5 posts tagged “bible”
These organizations that claim it's offensive to not be wished a "Merry Christmas" but instead are given a friendly "Holiday Greeting" are themselves offensive to me. They go out of their way to manufacture some BS cause to stir up anger, arguments, strife and debate. Screw that!
Proverbs 17:14
Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.Proverbs 17:19
He who loves a quarrel loves sin; he who builds a high gate invites destruction.Proverbs 20:3
It is to a man's honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.2 Timothy 2:23-24
Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.
I've been thinking about war, sin and personal responsibility. It seems like everyone that actually supports a Christian's ability to war (John 18:26) gives the justification that it is not the individual who is killing (Exodus 20:13) but it is the state. I don't really see how one can divorce a person's actions from that person, but we'll skip over this part for another even more ridiculous reason. Giving up personal responsibility with the guise of acting for the nation allows a person to do anything no matter how morally reprehensible. If you can murder and lie (Exodus 20:16) to wage war, what else can you do? Serve another god (Mars perhaps)? (Exodus 20:3) War on the sabbath? (Exodus 20:8) Rape and pillage? (Exodus 20:14, 15) Make an oath? (Matthew 5:33-36) I can add here a big et al. Honestly, where does it stop and how do we fault our waring enemies whoa re themselves only acting for their nation? How do we accuse any nation of cruelty, how do we say any nation is acting incorrectly? We were not given rules for how a government should operate, only how people should operate, and I believe every Christian should follow those rules without passing their own duties off to the government.
Excerpt:
Adam has been created first, shaped by the hand of God from the dust, and God has breathed his spirit into Adam to give him life. But God recognizes that Adam is incomplete by himself, and so is in need of a…. “helper” or “helpmeet” (Genesis 2:18).
“Helper” is, in fact, an extremely poor and shallow translation for the Hebrew ezer kenegdo. In fact, the noun ezer is a term that implies help from a superior (and is used many, many times in the Hebrew Bible to describe God, our help), and so God, in the text, supplies the modifier kenegdo to lessen the force of the help, making the helper equal with the helped. Robert Alter insists that a much better translation is “lifesaver.” I have also seen it rendered “the one who saves me and is the same as me.” So we have Adam, the first man, who is the beginning of a new race whose life is breathed into his nostrils by God - but even in this he is incomplete. In order to be who God would have him be, in order for the human race to be what God intends, a complementary person is needed to essentially save the life of the human race.
Tonight I was reminded that when the Bible tells about the faith men and women have it never gives examples of what people didn't do. We don't hear how David was a man of faith because he remained sexually pure. We don't hear how Abraham was a man of faith because he never told a lie. We don't hear how Ruth was a woman of faith because she didn't cheat anyone. No. We hear that these people had faith because they did something - that when there was no hope, there was still faith.
Today we hear how our Christian faith is not much more than abstaining from this, and not saying that. We're taught that it is what we are opposed to that makes us Christian. This is heresy. We are Christians because we love, because we act in compassion, because we are unto Christ. We have this faith because of what we do, not because of what we hold back from.
Some people use Isaiah 58:12 as support for the modern nation-state of Israel:
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Of course this prophecy is about how Israel is seeking the Lord "as if they were a nation that does what is right, and has not forsaken the commands of its God." (v.2) That's pretty damning. Israel is claiming to seek the Lord when they have really forsaken the commandments of God.
Of course I have to make a distinction between Israel the people and Israel the nation-state. There is no biblical reference to a nation-state, as it is a modern idea.
Isaiah continues this discourse saying, "Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. (v.3, 4)
(v. 6, 7)
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"
Is this not a relevant prophecy to the nation-state of Israel today? God calls to set the oppressed free, and Israel builds a wall, like a prison, for the Palestinians. God calls to share food with the hungry, and Israel cuts off the water supply to the Palestinians (80% of Israel's water goes to the Jews, with smaller populations none-the-less). God calls to provide shelter for the wanderer, and Israel bulldozes the homes of Palestinian refugees to build track homes for Jewish settlers.
(v. 9, 10)
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,"
... then God will supply Israel all her needs, and they will be like a "well-watered garden."
It seems Israel should seek God, and keep his commands. This seems to be the stem of their problems. If they did not oppress the Palestinians, if they fed the hungry (as Hamas does), if they kept God's commands and actually sought after God as a nation that "does what is right," perhaps this would have come out differently.
Perhaps I'm reading this wrong, but it's at least a clear reproof on those using this passage as one supporting the modern nation-state.
