been for centuries. Cities mentioned in the Exodus story didn't exist at that time. The history of David and Solomon is highly exagerrated. They may have ruled a tribal area but never the vast kingdom ascribed to them. Marks timetable for the crucifixion events is impossibly tight, until you realise there were 2 holy days (Sabbats) in that week before Passover. But he, nor the others mention that. Neither do they take into account time to make a watertight case (under Roman law) against Jesus, time to fix an appointment with Pilate, the 'trial' with Herod, the 'trial' with Pilate. Poor old Luke makes several errors both in his nativity narration and his history of Pauls schedule.
Lol, should have checked my spelling. - - - Updated - - - No more so than than any other group used in humour, I'm sorry you lost your sense of humour.
so if it is a false premise you can show me that none of the things in the OP are actually in the bible .. please do so. Still does not answer the question asked, which was "If it is relevant then so are the questions to Christians, are the things listed righteous?" So they are not relevant to Christians then? Really, then please do quote chapter and verse where Jesus did this. Is Christianity a off shoot of Judaism, if so then the OT is as much part of the Christian religion as it is Judaism, maybe not such an important part but still relevant. If it is not then why are you so intent on defending a book that doesn't really mean that much.
Based on a biased translation, the actual translation of the word you use for homosexual means 'effeminate' and not homosexual, the word is malakoi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malakia ), and it literally means "soft". So Paul is saying soft people will not inherit the kingdom of God, nothing to do with homosexuality.
Rather than print out all my notes I'll give you Wiki's version. Despite the Bible's internal dating of the Exodus to the 2nd millennium BCE, details point to a 1st millennium date for the composition of the Book of Exodus: Ezion-Geber, (one of the Stations of the Exodus), for example, dates to a period between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE with possible further occupation into the 4th century BCE,[27] and those place-names on the Exodus route which have been identified – Goshen, Pithom, Succoth, Ramesses and Kadesh Barnea – point to the geography of the 1st millennium rather than the 2nd.[28] Similarly, Pharaoh's fear that the Israelites might ally themselves with foreign invaders seems unlikely in the context of the late 2nd millennium, when Canaan was part of an Egyptian empire and Egypt faced no enemies in that direction, but does make sense in a 1st millennium context, when Egypt was considerably weaker and faced invasion first from the Persians and later from Seleucid Syria.[29] The mention of the dromedary in Exodus 9:3 also suggests a later date of composition – the widespread domestication of the camel as a herd animal did not take place before the late 2nd millennium, after the Israelites had already emerged in Canaan,[30] and they did not become widespread in Egypt until c.200–100 BCE.[31] Any help. The Bible cannot be taken literally, nor is it's chronology correct unless studied carefully. The book of Kings is full of Kings dying and yet a couple of chapters seemingly coming alive again. The simple answer is that it tries to run the kings of Israel in tandem with the kings of Judah. It cannot be done because of the different length of lives of the kings. Cross referencing is confusing with hard work. Chronology in the Bible is impossible. We have 2 books following each other - Genesis and Exodus yet over 400 years has passed between the 2. This happens time and again in the Bible. Acts is another example. We have random events with no time indicated between. Paul comes on the scene, and disappears for 14 years. In those 14 years before he appears again we know little of early church events. The Gospels. We have nothing about most of Jesus life. Just a few events in the 3 year ministry. Probably around 3 months worth in his whole life. The Bible on tells us of events relevant to itself, and not necessarily what is going on in that world which affects it indirectly. We need background knowledge to put things into place, and most Christians rely just on the Bible.
Well, the king's lifetime discrepancy I've heard before, and actually spent a significant amount of time looking into a few years ago. When compared side by side, one counts the reign of a king starting when he received his coronation, and the other when he became "high king", which were two different offices, and other similar discrepancies between both. Another similar discrepancy is the number of people listed between two books being different, one nearly double, but then you look closer and see one isn't counting women. Edit: There was one number which seemed directly contradictory I couldn't explain, but I don't have it on the top of my head. It was something like "7" in one book and "17" in another. Concerning Pharaoh's fear, I don't even see a need to argue this, as the fear needn't be rational, therefore how can it be factually checked? Let's focus more on the cities. Ezion-Geiber, let's use that one. What source are you using for your information there? I'd like to read it and do some more homework on this later. Would you mind a delay in getting back to you?
I don't know where you live or were raised and educated. I live, was raised and educated in the U.S. I am taken back to what I was taught about American History. And led to believe by influences outside of the classroom. I was taught about George Washington and the Cherry Tree Episode. It never happened, but the lesson was a valid one. I was taught that we fought a civil war to free the slaves. Not so, not entirely anyway. I was led to believe that the Old West teamed with gunfighters that wore two pearl handled six-shooters and dueled with other gunfighters at high noon almost every day. That Indians were all nasty savages. That black slaves loved pickin' cotton and ate watermelon and hummed spirituals all day long as they gleefully toiled on their 'Massa's Plantation'. We were all taught many, many errors. Many of us continue to believe what we were taught. Many more know better. Today's textbooks are somewhat more accurate than our were. But they still contain errors. Both liberal and conservative 'truths' are injected into the texts. The Bible and most other forms of 'historical' texts are inaccurate. They include biases and embellishments and omissions and fabrications. There are usually some underlying truths, (usually) Try to find those and don't concern yourself with the fantasies and myths. Keep in mind that every good cookbook has a few bad recipes included.
