By the Numbers

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Is Bible Morality Really Moral?

                                                Is Bible Morality Really Moral?
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Let me be honest! Some events of the Bible make God appear unloving, unreasonable, cruel, even heartless.  But, do we understand their cultural historical context? Could we be unfairly imposing our ideals upon an ancient people? Let me first mention some Bible teachings to help us understand events from their biblical perspective. Then I will discuss some individual cases.
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Could there be some essential Bible teachings we're never considered?
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The Bible teaches God is the almighty standard.  God created the heavens and the earth and said everything He made was very good (Gen. 1:1, 31). Creation confers God authority to manage His property His way for His purposes. The Bible God is infinite and perfect in knowledge, wisdom, power, and love. This shows God alone is the absolute standard of truth and goodness (Gen. 1:1, Col. 1:16-17). Our opinions by comparison are limited, selfish, often mistaken, conflicting, and can be destructive (Col. 2:2-3, 8-9). But God's thoughts and ways are above ours; He knows the end from the beginning, so He is always right (Isaiah 46:9-10; 55:7-9). Further, the God who gives life, has the prerogative to take it according to His will and wisdom we may not understand.
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The Bible teaches God's good world is cursed and corrupted by our bad choices. God created us directly in His mental, moral, immortal image so we could fellowship with him and enjoy life together (Gen. 2:7; Matt. 19:4; Ephesians 4:24; James 3:9). Men and women are made in God's image bestowing on both the same dignity and respect (Gen. 2:27; Col. 3:10-11). That God made us for fellowship is shown by His visit, walk, and talk with our first parents (Gen. 3:8). But our first parents choose self over God in eating forbidden fruit that brought a cursed world of death, destruction, and separation from an ethically perfect God (Gen. 3, Rom. 8:20-22).
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The Bible teaches God made us for a love trust relationship with Him, but its our choice. God made us with free will to accept or reject Him and His way. Love cannot be forced which would destroy our freedom and dignity. God, however, preserves our freedom and dignity even to be wicked. Yes, we are influenced by our heredity, environment, God, and the devil, yet we still decide our own actions. And, we are always being tested whether we will choose our own way in our thoughts, desires, imaginings, words, and actions, or obey God instead.
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Now let's look at a few individual cases that might somehow seem unethical.

What about all the unfairness and miseries of life? We can't blame God for the bad world we humans make. We may have a hard life. People won't treat us right. We're denied opportunities. So we can hate life, people, ourselves, and blame God for it all. But God didn't do it, we do.  Our pity and hate doesn't make things better, only makes us bitter.  God promises that when we trust Him that in His time and way He will work things out for our good, and that our present sufferings are nothing to compare with the glory with Him in eternity (Romans 8:18, 28). 
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What about our suffering for the sin of our first parents? We inherit characteristics from our parents and sin somehow corrupted human nature. Their partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was all humanity's choice of a world that is both good and evil motivated by the devil and his demons. A sovereign God knew and allowed it because only then will His true people one day realize there's no other way we can fully know and appreciate the forgiveness, love, mercy, grace, patience, and wisdom of God's glory. When we see Jesus our redeemer, we'll know and understand (1 Cor. 13:12).
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What about God hardening our heart and blinding our minds? Yes, the Bible does speak of God hardening hearts and blinding minds. This refers to the experiences of life God brings upon us to test our obedience. Our inner attitude decides how we will act. In good experiences we may thank, praise and worship God, or feel things being alright we don't need God or fear judgment. In bad times we may think that's God's judgment and repent, or harden our hearts and rebel all the more. In Bible times when God sent prophets and performed miracles people could respond either way depending on whether they wanted self  glory, or God's glory (Isa. 6:9-10; Acts 28:26-27). The sun that melts the wax hardens the clay.
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What about an eternal tormenting Hell? Countries and peoples everywhere put incorrigible persons who want to hurt and destroy away to themselves as punishment. God, being perfect and Heaven being His perfect home, cannot allow evil of any kind to corrupt Heaven ( 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Rev. 21:27). Love is justice in a societal context. God seeks our attention is various ways--intelligent design in nature, our conscience, learn from mistakes, His messengers, and His Holy Spirit (John 16:8-11). Jesus in love gave His life to pay for our sins and we will one day stand before Him to receive reward for service or punishment for rejection. Now is the day of salvation and before the all-knowing God, we have no excuse. For our sins, we all need redemption. Persons in the Old Testament looked forward to the redeemer's coming (Gen. 3:15; Heb. 11),  we after Christ look back to His cross (John 1:1-2, 14; Gal. 4:4; Heb. 1:1-3).
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Perhaps my friend, you have never quite understood Bible teaching and had a hard life without hope. There is hope, but it's found only in the sinless Son of God who died to pay for our sins. We can be forgiven and free of condemnation in trusting commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Savior of individuals and nations who willingly trust in Him. We can have treasures in Heaven for our earthly service, or torments away alone from everything beautiful and good in life. It's Your choice. I pray U choose Jesus and tell others about Him sharing these articles.
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See other articles below & on the right side.
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Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Is the Christian Bible Believable?

                                        Is the Christian Bible Believable?

