Confused

[Symphony]

This might perhaps illustrate how we must have a larger picture many times than just the one being presented to us.  That will take some time, and some understanding, and some looking into "things into which angels long to look"  .

Your friend is coming to you with all the reasons why you should not believe.

You are responding with all the reasons why you should, or can't do anything other than, believe.

Many times in our discussions such as these, the other person, or people, are much better prepared.

In this one case, he probably knows nothing of Jeremiah 34:10--not because he isn't smart, or intelligent.  But because most likely, he's already decided that he doesn't believe.  So, understandably, he will only used evidence to support that.  That's understandable.  

Remember, some very intelligent folk have decided long before they even left diapers that they just don't, or won't, believe.

Jesus said, "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead."    (Luke 16:31)


     
     

[Whitehorse]

Thank you all for your kind replies.
I would find it very hard not to talk to Jon (my friend) again as he is a very good friend and assures me that he's not trying to talk me out of my faith, but is just being honest.

I have always tried to live my life through the word of Christ and The Bible but Jon showed me verses in Exodus and Leviticus that upset me very much about slavery and some other strange rules.

Does God really want us not to question? Did he not give us mind that we could use to find truth around us? I feel that if I don't look for truth, then I'm just kidding myself and not being honest.

I have tried to ignore these thoughts but they wont go away.

Also, I'm frightened to speak to Pastor about this as I don't want him to think I am bad.

Can I go to Hell for questioning The Bible?

Any human who thinks he knows more than God is immediately suspect. He's already purjured his testimony. Please bring up all the issues your friend addressed. I'm positive God will give us the correct answers for you.

But God may be calling you to choose between Him and John. I wouldn't normally pull this scripture out, right out of the gate, but it sounds like you're cementing a friendship with the wrong people. This can really do damage to your soul.

2 Corinthians 6

6:14Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

6:15And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

6:16And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

6:17Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

6:18And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

PS-if your friend isn't trying to damage your faith, why is he telling you it is wrong?

[Tibby]

These verse are telling you how to treat slaves. It does say slavery is ok, it just says “If you have slaves, dah dah dah.”

Also, the law books of the Old Testament are not to be taken to the letter. We are to follow the spirit of the law, not the letter. When you read books like Leviticus and Exodus, don’t look at is by saying these are verses w much do, think of is as lessons God was trying to teach his people, and lessons he still is. God in the OT tells us many things. These things are not for Christians to do literally, but to study and see what we was trying to do with it. Was he teaching them good farming technique? Was he teaching then Gentleness? Was he teaching then of Justice? Was he trying to teach them?

Also, maybe you should go talk to the leader of another church. For most of them, the doors are always open. Nothing wrong with it, we are all one body after all, it is not betrayal. I’m sure there is more then one church of the Same denomination as you. You could even go to another denomination. What group are you with?

Evolution is a Theory. Not a law. If it was a “proven” as he did with you, it would be a Law. It isn’t, only a Theory. He is a science major, he know more then enough science to out-wit you in this field, it still doesn’t mean he is right, just well read in a particular field. He can no doubt disprove the Theory with just as much ease as he proved it real to you.

[2nd Timothy]

The verses that disturbed me were in Leviticus and Exodus.

They seem to suggest that it's ok to have slaves.
There was one that said that if a man beats his slave and the slave dies, then the man must be punished unless the slave dies after a couple of days, in which case it's ok.

Also, Jon showed me a verse in Exodus that says a man who works on the sabbath must be executed.

Jon has said that I'm free to make up my own mind about what to believe but that I should have all the facts. I don't know where to look for explanations.

I think maybe I will ask Pastor George but I'm afraid that he will tell me not to speak to Jon who is a good friend and has been very good to me.

Have any of you read the verses I mentioned? What do you think?

I believe your friend is talking about this verse.

Exo 31:15  Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.

Taking this verse alone without the entire word of God will surely give you an unbalanced perspective of Gods word.

Here in the New Testiment we see how Jesus responds to similar people regarding the Sabbath.

