Tag: christianity

On the Problem of Evil

So a while ago, I had an opportunity to share with my boss something of what I know about the book of Genesis. And I mentioned satan and my boss asked me where satan came from; I answered that the angels were created on the fourth day of creation with the other celestial bodies. Then my boss asked me the hard question: why did God allow satan to exist.

My answer, to some extent, was this: Satan’s rebellion impacted the angelic host in such a profound way that one third of the hosts of heaven joined with him. God knew this and so chose not to annihilate satan on the spot, or else be accused of tyranny and so perpetuate the rebellion in heaven. Rather He let satan live for a space and a season, until the depth of the evil of satan’s rebellion was made manifest.

Of course God made the freedom of choice for mankind simple: don’t eat fruit from one tree. But satan perniciously brought about the deception: yet God, in the infinite depths of time, had prepared for this (and every) opportunity, which is where the incarnation of Jeshua and the plan of salvation came into play.

Who Is the Good News For Anyway?

One of the hot topics of discussion within the Christian church is concerning the nebulous concept of “the Law”. A lot of well-meaning people hold that “the Law” does not apply to Christians who are under the new covenant and therefore none of its precepts need be applied to Christians.

While this won’t be changing any minds, this post will highlight some concepts to consider in this lengthy discussion.

First, let us define what “the Law” is. According to Jewish tradition, there were seven laws passed down by Noah to his descendants. We can assume that he learned these laws from his grandfather Methuselah, who learned them from his father Enoch, who preached prior to his translation. What do those laws of the Noachide Covenant say?

  1. Thou shalt not worship graven images
  2. Thou shalt not curse the name of God
  3. Thou shalt establish courts of justice
  4. Thou shalt not kill
  5. Thou shalt not commit adultery
  6. Thou shalt not steal
  7. Thou shalt not eat the flesh torn from a living animal

Some of these might seem very familiar, others might be new to you. For this reason, let us assume that these laws are not considered part of “the Law” that most people shun like the plague. After all, Jeshua reiterated most of those precepts to the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:17-19), so they have to be still valid, right?

Now let’s look at another one that might trigger all of you: the Decalogue, the Big X itself, given twice by God to Moses on Mount Sinai in the 16th or 15th century before the incarnation of our LORD (date uncertain).

The Ten Commandments are considered by many to be “the Law” which is being addressed throughout the New Testament as “being abolished” and which they don’t wish to recognize. I’ve even seen depictions of the tablets of stone where a big crack goes across one commandment in particular while all the others are unmarred and whole. In brief, let us reiterate what the Decalogue says (read it in full in Exodus 20):

  1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
  2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
  3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain
  4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
  5. Honor thy father and thy mother
  6. Thou shalt not kill
  7. Thou shalt not commit adultery 
  8. Thou shalt not steal 
  9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
  10. Thou shalt not covet…any thing that is thy neighbor’s.

Now for most people, there isn’t anything objectively wrong with these (although leftists take issue with the First Commandment and Catholics outright removed the Second Commandment from their version of the Ten Commandments, as it would have condemned their image worship [they split the Tenth Commandment’s second precept of “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” off into a separate one to make up the difference]). The latter six is considered to be “applicable”, while, as stated before, there is debate on the first four. But there should be no debate whatsoever. In the preface to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10), the lawyer reiterates to Jeshua what “the greatest commandment” is, which many have used as a defense for dismissing the entirety of the Ten Commandments. But what exactly was said? Let us see:

And he answering said,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy
neighbor as thyself.

In other parts of the Gospel, this answer is given when Jeshua asks “what is the greatest commandment”, to which He adds the last part. But this is no new concept. Moses, who received the full Law (more on that later) from God, delivers the details on this “new” commandment. The first is the Shema Yisrael, found in the Book of Deuteronomy:

Hear O Israel, Jehovah Our God is One; and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might (paraphrased from Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

And the other, the “commandment that is like the first”, in Leviticus 19:18:

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

What we see here is that the “greatest commandment” is nothing new. It has always been there from the time when “the Law” was passed down to Moses by God. A little bit of reading comprehension goes a long way as well. If you step back and look at each of the Ten Commandments, you will begin to notice something: the first four all have to deal with man’s relationship with God (“And thou shalt love the LORD thy God…”), while the latter six have to deal with man’s relationship with his fellow man (“But thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”).

Therefore, the “greatest commandment” is nothing more than a brief summary of the Ten Commandments (a ‘too lazy:don’t read’ version, if you will).

Another thing which is often referred to when “the Law” is brought up is, of course, the 613 Levitical Laws. With a few exceptions in the Book of Numbers, this “Law” makes up the entirety of the books of Moses (especially Leviticus). Surely God was thorough when He gave these laws to Moses. The specifics of them can be found in Leviticus, ranging from day-to-day activities to yearly festivals. As listing them all would be verbose indeed, I refer you to the Book of Leviticus for further reading.

