Actually, I think I beat you to the punch a bit here, since I already responded to you-via-Shodan a few posts up the page. I would be happy to read your reaction to that post, however, and will do my best to respond to yours here before mrs. green gets home with the Sopranos DVDs.
Yep, but the difference between ceremonial and moral law is, to say the least, not always clear. See my post above.
No question about it, although it’s mostly Paul who addresses it in the NT. Jesus, quite notably, doesn’t say a thing about homosexuality. But if you want to say that Paul is as good an authority as Jesus, be my guest. I don’t think my opinion on the Romans and Corinthians verses you quote would be all that helpful to you–see below.
Not me, I’m afraid. I only joined the thread a few posts back.
Nah, just trying to get you to explain your own reasoning.
I’m an atheist, sweetie. I don’t have to pick and choose at all.
And I’m totally with you in that hope. I very much appreciate your continued participation in this thread and on the boards. You’ll find plenty of people to challenge your ideas around here–including me–but I do hope people can find the patience to debate you without getting all pissy about it.
I don’t see how you can get that because I see no gender specific language there. If you assume that mankind means men then this applies to both women and men who have sex with men.
But as a Jack Chick style fundamentalist, you’re only supposed to accept the King James Version. I guess if it’s not biased enough get to choose another version.
How do you feel about slavery? It’s clear that God allowed the Jews to have slaves in the Old Testament. And Paul didn’t oppose slavery.
This same chapter goes on to say that people who are single when they get “saved” should stay that way. And that men shouldn’t let their virgin daughters get married.
Since you’ve mentioned you’ve believed what you believe all of your life, did you keep those commands of Paul? Did you get married? Divorced? Remarried?
I don’t know the english version, but it says roughly that not even a letter of the law will be dropped until the end of times. I don’t remember any exception being made about the “ceremonial law”…
Oh! You share this opinion! Fine…you too will be able to answer my question about how this could be consistent with not dropping a single letter or even a part of a single letter of the law…
I waiting eagerly for an explanation…
Oh! You share this opinion! Fine…you too will be able to answer my question about how this could be consistent with not dropping a single letter or even a part of a single letter of the law…
I waiting eagerly for an explanation…
Well, they also have an annoying tendancy not to obey Matthew 6-5/6 :
*: And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6: But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly *
And only extremely rarely obey Matthew 5-39/40 :
*39: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40: And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. *
And absolutely never Matthew 5-29/30 :
*And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
30: And if thy right hand offend thee, cut if off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. *
How do you feel about slavery? It’s clear that God allowed the Jews to have slaves in the Old Testament. And Paul didn’t oppose slavery.
This same chapter goes on to say that people who are single when they get “saved” should stay that way. And that men shouldn’t let their virgin daughters get married.
Since you’ve mentioned you’ve believed what you believe all of your life, did you keep those commands of Paul? Did you get married? Divorced? Remarried?
Careful here, now:) Is it homosexuality or “homosexual acts”?
The other ones I have seen before in several places, but effeminate? What in the blazes does that have to do with ANYTHING?
Does it happen to say what the original word used is, and in what other contexts it’s been used? I read a paper once a few months ago on the meaning of “unnatural” as it appears in that whole “they gave themselves up to unnatural acts”, and one take on it is that the word in that context meant something like “unnatural for those particular people”. As in, it would be unnatural for a wombat, say, to give birth to a shrew. Or for the sun to suddenly be blue.
You are free to interpret these as you like, of course, but to me it clearly is saying those who live the lifestyles in these verses won’t inherit the kingdom of God.
What that other guy said. Now we’re getting to the important part. To you. Your interpretation. IOW, you might not be right.
This, IMO, is crucial. One of the things I (and from what I have heard/learned/experienced, a lot of other people) get really annoyed with is people who believe that theirs is THE ONLY WAY TO GO AND IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE AS THEY DO YOU ARE BANISHED TO THE FIERY PITS OF HELL!