Mar 3:2  And they watched Him to see if He would heal him on the sabbath day, so that they might accuse Him.
Mar 3:3  And He said to the man who had the withered hand, Arise! Come into the middle.
Mar 3:4  And He said to them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? To save life, or to kill? But they were silent.
(MKJV)

You cannot take one or two verse in the Bible and claim you understand Gods word or character, thus making a decision about whether it is true or not.

Here is an extreme if not humorous example of that.

And Judas ran and hanged himself.  
Go thou and do Likewise.

LOL

This is obviously bad practise.   Without rightly dividing the word, you can get such doctrine.  Do not let your friend point out one or two verses that he claims to disprove Gods word with.   The Bible is both wide and deep.  Playing in the wadding pool only gets your feet wet.  The rest of the pool is full of richness and endless depths.

Let not your faith be shaken Alice.  I assure you that God is still God, and he is smarter and Greater than anyone in this world.  God is incapable of wrong doing.  There are no flaws whatsoever in Gods Character, and he is unable to compromise one trait in favor of another.  Talk about pressure trying to follow this example as a human being.

Grace and Peace!

[alice]

I intend to speak to someone I know at church about all this stuff.
I don't think that Jon is telling me not to believe. He just seems so convinced about his views and it all made so much sense when he was talking. Is there a good book on evolution you could recommend that really gives the facts?

If evolution is true and the world is older than the Bible says, how do I reconcile that with my faith?

Jon says that faith alone is not a good enough reason to believe things, but I want to believe so much.

Thank you for the verses about slavery. I feel much better about that now. You are all so kind.

God bless you.

 
ps one other thing:
I have always been taught that homosexuality is a sin and is wrong. Jon was suggesting that this is an unfair prejudice against gay people. I don't like the thought of treating anyone unfairly, but surely a sin is a sin? Where in the Bible does it say that you can't be gay? It isn't one of the commandments is it?

[2nd Timothy]

I intend to speak to someone I know at church about all this stuff.
I don't think that Jon is telling me not to believe. He just seems so convinced about his views and it all made so much sense when he was talking. Is there a good book on evolution you could recommend that really gives the facts?

If evolution is true and the world is older than the Bible says, how do I reconcile that with my faith?

Hmm...this one is sure to open a can beans here.  Although science claims to know the age of the earth, scientists who are believers in Christ can point out the flaws of such tests and theories.  No matter how science explains it, they still require faith to accept their rendition of how life got here.

Here is link that might answer some of your questions.
http://www.icr.org

He gives a science perspective of Creation, as opposed to evolution.  Some of it is quite deep, but interesting to hear a scientist views on how his peers are wrong  

Jon says that faith alone is not a good enough reason to believe things, but I want to believe so much.

Without faith its impossible to please God.  Without faith, its also impossible to accept except evolution (and IMO probably more that believing in God.)

Thank you for the verses about slavery. I feel much better about that now. You are all so kind.

God bless you.

 
ps one other thing:
I have always been taught that homosexuality is a sin and is wrong. Jon was suggesting that this is an unfair prejudice against gay people. I don't like the thought of treating anyone unfairly, but surely a sin is a sin? Where in the Bible does it say that you can't be gay? It isn't one of the commandments is it?

Lev 20:13  If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

We all have sin, but God is true to his word and forgives all men who accept the gift of forgivness and repentance.  As you say, sin is sin in Gods eyes.  No matter what the sin he can forgive us through his sacrifice and repentance.   God is only prejudice against sin.  When we come to him, he forgives us and brings us to repentance and remembers our sins no more.  His love and mercy is matchless.  Remember, he cannot compromise one of his traits for another.   Unrepented sin and sinners will be judged by the highest standard of his holiness, but those found in Christ are his own, and God grants repentance and forgiveness through faith in his Son.

Grace and Peace!

[ollie]

Hi, Alice.  Just let all that "upsetness" flow all over you, cuz as you start looking into this "law of liberty", as Paul calls it, I think you'll start to see all that upsetness  start to flow away.  