Many of the Levitical laws are controversial in the modern progressivist world. They view love as a social construct to be deconstructed at will, and therefore find the idea of celibacy prior to marriage repugnant, as well as avoiding single parenthood, sodomy, and bestiality. Despite what you may have heard from liberal lobbyists or atheists with an axe to grind, the Levitical Laws do not promote or allow rape or incest: to the contrary, Jewish tradition holds that the Israelites balked at the Law of Moses for many reasons, among them the prohibition on incest, which they had heretofore practiced.

As for rape, the Levitical Law is actually rather clear: it uses the context of a woman being assaulted “in a field” or “in the city” as a pretext for the case. Now this may seem silly to us, but the idea being that if a woman is being assaulted, she will cry out for herself: if she does so outside the city and therefore cannot be heard and helped, the Levitical Law rules in favor of the woman. In the context of the city, it is assumed that she did not cry out during the crime, and therefore is charged (the Levitical Law protects the woman from assault in the one case, and the man from false accusation in the other). As for the oft-misquoted Law of ‘if a man takes a woman and lies with her, she must marry him’, this must be viewed in the proper context. In a world without government handouts, one lived or died on their own strength and hard-work: being unable to work was a financial burden not only to the family but to the rest of the community. In this light, the Law is not talking about sexual assault (read the above), but the practice of “bang and go”, where a man lies with a woman, she conceives, and then he leaves without providing for and supporting her and her child.

This has been a brief overview of the Levitical Laws.

Now for the two of you still reading along, let’s get down to the meat of our argument. Does this apply to us at all as Christians? Well, for many, the answer is no. They claim that these laws – all of them – apply only to the Jewish people, or quote that passage in Timothy (?) about rules and oblations being “nailed to the cross.” But let’s examine each argument in turn.

The Levitical Law covers quite a bit, not just moral decisions. Like we’ve demonstrated, “love your neighbor as yourself” came from the Levitical Law first, from God’s lips to Moses’ ears. Does this apply only to the Jews, the concept of loving your neighbor? Moreover, the animal sacrifice ordinances are a key part of the Levitical Law. To the Christian, Jeshua fulfilled those when He became “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” But even this statement by John the Baptist implies that His sacrifice is not merely for the Jews but for the world: therefore the Law must have applied to the world and not merely the Jewish people. But if it only applied to the Jewish people, then is not the Gospel, the good news of Jeshua, only for the Jews? One might consider this absurd from all that has happened since then, but for several years after Jeshua’s ascension, the good news was preached exclusively to the Jews until Peter met with the Roman centurion Cornelius (see Acts 10).

Furthermore, there are several instances in the New Testament which put law-keeping in a regarded position. Jeshua Himself says that “if you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15), that “if you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love” (John 15:10), and John also says “blessed are they that do His commandments” (Revelation 22:14). For a Christian to say that the Law does not apply to the Christian faith is to live in ignorance to the Bible.

Why You’re Wrong About Mark 7:19

A lot of protestant Christians who are slaves to their tastes rather than to the Word of God will argue up and down that Christ abolished the restrictions on food in the Bible, even though there is no evidence of such. These people will use the NIV Bible (aka. the “Not-quite-so Inspired Version”) with its little addendum in Mark 7:19 as “proof” of their extra-biblical doctrine.

Except you’re wrong.

The severe dearth of education in the English language is the reason that Early Modern English is considered “too difficult” to read, when in fact it was the street language of the day. The King James Bible, and its predecessor the Tyndale Bible (from which the KJV copied between 80 and 90% of its English translation – keep in mind that this predates the concept of plagiarism), were written in Early Modern English, the street language of the common folk (as an aside, I think it’s hilarious that having ‘an’ before a noun that begins with ‘h’ started with Early Modern English because in the original pronunciation the ‘h’ was dropped – like Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady – and yet people assume it’s “noble” and “illustrious” speak).

As Tyndale actively sought out the older Greek manuscripts for his translation of the New Testament, the fact that the KJV borrows so much from his translation means that it is the closest existing English translation to the Greek manuscripts. This offers great insight into what has happened with these modern translations.

Having done a summary cross-examination of the KJV and Tyndale (as well as Wycliffe’s English translation of the Vulgate), what we find of the “proof” verse is actually a modern misunderstanding of a Greek word.

Here it is in Early Modern English, the English of the common folk:

Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats? 

And now, to put it in smaller words, here is what Jeshua is talking about: in short, when you eat the food you eat goes into the place where the food goes when you eat, and then comes out the other end.

Crudity aside, the issue at stake here is the word “purging.” The NIV uses the word “purifying”, though scholars admit that “purging” works better in this context. But when you change the word to “purifying”, it sounds like Christ has “purified all foods”, when in fact that is not the case whatsoever. Though they sound very similar, there is a marked difference between “purge” and “purify.”

Purify has positive intonations, the idea of purification, of removing the impurities and restoring the object to its pure and elevated status; in contrast, purge is a more aggressive word, forcing out the bad element with violent vigor.

You might not think this is the case here, but look at the context! Jeshua is talking about bowel movements: is the excrement that is purged from a bowel movement – ie, that which “goeth out into the draught” – purified and clean to eat? Of course not! Only a deviant would think such things!