While you have certainly not been this extreme, it has been the impression of at least some of us (judging from the content of posts) that your attitude is not the sort that says “I think I am right, but I accept that I might be wrong, and that’s okay”. Rather, you say “I believe what I believe, and nothing you say can ever change that because my mind is made up.”
I respectfully submit to you that this sort of attitude is going to neither win friends nor converts nor any sort of argument on this board.
See above:) The inclination or the “acts”?
Well, while in this case I’m not going to assume I know about anyone else’s objective, the reason I wanted to know is simply that I don’t see a clear reason in the Bible to choose to follow one set of rules in one place and not follow another a few verses away. I have read the arguments and they do not convince me enough to accept them. That might change in the future … I rather doubt it, but I am not set in stone in this. I have read a few different arguments, each of varying credibility and some offering entirely different support, so I was wondering which, if any of them, you hold to be true. And I must tell you in all fairness that I still don’t think you knew what your argument was until Shodan posted the ceremonial vs. moral argument. It just seems too suden for you to ignore it and then when someone posted a believable (by some … not currently by me) argument, you snatched it up as your own, especially since you had not been doing the best of jobs (by your own admission) defending various tenets of your faith.
I don’t know that this was directed at me, but since I’ve asked some serious questions of you and let you know what I think of you, I think it only fair to tell you about myself. I would email this to you since it’s only slightly OT, but last I checked you don’t have an email address listed, so here goes.
I was a Christian for some time … baptized as an infant, did first communion and penance, was confirmed when I was 13. Both of my parents, at one time or another, have felt a calling to the religious life.
I think my problems with the RCC (and most Christian establishments) started my senior year. I started to read things not officially sanctioned by the church, which got into inconsistencies in the Bible, differences in translation, etc. In particular, I started to have real issues with papal infallibility and the issue that any human could be declared absolutely right on a matter of religion deeper than, like, “God … now there’s a funky dude.”
That doubt continued to get deeper as more things got challenged … I had a sort of spiritual breakthrough where my belief system had its second most important breakthrough in memory and my feeling changed from the idea that belief in God was most important to that leading a good life was more important.
That progression lead me to the conclusion that ultimately I do not believe the Bible proves God’s existence any more than Aslan’s existence is proven by The Chronicles of Narnia. Am I wrong? I don’t think so. Is it possible? You bet your ass:)
I am an agnostic theist, which means that while I believe in the existence of a god-like entity, I do not think the existence of said god can be proven. I think there are some interesting, valuable things in the Bible just as there are interesting and valuable in other religious and non-religious works.
I agree with some of the things in the Bible. But when it comes to the sex rules, so to speak … so long as people’s feelings aren’t being hurt, I generally don’t care. Masturbation? Whatever. Adultery? Not cool if someone gets hurt. Otherwise, so long as the important people are okay with it, so be it. I think it’s kind of obvious how I feel about non-hets, but if not … well, I have no problem with them or their “homosexual acts” any more than I have a problem with “heterosexual acts”
Curse God for making me gay! And curse him for making me so fabulous! Now I’ll never get into heaven! (Well, honestly, though, who’d want to? White is soooooooo last season - red is in, baby!)
Pardon me while I :rolleyes: . Remember, quoting your funny little holy book at me and saying it’s some kind of authority is pointless since I don’t recognize its authority in any way. But you’re so cute when you do it, I just want to pinch your little cheeks! I do! So cute…
Be careful how you answer this H4E, if you claim that Jesus and his perfect life fulfilled the law, keep in mind that 1 Corinthians states that when that perfection has come, tongues and prophecy will cease. And coming from a Pentecostal church, I’m sure you believe that tongues and prophesy and the other charims are still in effect to this day (despite church history).
So either you should be still following OT laws or those tongues and prophesies practiced by Pentecostals are contradictory to the NT.
Geez, iampunha, if you just want everyone to butt out so you can dump on His4ever, get off to the Pit. This is GD.