First, discussions like yours will always get you looking at the trees, and not the forest.

For instance, your friend there(hehe--well, "maybe"-- ), is giving you reasons why "not" to believe.  Is that correct?

Notice that friends such as this, or in discussions such as this, never will be broached the simple alternative question, and certainly equally as valid, as, "Why "NOT" believe?"  That is, why shouldn't we believe?  (Thank you to Whitehorse, here, on this one)

And launch into all the reasons as to why we can believe in all the bible teaches or even just implies--easter, and rising from the dead, and forgiveness, and salvation from our sins(try telling him that you are not a sinner, just for kicks, and see if he doesn't acknowledge suddenly that there is such a thing as sin--hehe), Christmas and love and babies and air to breathe and birds that sing and bees that buzz.

And then tell him that he must be blind.

As for the slavery thing, if I'm interpreting his stance correctly here, he obviously isn't reading the Bible at all:  Jeremiah 34:10(and, interestingly, verse 11).

Finally, Alice, there are any number of verses in the New Testament on the importance of having your faculties trained, in order to "quench the fiery darts of the wicked one".  

We probably all go through what you are confronting.  It's a lifelong process.

But you'll have to "study to show thyself approved", so you can spot the manuvres that are being launched against you.

And believe me, they will be launched against you.  "...Satan hath desired to have me, that he may sift me like wheat..."

We're praying for you.  It's day by day affair.  

Wisdom, not just for Alice, but all.

Thank you Symphony.

[ollie]

"ps one other thing:
I have always been taught that homosexuality is a sin and is wrong. Jon was suggesting that this is an unfair prejudice against gay people. I don't like the thought of treating anyone unfairly, but surely a sin is a sin? Where in the Bible does it say that you can't be gay? It isn't one of the commandments is it?"


Sigh!

[Symphony]

Thank you, Ollie.  


Also, whitehorse, Timothy, et. al.  some good posts.  thank you.  


alice, what does your friend think of Jeremiah 34:10.  Just wondering.

On gays, alice, I Corinth 6:9:  

"Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts...will inherit the kingdom of God."

     

[alice]

Timothy, thank you very much for the link. That site looks interesting. I shall study what it says.

On the subject of homosexuality, if we are not to take the old testament to be literally true, how do we know that being gay really is a sin? Sorry to push this point, but I have a couple of gay friends who are really decent people.(One is actually a Christian, although not at my church)

[Symphony]

"The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (I Corinth. 2:14)



Paul expounds on homosex'y, in Romans ch. 1, for instance, and illustrates it there.

[ebia]

Timothy, thank you very much for the link. That site looks interesting. I shall study what it says.

On the subject of homosexuality, if we are not to take the old testament to be literally true, how do we know that being gay really is a sin? Sorry to push this point, but I have a couple of gay friends who are really decent people.(One is actually a Christian, although not at my church)

There IS more than one Christian viewpoint on homosexuality.  St Paul is talking within a context where the only homosexual activity that existed was abusive (temple prostitution, man-boy "relationships", etc).  The words he uses are compound words, possibly of his own invention, and so there is no way to know exactly what he meant by them, let alone assume 'homosexual' (or whatever) is a good translation.  To infer that all homosexual relationships are necessarly sinful is, therefore, to make an assumption about God's will that is not stated in scripture.   This is, I'll admit, still a minority view in Christianity, but a few hundred years ago St Paul's words were used to condone slavery and objections to that were a minority view; we've moved in our understanding since then.

do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts...will inherit the kingdom of God."

This just begs the question "what is sexual perversion?"; it just amounts to saying sinful sexual acts are sinful.

[Tibby]

I have always been taught that homosexuality is a sin and is wrong. Jon was suggesting that this is an unfair prejudice against gay people. I don't like the thought of treating anyone unfairly, but surely a sin is a sin? Where in the Bible does it say that you can't be gay? It isn't one of the commandments is it?

