Christians: Kill family who mentions other beliefs to you?

[Midnight Pete]

Firstly, it wouldn't be kill family who mention other beliefs to you, but kill family who entice you to worship other Gods...

and secondly, as Jesus said: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." In other words we should not condemn someone to death.

Or kill them for mentioing other beliefs. In cold blood. :cover:

Hebrews 12:14

Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.

It's passages like these that get lost in the shuffle and the bloodlust.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Deuteronomy 13:6-10, KJV).

Can any Christians help me understand the context of this?

Sure. This was written in a time when the Jews were in exile, and they were trying to make sense out of their plight theologically. It was in exile that the Jews moved from polytheism to monotheism, and they thought that had they gotten rid of all the other religions in Israel that Yahweh would have been pleased with them and they would not have been defeated.

That's why we also have the command of God to exterminate towns, etc in the "conquest" of Israel - they did not do this, so they thought God was punishing them.

 

[waitasec]

smoke, are you a prophet?

It's so unfair of you to imply that Christians apply the scriptures selectively.

The Christian point of view is that you can ignore the entire Old Testament and most of the New, except for those parts that can be construed as condemning homosexuality. I think you'll find that most Christians are remarkably consistent in their application of this principle.

Why do you keep throwing OT verses at us? You know Christians don't follow those rules, because at least some of us believe that Jesus fulfilled the Law. That some of them still quote some of them for their own beliefs isn't right, either.

 

[waitasec]

Sounds pretty un-Christ-like if you ask me ... :sad:

exactly
god is consistently inconsistent

 

[Midnight Pete]

smoke, are you a prophet?

No, he isn't. I am just as much of a prophet as he is.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

It's so unfair of you to imply that Christians apply the scriptures selectively.

The Christian point of view is that you can ignore the entire Old Testament and most of the New, except for those parts that can be construed as condemning homosexuality. I think you'll find that most Christians are remarkably consistent in their application of this principle.

I think this is a naive and uninformed position.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Why do you keep throwing OT verses at us? You know Christians don't follow those rules, because at least some of us believe that Jesus fulfilled the Law. That some of them still quote some of them for their own beliefs isn't right, either.

I think she "[threw] it at us" because she wanted someone to explain it to her in context.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Thats Old testament stuff ,before God turned liberal in the new testament

A bizarre and unintelligent interpretation.

 

[Smoke]

I think this is a naive and uninformed position.

You're mistaken. I may be dismissive and contemptuous about Christianity, but I'm not the least bit naive or uninformed. In fact, that's exactly why I'm so dismissive and contemptuous.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

So how exactly do we determine what bits of scripture are still relevant and which bits of scripture only applied during the time and place it was written?

Well, you could start with the preface to the Mosaic Laws, "Speak unto the children of Israel..."

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Pretty sure Jesus came to uphold the older scriptures, according to the NT.

He came to fulfill them, that's different.

 

[Midnight Pete]

You're mistaken. I may be dismissive and contemptuous about Christianity, but I'm not the least bit naive or uninformed. In fact, that's exactly why I'm so dismissive and contemptuous.

Those negative emotions are going to destroy you eventually.

 

[Meow Mix]

Why do you keep throwing OT verses at us? You know Christians don't follow those rules, because at least some of us believe that Jesus fulfilled the Law. That some of them still quote some of them for their own beliefs isn't right, either.

Well, as a Christian you believe it was the law at one time, right?

Is God a good guy for commanding the killing of family even if it was "a long time ago?"

 

[Meow Mix]

Firstly, it wouldn't be kill family who mention other beliefs to you, but kill family who entice you to worship other Gods...

and secondly, as Jesus said: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." In other words we should not condemn someone to death.

But who is commanding to do the killing? Is it God or someone else?

If it's someone else, how did they sneak their mere opinion into God's holy word?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Deuteronomy 13:6-10, KJV).

Can any Christians help me understand the context of this?

This will be a very broad look at this.

God has always wanted His people to seperate and distinct. It started with Adam and Eve, being the same, isolated in the Garden. Follow it to Cain where after he slew Abel, Cain was banished. Skip to Noah, God isolated His people on an Ark. Move on to Abraham, God summoned him to seperate from his people. Onward to the Children of Abraham. The Mosaic Law did specific things to try and seperate Gods children from the Gentiles and keep them pure in His eyes. This continues on through out the Old to the New Testaments.

At every change, though, as history progresses, God seemed to modify the severity of of His commands in order to make them usable, though diluted, for His disobedient children. Newer commandment such as, "Love your neighbor as yourself," would seem to supercede older commands.

 

[Meow Mix]

Sounds pretty un-Christ-like if you ask me ... :sad:

If Christ is God, then why was it commanded in the OT? Even if Jesus absolved people from having to follow OT rules...

...why was it EVER there in the first place? Who was commanding to kill family, was it God or the author? If it was the author, how did he sneak his personal opinion into God's word?

 

[Meow Mix]

Its very simple if any of you kin tries to persaude you away from God kill them. The reason for this was during this time the Hebrews basically was hated by everyone around them(because they were an invading force.) so they needed unity and if there was influrence from the surronding cultures it could possibly destroy that unity.

Not to make things personal, but you often have little trouble advocating even the most horrible things about God from the texts. I praise your consistency, but it sort of disturbs me that you're okay with it.

 

[Meow Mix]

it was written for a people who had made a covenant with God. In that covenant, they accepted the mandate that they would worship only the True God Jehovah. They also accepted the judicial system which included the death penalty for certain crimes.

this was written only for the Jews under that covenant with God...it did not apply to anyone else but it certainly shows us how God views the worship of false gods.

So, you think it was a good thing that family should kill apostates?

Do you get upset when Muslims kill apostates? If not, why not? Is it only okay if Jews kill apostate family?



I'm amazed actually that people are defending this. Some things are truly, truly frightening to me. This is one of them.

 

[Meow Mix]

The Jews thought that people did have other gods, some false but all less powerful than their "God".

This passage can be thought of as talking about "Traitors" Those people who followed the other gods were all enemies of the Jews, who sought to destroy them.

Some one who sought to subvert a Jew into another faith, were not only Traitors but were working to weaken the Jews from within. This passage indicates the danger both to their religion but to the safety of the people.

Even today Traitors are put to death.

So, you'd kill your mother gladly if she converted to another religion and wanted to see if you were interested in it?

If not today, but you'd do it back then?

I am making a realization about some religious folks' "morals." I seriously may be less quick to trust believers in certain things because I strongly question their moral faculties.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

So, you'd kill your mother gladly if she converted to another religion and wanted to see if you were interested in it?

If not today, but you'd do it back then?

I am making a realization about some religious folks' "morals." I seriously may be less quick to trust believers in certain things because I strongly question their moral faculties.

Please see my post # 42