Anyway -
clairobscur asks -
The actual quote is “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter nor the least stroke of a pen will disappear until all has been fulfilled.” (“A jot or a tittle” in the lovely phrase of the KJV, a “jot” being a yodh, the smallest letter in Hebrew, and a “tittle” referring to a diacritical mark.)
Jesus then immediately goes on to describe ways in which the Jewish law (the moral part of it) is not removed, but enlarged and enhanced. Thus the law against murder applies not simply to murder, but forbids emotional abuse as well. Adultery unfulfilled is as bad as adultery fulfilled, and so forth.
Add to that the bit about “until all has been fulfilled”. This can be seen as a reference to the return of Christ and the end of the world, a topic covered elsewhere in the Gospels, or to the period after Jesus died and rose again, thus fulfilling the purpose of the law and the prophets.
In Christian thinking, the whole purpose of the choosing of the Jewish people was to prepare them to be the ones from whom the Savior comes. Thus the extensive focus in Jewish law on keeping separate, holding themselves apart from the easy syncretism of the surrounding peoples of the region, maintaining the covenant between themselves and God. Thus, when the Savior came and accomplished His mission, the aim of the Law is fulfilled, and the people of God can include all nations, not just the Jews. And the “keeping kosher” part of the law does not need to be applied. See the book of Acts for a description of the development of the idea that Christianity is not just a sub-sect of Judaism, and that therefore Gentiles do not need to keep the ceremonial part of the law.
Incidentally, minty green, Homebrew and others have pointed out an error on my part, which I confess to my shame.
The Jewish law consists not only of moral and ceremonial parts, but also includes civil as well. Jewish law of the OT was directed primarily towards a theocratic society. The concept of a secular state was almost unheard of at the time. Thus you have regulation of stuff like the year of jubilee, how to go to war, how to manage property disputes and relations with your neighbor, and so forth.
The conquest of Jerusalem and the end of the Temple system of animal sacrifice that ensued (the Romans sacrificed a pig to Jupiter in the Holy of Holies - the “desolating abomination” Jesus refers to in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14) is believed to have brought an end to the civic part of the law as well.
This is usually how the question of slavery in the Bible is dealt with as well. It seems to have been taken for granted by the OT, and even by Christ. It is really only in some of the writings of Paul that you begin to see the idea that it might be considered part of the old dispensation as well, particularly in the passage in Galatians 3:28, where there is “neither slave nor free, neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Here the first crack appears in the edifice, not only of slavery, but of sexism and Judaeo-centrism as well.
Unfortunately, it is just as difficult to tease out the moral part of the law that still applies from the ceremonial or civic part as ever. And it does almost always become a matter of how you interpret Scripture.
On both sides of the question.
Disclaimer: I do not think of myself as a fundamentalist nor a Bible literalist, and I am not necessarily anti-gay, or preaching that all gays will burn in hell forever. But His4ever has expressed herself unable or unwilling to take the other side in all this, and given the tenor of some of the threads aimed at her recently, I cannot say that I blame her. Not that I haven’t contributed to that tone at least once, for which I reiterate my apologies.
Therefore, in the interest of keeping this a debate and not another pile-on, I am presenting some of the answers I have heard to some of the questions that have been raised.
Wasn’t aware that I was. She got asked a question and had no answer until you gave her one, then said “thanks for saying it better than I could”, to which event at least one other person voiced some concern. Rather than her being given the answers to questions by other people I was wondering if she had her own.
His4ever, if you felt I was dumping on you, I apologize. That was certainly not my intent.
Two more questions for H4E:
[ol][li]Are you telling us that the New Testament has Jesus, the Christ, telling a lie? I look in that lovely tome and I see where Jesus, Himself, tells Peter that it is Peter who is the Rock.[/li]In this thread, you mentioned that you “should answer for the Lord” or words to that effect. Who appointed you God’s Mouthpiece on Earth?[/ol]
I don’t think my opinion on the Romans and Corinthians verses you quote would be all that helpful to you–see below.