The Messiness of History

john8verse32 · 05-31-09 8:56 pm

now that I understand "sin" better, I wonder if I would be sinning if I try to avoid my obligation to this command in Deut 17:3.... you see, my problem is that I keep reading on the net that one of our larger "town's" leaders is really worshipping another God...namely, Allah...at least he grew up that way... and this great leader is well protected with well dressed and armed body guards, and it may even be difficult to comply with this command from God... I have warned you not to worship other gods, because whoever worships them is disobeying the LORD and breaking the agreement he made with you. 4 So when you hear that someone in your town is committing this disgusting sin, you must carefully find out if that person really is guilty. 5 But you will need two or three witnesses -- one witness isn't enough to prove a person guilty. Get rid of those who are guilty of such evil. Take them outside your town gates and have everyone stone them to death. so my problem is that I bet there will be plenty of witnesses who will verify the charge, and who will even be willing to cast the first stone..... will I be sinning if I choose to NOT follow thru on this command either because I'm afraid of his goonsquad? or because I think times have changed, and maybe we should try to educate those who may not worship our loving God as we say he commands, instead of executing God's command as listed above? iow...do we have the right to educate instead of the duty to execute? is it a "sin" to not follow Gods laws and commands and standards literally when these conflict with todays common sense on this side of Afgunistan? finally, Devon...don't you agree that it may take more research and discussion to determine exactly what are Gods standards for today and therefore what constitutes "sin"????

pilgrim99 · 05-31-09 10:33 pm

John, Sin is so much more than breaking a law. You probably already know this, but the context of Deuteronomy is the law given to people living under a theocracy. I don't think that any one living in the 50 states lives under a theocracy, even in good old pilgrim founded Massachusetts<IMG SRC="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":-)" BORDER=0> I had a lot of fun times there back in the 70's, (used to date a young lady from Northeastern and also one from Ft. Devens) but it never struck me as a place populated by people trying to be pleasing to God. Not that I even considered God to be relevant to my life back then. Deuteronomy 23 specifically addresses the civil laws governing treatment of the weak, under a theocracy. Personally, I thinks that it's best for you to gain a fully orbed understanding of sin, and then you can go back to examine any Biblical passage to look at how the doctrine is applied. Picking random passages and asking if some specific activity is a sin is kind of infantile IMHO. There is no sin list. Absolute 100 percent perfection in thought, word and action is the only standard that counts. These are a couple of easy to understand articles; I'd encourage you to not rush through them.<a href="http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=2519" target=_top>The Sin Question</a>,and <a href="http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=2520" target=_top>Salvation From Sin</a> I also have an easy to understand study guide from when I used to teach High School level Sunday School. It's been several years, but I'll dig for those notes on one of my old computers and share them with you. The HS level guide was effective in communicating the doctrine to know it all teenagers. Here is a little longer study <a href="http://bible.org/page.php?page_id=399" target=_top>The Doctrine of Sin</a> I pray that these few studies will be helpful as aids in helping you to understand the gravity of our situation and to at least help you to shift your perspective from a list oriented view of sin. It was hard for me to change my perspective at first also, having been brought up attending SDA churches, but never becoming a believer while attedning. Once your perspective begins to change, you might want to tackle <a href="http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=2521" target=_top>Religion or Salvation</a>, works oriented systems can easily lead one astray. Last thought for tonight, don't take my word, or any of the study authors word, but discover for yourself, that's if you still have an open mind:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:These Jews were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they eagerly received the message, examining the scriptures carefully every day to see if these things were so. Acts 17:11 NET<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>Peace (Message edited by pilgrim99 on May 31, 2009)

cadge · 05-31-09 11:51 pm

John, you don't have to stone your son to death, just beat him. "Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from hell.Prov.23:13,14 I wonder how the anabaptists handled that one. I mean, you can't ban or excommunicate your kid, can you? I have wondered if when Jesus said "Moses said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, 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" that by the same spirit the rod would also be discontinued and a more compassionate way would be administered for the rearing of children. After all, Jesus said that for anyone who would do harm to any of these little ones, it would be better for them that if they had a millstone tied around their neck and be cast into the sea.

