JayJayDee
Avid JW Bible Student
This argument irritates me, though. This idea that, unless you are taking the Bible in its entirety, you must be picking and choosing based on personal preference. This is an absolutely ludicrous assumption, and pretty disrespectful at that. Many thinking Christians see the Bible for what it is ... a book written thousands of years ago by men with a great deal less understanding about the physical world and societies in general. To disregard the immense differences in culture is to believe without reason, which, imho, is the definition of evil.
That is an interesting take on things....but really, the Bible is God's only communication with humankind.
What is the cause of your irritation? Isn't it because humans don't like to be told what to do and are constantly looking for loopholes in the law to excuse their behaviour?
Have you never wondered why God needed to have a written record of his dealings with just one people?
Were those people especially righteous? Or was the opposite true?
The Bible is a book about God's dealings with human beings...with all their imperfections and flaws.
The law given to Israel was a constant source of irritation to them...why? Because no one could keep it perfectly. So why give humans a set of laws that was impossible to uphold? The Bible says it was to remind them of their need of a savior. Without the benefit of the sacrifices made in supplication for forgiveness of their transgressions, there was no hope.
It was a record of how God interacted with this selected nation when they had his laws to govern every facet of their lives.....what happened to them when they were faithful....and how God responded to them when they weren't. Their lives were a contrast to those nations who did not have Yahweh as their God.
It isn't that God expected them to be perfect, but it was to keep them humble, so as not to ever think that anyone was above the law, or to adopt the attitude that the law was too hard so it excused them from even trying to keep it.
The temporary sacrifices offered week to week, pointed forward to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who would eliminate the need for animals sacrifice and liberate people from the "curse" of the law.
When I spoke about those who wish to pick and choose, I used the example of marriage and divorce as a common deviation from the teachings of Jesus. Humans have no right to overturn the teachings of the Christ to suit their own sinful conduct. Marriage is a sacred union, of which Jesus said "what God has yoked together, let no man put apart". "Till death do us part" was the scriptural principle for marriage. Only unfaithfulness on the part of a marriage mate could free someone to remarry. Who in the churches today, uphold Jesus' teaching in this matter? Who takes this seriously? Since the laws of the land now make divorce simple, does this mean that God's law is invalidated?
What about another teaching of Jesus....to 'love your enemies and pray for those who persecute us'? He said 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him and if he is thirsty, give him a drink'....where does he ever teach that it is OK to kill our enemies? Yet the churches are at the forefront of supporting the military of their nations in their political conflicts, even with nations who also profess the same beliefs? This was the situation in the last two World Wars....Catholic killed Carholic and Protestant killed Protestant....whose side was God on and whose prayers were heard by him? (Isa 1:15)
When it comes to obedience to God, all the men and women of faith mentioned in the Bible were outstanding. There is no room for compromise...especially when it comes to things that are not against the laws of the land.
The legalizing of same sex marriage carries no weight with God. It is a forbidden union, regardless of the emotional aspects of the issue. The legalisation is only giving them their nation's permission, and if "legal" recognition is all they want, then that is what they have achieved. It appears to have made them very happy. But you would have to rewrite the entire Bible to make homosexuality "scripturally legal" and it would require God's permission to do it. We don't have that.
When Jesus comes to judge the world and to separate the "sheep from the goats", he is not going to judge disobedient Christians well....he calls them "workers of lawlessness".....and in fact he said that "few" are on the cramped and narrow road to life, because the criteria he uses for judgment is not how good a Christian "they" thought they were, but whether they were "doing the will of the Father". (Matt 7:13, 14, 21-23)
You see human beings have a tendency to want to do their own will and to justify their way out of doing what God requires. We are very good at fooling ourselves apparently. This is why we need to understand what it means when Jesus says that the road to life is a difficult one. If it was easy, we would be on the other road...to destruction.