He makes a good point. Ok, not really. That is like saying believing drunkenness is a sin is an unfair prejudice against drunks. He is looking at Homosexuals as people like Heterosexuals, instead, look at Homosexuals as people like drunks, people with sin in there lives, sin that has taken over their life.

It isn’t your fault they are sinning. You have nothing to be guilty for.

By the way, did you get my PM?

[Ralph]

  Alice--concerning your post #7: capital punishment and slavery. First, the Old Testament was a revelation of God's justice under the law. God showed throughout the OT that He was serious about death as the penalty of sin. The New Testament writer said of that period, "every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward" and that God, by demonstrating the severity of judgment due to transgressors, was teaching the people that life could not be by the law, that they had to have a better way. So the NT apostle Paul said, "the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." So despite the severity of the punishment, God was just in fulfilling His right to deal with lawbreakers. Notice that the fruit of the tree in itself was good. It was the transgressing of God's law that brought death. God's penalty of death upon some very minor (seemingly) offenses demonstrated with greater effect God's seriousness about the evil of transgressions than would be demonstrated by executing people for crimes which we ourselves believe should be punished by death. This demonstrates that God's standards are very much higher than our own. Remember that there was an element of grace in the law in that by demonstrating His wrath against sin, He was in effect mercifully leading them to Christ the Deliverer.
  Concerning slavery--if you study the instances of slavery in the Bible, you will find that Biblical slavery was altogether different from the abomination of slavery practised earlier in America. In many instances it was indentured servitude wherein the "slave" had agreed with his master to work  off an honest debt which he owed the master. In other instances,
slavery was used to control those people who had risen up against Israel. As carollee pointed out, it was more merciful
than just killing them. Slavery as practiced in America had none of these distinctions, period. It was evil, only evil continually.
  Don't let unbelievers who refuse to observe these distinctions make false accusations against God for the way He dealt with indebtedness and the enemies of God by claiming OT slavery was the same as what took place in this country. It was by far different, but unbelievers love to misrepresent it as identical with the evil practice in the U.S.
  Concerning evolution--I heard a major scientist not long ago state that scientists were abandoning the "theory" called evolution by droves because modern science has been finding multitudes of new wonders which rule out the possibility that such complexities could come into existence without an intelligent designer. He stated that unfortunately it would be many years before some scientists awakened to the fact that new discoveries have proven evolution to be an impossible explanation for what modern scientists have been discovering.
  As a test of your friends involvement in real cutting edge
science, ask him what he thinks of the Nebraska Man, Neanderthal man and piltdown man. Real scientists have acknowledged for years that they are NOT real. If he hasn't learned that, we could say (as a pun) that he is really into "stone age science." There are new books out now about some of these hard science discoveries that are turning
REAL scientists away from evolution. Ask your pastore or a good Christian book supplier about them.

[ebia]

Concerning slavery--if you study the instances of slavery in the Bible, you will find that Biblical slavery was altogether different from the abomination of slavery practised earlier in America. In many instances it was indentured servitude wherein the "slave" had agreed with his master to work  off an honest debt which he owed the master. In other instances,
slavery was used to control those people who had risen up against Israel. As

This might be true, to a limited extent, of the slavery talked about in the OT, but its certainly not true of the slavery of the roman empire condoned by St Paul.

Concerning evolution--I heard a major scientist not long ago state that scientists were abandoning the "theory" called evolution by droves because modern science has been finding multitudes of new wonders which rule out the possibility that such complexities could come into existence without an intelligent designer..

Oft repeated, but simply not true.

... Nebraska Man, Neanderthal man and piltdown man. Real scientists have acknowledged for years that they are NOT real. If he hasn't learned that, we could say (as a pun) that he is really into "stone age science." There are new books out now about some of these hard science discoveries that are turning

Piltdown man was a hoax (and not a very good one), but Neaderthal man most certainly is not.

There are new books out now about some of these hard science discoveries that are turning
REAL scientists away from evolution. Ask your pastore or a good Christian book supplier about them.

Real scientists don't learn about other peoples work from popular books, but from quality, peer-reviewed journals.