john8verse32 · 06-01-09 8:25 am

Wow,David...do you mean to suggest that God's standards, for how sin is determined, and especially for punishment, these may have changed since Moses herded goats? and that therefore some of the rules for "sin" may also have changed? <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/14/1366.gif" alt=""> I wish I had known that sooner - maybe could have avoided the divorce. She never did like being told she was unclean and commanded to leave camp for one week every month. And when I told her that God had OK'd getting another wife??? and I had already picked one out? <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/messages/14/1367.gif" alt=""> talk about rebellion!!! I was told that submissive commandment no longer applied, and no matter how loudly I proclaimed in the town square... "IdivorceyouIdivorceyouIdivorceyou", it still took a shyster, a court order, and a lot of goats to solve the problem. maybe our silicon era has changed since the stone-bronze-iron age....and we may need new interpretations of the old rules to live by.... if not an entirely new set of rules.

neal · 06-01-09 9:17 am

Devon You and I arrive at our decisions about what is right and wrong using the same method. You just go through many more steps. You, personally, decide what you think is the most likely desire of your god after consulting a book containing many contradictions and laws which you have decided are obsolete. Then you take into account civilization's current level of tolerance for things which are forbidden in your book. Then you have to decide whether to break current law in order to keep the laws from 2000 years ago. Then you reach a conclusion. You do not follow the Bible. You follow your own interpretations and rationalizations including those of Paul. As Paul contradicted himself, you end up jumping through a bunch of hoops and then can't be 100% certain that your conclusion is even correct. Its still YOUR personal conclusion. God, via Jeremiah, said that after the exile He would write His laws in the hearts of people. No man would go tell another man what is right or wrong because they would all know it in their heart. I know what's right and wrong in my heart. You do too. You just go through a lot of steps in order to justify what you already know. (Message edited by neal on June 01, 2009)

pilgrim99 · 06-01-09 8:40 pm

Neal, Thank you for taking the time to respond. Please feel free to examine the articles at the links that I posted for John. You too seem to have a list based concept of sin.