So many holy books exist, each claimed as the authority for world religion--Book of Mormon, Qur'an, Vedas, New World Translation, Spiritualist Manual--to mention only a few. So isn't authority for any holy book just narrow-minded arrogance? How can we even be certain about past events? What about all the different translations and interpretations? Can we know they are anything more than human opinions or guesses? It all seems incredible! I can't answer every question that arises, but with respect to the above will you give my answers fair consideration? Thank you and I hope I'm helpful.
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Events Accurately Recorded Are True Millenniums Later. If you accurately listed and discussed the events in your day, wouldn't they be true millenniums later? If others observing you from their perspective added more details, wouldn't supplementary facts form an even clearer picture?  We don't have to know everything to know some things. In case of the Bible, many eyewitnesses claimed true events. The prophets and apostles who predicted judgement on hostile evil rulers risked their lives. Many persons knew Jesus was tried, crucified, and then 500 eyewitnesses later saw Him alive as He predicted. Hostile skeptical writers record events of Jesus' life and mention that he was believed to be God and risen from the dead. There is nothing like this in other religious holy books.
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Humans Naturally Use Figurative Speech to Communicate. History, prose, poetry, metaphors are commonly used to communicate in human languages. Understanding requires we acknowledge the type of literature represented. Spiritual darkness means moral evil and ignorance. Washed in the blood means we're saved by Jesus' death on the cross. He was made sin for us says Jesus in love took our place to pay for our sin. Only begotten refers to Jesus as the unique sinless God-man. The  soul can stand for a person, or spiritual part of a person. Jesus as the door speaks of His being the only way into God's perfect Heaven.
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Biblical Events Are Not the Character of Myths. Myths speak of freakish imaginative things said to exist long ago in inaccessible places. For example, Cupid's arrows, Thor's lightening bolts, Poseidon's rising from the sea to blow the winds, moving statues. Medusa's hair of snakes. But Bible miracles are signs traced on a historical time line with consequences evident to persons seeing them. Persons, places, and events known to secular history as well as failures of Bible characters all verify the Bible is reliable and true. Unlike freakish myths, Bible miracles are events that are normal within nature such as water becoming wine, the blind gaining sight, skin diseases healed, food multiplied. All show God's grace, power, authority, and Lordship over nature.
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Many Translations Are Necessary Because Languages Are Always Changing. No translation is perfect as single words can have several meanings. To believe in Jesus means to trust in, rely upon, depend on, and commit to Him. Translators may can't convey the complete meaning. Further, language is always changing so new translations are needed every generation and for every language group.  Meaning of words and ways of expressing them change. New words come into being and old words lose or change their meaning. And yes, translators and readers can be bias. Though scholarship improves, we may feel reluctant to use a newer or unfamiliar translation that may be even better.
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Understand that new translations are not made from old translations. The Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek, so translations are made from those manuscripts.  Scripture writers believing they were conveying God's Word, were extremely careful counting the letters across the page and the lines down. They would discard a manuscript if they found any mistakes. Now, unlike other ancient accepted classic writings with few copies dated centuries later, Bible manuscripts number in the thousands and are dated only decades after publication. When scholars lay these manuscripts side by side, it's easy to correct  misspellings, word omissions, and word repeats which mistakes we all make. That is why Bible translations are known to be the most accurate of any ancient documents.The New Testament is estimated to be as high as 99% accurate.
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Many Interpretations Arise Because We Humans Have Diverse Backgrounds, Likes, and Beliefs We Don't Like to Give Up. We are all naturally influenced by our age, culture, family, and religious background. It's easier to believe or accept some teachings over others. Our teachers may emphasize some teachings and ignore others. Human sinful nature too can lead us toward legalism--a rigid do or don't behavior system, or one that almost any behavior is O.K. Some Bible passages aren't clear, or their meaning is lost to our culture. The real problem may be that we simply don't want God to tell us what to do and look for an excuse! Could that be true with you?
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The Christian Bible Gives Good Evidences of a Creator Who Has Spoken to Us in Ways We Can Recognize or Understand. Jesus could read minds of persons he just met. Although he dared challenge hostile critics to find sin and fault in him, they could not. He fulfilled detailed centuries earlier predictions of the Jews Messiah. He showed himself Lord over natures forces, angels, demons, disease and death, all the while claiming to be God who walked among us. Absolutely no other religious prophet, wise man, or holy book, gives evidence of one who could do such things and claim to be God, but Jesus did in New Testament history.
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Jesus alone is our Light and Life out of  darkness. He promises us an eternally fulfilled life--John 5:24; 10:10. Such clear evidences show the Bible is God's Word, and Jesus is our only Savior. Astonishing visible evidences are necessary to get our attention, eliminate human guesses and excuses, and to show us a real God acts in our real world and in our human lives.
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Will U Acknowledge the only Savior of Your Soul? Though without sin, Jesus paid for our sin by His death on the cross. By trusting in Him we will be made clean, counted righteous in Him, receive eternal life to one day live in His sin free Heaven in a complete and fulfilled life. Won't you now commit to Him. Say, Lord, I trust You now and forever to be with me, and guide my steps until I go to be with You.  Thank You most holy, just, good, and loving Lord.
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