The unfortunate truth is that Jeshua’s mother was Jewish. He submitted Himself to the Law that He gave to His people, and poured His blood upon the Ark of the Covenant when He was crucified in fulfillment of that very Law. There is little evidence of what He ate, except for a passage in Luke about broiled fish and honeycomb; but knowing that this is 1st century Israel, it is highly likely – nay, in fact certain – that the fish was “kosher”.

God, who created all creatures, knew precisely which ones would not produce healthy food for His post-flood people (in fact, that is the reason why clean animals came into Noah’s Ark in sevens: Darren Aronofsky doesn’t have a clue). God never speaks anything only for the sake of hearing His own voice. If He says something, it’s a good guess that He has good reason for saying it. Rather than balk at His Word (ironic that people decry the laws of clean food as being “for the Jews” when, according to the Old Testament, the Jews were ready to bolt and run from Jehovah’s Word at a moment’s notice), we should be ready to deny ourselves the flesh-pots of Egypt no matter how they may excite our tastes.

I want to ask the Christians on this accursed website if they knew just what kind of negative impact they have when they say negative and exclusive things about people like me. That you’ve done nothing to show the image of Christ, but the image of yourselves and of my father.

But the truth is that you all know: you know that your words hurt people like me, that they make me feel left out, excluded, like God doesn’t love me. The truth is that you don’t care, because you want to hurt people like me

My Spiritual Conundrum

The Seventh-Day Adventist church is fast being invaded by liberal ideologies. On that side, which is quite populous, we have “Christians” who are a lot like you tumblr Christians: they don’t believe the Bible is the Word of God, they bring up Jeshua’s race as a reminder that “Christ doesn’t belong to you white people”, and believe that being a Christian is synonymous with being a social justice warrior. Aside from this, they have forsaken all the tenets of the SDA church, save for the Sabbath – which they keep out of tradition more than anything else.

On the other side, you have the Bible-believing right-leaning minority of the SDA church. They practice the health message, they preach the Spirit of Prophecy, will quote Ellen White before rob bell, rick warren, joel osteen or ghandi; they practice what they preach and their lives reflect the closeness to God which they possess. However, even these people are not without error: some are Judaizers, who believe that Christ did not come for “those gentiles”, which is against Scripture. Others are so far on the other side that they take Paul’s distinction between the Old and New covenants as an excuse for antisemitism. Others believe ridiculous things, like the flat earth conspiracy or the heresies of Arius. The latter are willing to cut apart Scripture to pick and choose which verses are “the Word of God” and which verses are “man’s additions”, which in turn make Jeshua Himself a liar.

Being rather right-centered myself, i am inclined that way, were it not for their disregard of Scripture (ironic considering their otherwise high regard of it as God’s Word). On the left, i see only hate and exclusion, and affirmation of my own doubts and fears about my salvation.

But there is no middle road. To abandon both and strike it on my own would be to violate Hebrews 10:25, and to invite sin and temptation to thrive in my life. And there is no possibility for Christian fellowship with a square inch of pixels.

in defense of the Bible

you wanna know why i don’t put any stock in new and “truer” Bible translations? because they butcher the verses to mean something completely different, and then have the gall to say that this is “the true meaning” or that “it doesn’t really change anything.”

example: John 5:39. a lot of the modern versions give Jeshua a particularly nasty tone of disrespect in regards to the Scriptures. and i have seen this verse wielded by those christians who don’t believe in the Bible (!) against those who do believe in the Bible (again, ridiculous!). aside from the irony of using the Bible as a defense for not believing in the Bible, in order to attack those who do believe in the Bible (which is why christians who don’t believe in the Bible are bad atheists, even as sunday-worshiping Protestants are bad catholics: even their own bishops have said these words), the meaning of the message is lost in these new translations.

Jeshua is not mocking the Scriptures. He had already stated that, contrary to what a lot of sunday-keeping Protestants may believe, He did not come to unmake the Torah or the words of the Prophets, but to fulfill them (a failing of modern christians is to misinterpret “fulfill” as “destroy” or “do away with.” it actually means “realized.” like when a craftsman completes his work, the original material is still there, it has not been destroyed or done away with, it has only been used to bring the vision of the craftsman into realization). remember the two times (at least two) when He was asked what was the greatest commandment? what He answered was straight from the words of Moses, which are themselves a summary of the Ten Commandments (ie, “on these hang the Law and the prophets”). remember when He set up the Pharisees to condemn themselves with the parable of the vineyard and the evil workers who killed the owner’s son? that was a reiteration of a similar parable told by Isaiah, which He did not do away with or destroy by the retelling, but brought it into clarity and realization, and in doing so caused the Pharisees to condemn themselves (even as we humans are the most zealously and vehemently merciless against those sins which we ourselves are subjected to).

so what is He saying in John 5:39? He is reminding them of the truth. the Pharisees really had no excuses for their behavior towards Him. as masters of the Torah (their name even means ‘separated ones’, in that the Pharisees segregated themselves from the common rabble in order to be “purer”), they should have known and recognized the coming of the Messiah. Jeshua is reminding them of this truth when He tells them to “search the Scriptures for yourselves.” it is not an indictment of the Scriptures, but of those who ignore the Scriptures