don · 06-02-09 6:45 am

<a href="http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah/messianic_claimants05.html" target="_blank">Messianic claimants (6) - Jesus of Nazareth (30 CE)</a> It may seem strange that someone who believes in the whole Gospel story found in the NT Canon to publish this example of textual criticism. I present this material only as an example of how "secular" scholars who acknowledge the historical Jesus deal with the written accounts; as food for discussion. <blockquote>Sources: Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Luke, Gospel of John, Epistles of Paul and comparable letters; Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.63-64; Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a-b. Comment: It is certain that Jesus was, at some stage, called the Messiah. The statement of the gospels is confirmed by Flavius Josephus, who writes:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of the people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out. [Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 18.63-64]<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> It should be stressed that this is a reconstruction of Josephus' words; our manuscripts are full of interpolations. (Go here for a discussion of the exact wording of this text.) The historical fact that Jesus was called Messiah, lies hidden in the words 'the tribe of Christians, named after him'; Josephus uses the Greek word Christos to translate Messiah. It needs to be stressed that he uses this title only for Jesus of Nazareth. A parallel can be found in the following line: <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:[The Roman governor] Festus was now dead, and [his successor] Albinus was still upon the road. So [the high priest] Ananus assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of that Jesus who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some of his companions. And when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned. [Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 20.200]<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> Again, we see how Flavius Josephus has no objection to call Jesus 'the Messiah'. There remain three important questions, however. In the first place, we want to know when Jesus earned the title. It may be argued that this was a later invention, after Jesus' death and the experience of his resurrection. To solve this problem, we must find out which elements in the gospels are early Christian elaborations and which elements are historically accurate. The second problem is therefore how we separate the authentic from the inauthentic. As we will see below, there are very strong indications that Jesus was considered the Messiah before he died. The third and most important question is in what sense he was called the Messiah - as a military leader? as a Moses-like teacher? Scholars usually solve the second question by invoking 'criteria of authenticity', such as embarrassment (some things are too embarrassing for Christians to be invented) and multiple attestation (when independent sources tell the same, it is likely to be authentic). Using criteria like these, we may conclude that many stories about Jesus are late fabrications. The famous story from Matthew about the visit of the Magi is likely to be an invention :<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.' When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where the Messiah should be born. And they said unto him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come a governor, that shall rule My people Israel.' [Matthew 2.1-6, quoting a variant reading of Micah 5.1]<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> The story, which uses the messianic motive of the star (i.e., Balaam's prophecy), is neither confirmed by other sources nor embarrassing, and seems to be a later addition. The following stories from the gospels, however, can stand the test of literary criticism, and prove that Jesus was seen as the Messiah. <ul><li>Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to the cross as king of the Jews (multiple attestation; embarrassment). The word 'king', which may be a translation of the messianic title Nasi, can be used as a synonym for 'Messiah', as we can observe in the quote from Matthew above. <LI>Too many messianic titles are applied to Jesus to be incidental. In several contexts, he is called son of David, son of man, and king. <LI>Jesus was -in a way- anointed at Bethany (multiple attestation: Mark 14.3-9 and John 12.1-9). <LI>Elements of Jesus behavior are in line with what was expected from the Messiah: he explained the Law of Moses (multiple attestation) and was able to cast out demons (multiple attestation, in one case embarrassment). <LI>Jesus wanted to restore Israel - the Messiah's core activity. He did not want his disciples to go to the pagans, but urged them to look 'for the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (Matthew 10.5 and 18.11-14). This is in marked contrast with the first Christians' missionary activity among the pagans and cannot be invented. <LI>Jesus regarded his own ministry as the inauguration of the 'kingdom of God' (several stories, all attested in several sources; to a certain extent, these stories are embarrassing, because God did not intervene in human history). <LI>Jesus wanted to purify the Temple (multiple attestation; embarrassment), which the Messiah was expected to do. The two most important stories are Jesus' triumphal entry in Jerusalem (Mark 11.4-11; John 12.12-16) and his attempt to cleanse the sanctuary (Mark 11.15-18 and John 2.13-22). The fact that John places this story as far away from the crucifixion as possible, indicates embarrassment. <LI>It is remarkable that none of these messianic elements belongs to the 'military tradition'.</li></ul> The question 'Messiah - in what sense?' can only be answered in the same way as Josephus did: "Jesus was 'a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of the people who receive the truth with pleasure", someone who strove after a spiritual restoration of Israel. But these ideas about a national leader who would liberate the Jews from the Roman occupation can never have been far from the minds of Jesus' contemporaries, and we know that Pontius Pilate was sufficiently alarmed. When we read the stories about Jesus, we notice that his followers identify him as the Messiah, but that Jesus consistently responds ambivalently (e.g., Mark 8.27-30, John 7.26-31). This can be a literary device, but it can also be that there were elements in the fashionable messianologies that Jesus did not like. <a href="http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah/messianic_claimants05.html" target="_blank">http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah/messianic_cla imants05.html</a> </blockquote> .

neal · 06-02-09 9:08 am

You too seem to have a list based concept of sin. From one of your links: "Any attitude or action that holds the law of God in contempt is sin." And "The Bible is our source of true knowledge about sin; it is indeed a textbook on the subject. No one can read the Bible without realizing that the subject of sin is raised on almost every page." Your articles quote the 10 C's, then ask if the reader has ever broken one of them. If so, they have sinned. My thesis is that you personally decide what is sin, and if you do what you have personally decided is wrong, then you have sinned. However, your action of referring us to the writings of men in your links, or even the action of telling us we don't know what sin is, is to refute the explicit prophecy of Jeremiah that God would write his laws on our hearts and that men would no longer tell others what is right or wrong. That is the New Covenant. It was to be individual. Personal, in other words. Preachers getting up and telling the congregation what is right is to refute the prophecy of God. And, BTW, their definition of humanism is false. It has nothing to do with the idea that humans are basically good at heart. The nut christian with the fish symbol enclosing the word JESUS on the back of his car came to the conclusion that to allow Dr. Tiller to continue living, doing his legal job, would be a sin. Now other christians are supporting his terrorism. To support a moderate interpretation requires the tolerance of extremists. The killer himself:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:“Tiller is the concentration camp ‘Mengele’ of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation.”<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <blockquote><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02tiller.html" target=_top>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02tiller.html</a></blockquote> And <blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:Dave Leach, who runs an anti-abortion news letter to which the suspected George Tiller killer contributed, defends his actions. Scott Roeder (right, in custody) was a subscriber and contributor to Leach’s “Prayer and Action News.” Mr. Leach said he and Mr. Roeder had met once, and Mr. Roeder had described similar views to his own. Of Dr. Tiller’s death, Mr. Leach said, “To call this a crime is too simplistic,” adding, “There is Christian scripture that would support this.”<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <blockquote><a href="http://www.alan.com/2009/06/01/roder-defender-christian-scripturewould-support-this/" target=_top>http://www.alan.com/2009/06/01/roder-defender-chri stian-scripturewould-support-this/</a></blockquote> NOTE: The last sentence, which I emphasized, has been deleted from the NY Times story. I had to retrieve the quote from another source.

pilgrim99 · 06-02-09 10:39 am

Neal, Thanks again for taking time to comment. Perhaps you missed these definitions: 1. Iniquity 2. Rebellion (Transgression) 3. Sin ...The New Testament uses twelve basic words to describe sin. They are: Kakos, bad (Romans 13:3); poneros, evil (Matthew 5:45); asebes, godless (Romans 1:18); enochos, guilt (Matthew 5:21); hamartia, sin (I Corinthians 6:18); adikia, unrighteousness (I Corinthians 6:9); anomos, lawlessness (I Timothy 2:9); parabates, transgression (Romans 5:14); agnoein, to be ignorant (Romans 1:13); planan, to go astray (I Corinthians 6:9); paraptomai, to fall away (Galatians 6:1); and hupocrites, hypocrite (I Timothy 4:2). From the uses of these words several conclusions may also be drawn. (1) There is always a clear standard against which sin is committed. (2) Ultimately all sin is a positive rebellion against God and a transgression of His standards. (3) Evil may assume a variety of forms. (4) Man's responsibility is definite and clearly understood.... ...The word that is used most frequently is hamartia, missing the mark. It is the most comprehensive term for explaining sin. Paul used the verb hamartano when he wrote, For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). God has a high and holy standard of what is right, and so long as man follows the Divine standard he will see himself as he truly exists in God's eyes. The flat statement of the Almighty is that all men have fallen far short of God's required standard. It is the popular and common practice of men to create their own standards; however, God has established His standard of perfection for entry into Heaven, and all men have missed the mark as an archer's bow would fall to the ground because it fell short of its target... Do you acknowledge the existence of sin? If so. do you believe that there are there any consequences for our own personal sins?

neal · 06-02-09 11:10 am

Perhaps you missed these definitions: First, you can't get any more circular than defining sin as "sin". Second, I didn't miss anything as I read, completely, all of the links you posted. Third, if, as your referenced quote says, "There is always a clear standard against which sin is committed", what is the standard? Whether you want to call it a principle or law is just a matter of definition. Pride, envy, greed, lust, hate, etc are listed in the NT. Additionally, the reference states that God has a standard, or as Paul called it, a Mark or goal. In order to not sin I would assume you would need to know what a sin is? My conclusion is that you, personally, decide what actions are sinful to you based on reasoning and rationalization. A nonbeliever arrives at decisions using reason and rationalization (situational ethics). When a believer does what they think is contrary to that which they should have done they believe they have sinned and crawl on their knees begging for forgiveness and throw a sin offering in the plate per EGW. When a nonbeliever does what they think is contrary to that which they should have done they admit they made a mistake, say they are sorry if they hurt someone, and move on with their life. Do you acknowledge the existence of sin? That is a loaded question. You may as well ask me whether I acknowledge the existence of Santa Claus. I acknowledge that believers in the Abrahamic religions believe there is such a thing as sin just as I acknowledge that children believe in the existence of Santa Claus.

pilgrim99 · 06-02-09 11:24 am

Neal, Have yourself a wonderful day! We see things differently, and no one can be forced to believe what they don't want to.

neal · 06-02-09 11:26 am

Have yourself a wonderful day! You too!!

elaine · 06-02-09 1:17 pm

Don, you know, of course, that the term "messiah" means annointed one and was used for people: David, and other Hebrew kings. It was not exclusively used for Jesus, and "Christ" is a title, not a name. For centuries, the Jewish people had looked for someone to help them escape from their miserable existence, especially when dominated by foreign governments. The period between 200-BC to 200 A.D. was such a period as shown in the Macabeean revolt and Bar Kochba. Once the central place of their worship, the temple, was destroyed, they became dispersed, and the hold-outs all committed suicide at Masada. I am currently deep into the study of that period in history and the anthropological and cultural studies of that era as well as the apocalyptic and eschatological fervor that arises in the dominated people, which was the position of the Jews since that time. Writings of that period reflect that sentiment and should be read with that knowledge.

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