The better question to ask is; "anybody listening".
Yes, it is.
Peace to you!
tammy
After 2000 years since JC was executed ,why have we heard not a whisper from GOD ALMIGHTY ?
by smiddy 268 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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tec
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xchange
So god is pinging us but we all have a system malfunction...systems not nominal?
edit: spelling, grammar etc etc.
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adamah
Tammy, I want to get back to that moral scenario:
Tammy is told by Jesus that she needs to kill a person as an act of "the greatest love" for them (preventing them from committing a great sin that triggers further bloodshed, even a war), AND for the greatest love of others, since the person is planning to self-detonate on a bus loaded with 100 small innocent children. You can prevent this horrible event by killing the person just moments before they board the bus thus preventing major bloodshed, and placing the issue of whether to resurrect the person into God's hands.
So, what do you do? Whatever you call it (FAITH, etc) do you follow Jesus' ORDERS (as any good Christian is expected to do in similar circumstances)? Or do you insist that Jesus pick someone else to do his work, since your FAITH is all about what he does for YOU, and your faith in him just ain't all that real?
He doesn't ask things like that of us... though this is a scenario taken right out of one of those 'moral dilemma' thingies ; )
I must be a minor prophet: I predicted waffles, and we SEE visible evidence of waffles falling from the sky!
Please, Tammy. Do I look like I was born yesterday? You say "Jesus doesn't do things like that", and you can manage to keep a straight face? Do you REALLY BELIEVE everyone on JWN is that ignorant of the Bible accounts, and wouldn't KNOW better? Is that the same Jesus who claimed to be a chip off the ol' block, saying "if you know the son, you know the Father"?
I'm strongly leaning towards suspecting that you must have a bad case of "Torahamnesia", a highly-contagious condition amongst Christians who conveniently forget ALL ABOUT the immoral actions ORDERED by their God in the OT.
I'm sure that tactic was used by religious leaders though... in getting people to go and fight and kill in the name of God and Christ, in order to save lives from murderers.
Yeah, religious leaders like the worshipers of Jehovah, eg Moses.
Have you forgotten about the MANY instances in the OT where a "loving" Jehovah ORDERED the MURDER of individuals and groups of people, eg Moses cursing Egyptian first-born males, withdrawing his staff over the Red Sea to drown Pharoah and his troops who were chasing the Israelites to MURDER them?
Are you forgetting about all the Israelites KILLED by Moses, after God directed Moses to KILL the people for falling back into the horrific and brutal practice of worshiping a false god? Or the genocidal military campaigns commanded by Joshua to kill hundreds of thousands of Caananites, military and civilian (including infants) casualities alike? David killing Goliath? etc?
This is getting rather tiresome, with you denying your OWN Bible accounts! Are you SURE you're not still a JW?
But we are not to pass judgment on others. That would be passing judgment.
No, of course not. Just like Moses passed judgment on those Israelites who built the golden calf, or those killed by Joshua who dared to live in a land that God had promised to Abraham (when the Caananites couldn't have POSSIBLY known about Abraham, with their ancestors being the indigenous people who lived there for 1,000 of years BEFORE the illegal aliens entered and tried to kill them).
Are you missing the POINT that Jesus already HAD passed judgment on the individual I mentioned in the moral exercise, and HAD directed you to KILL THEM?
(a greater act of love for that person would be to try and talk them out of it, or perhaps report it to those who could stop him beforehand, btw; detaining the guy, jumping on him and giving your own life, etc... not kill him/her; to warn him and others, and if no one heeded that warning, then that is on them... and the man who did the killing; and before you say, well there is no time for that; well, that is not a realistic scenario... none of these moral dilemma tests ever are)
Love has no greater act than this: that one lay down one's own life for another.
So your scenario could not BE the greatest act of love, could it? That has already been done, and Christ did not kill anyone. He can't command that we follow Him... and then tell us to do something that is against what He did and taught.
What a SHAME God didn't pick YOU as his military commander of the Israelites! You could've prevented a bunch of needless bloodshed, taken a non-violent approach! As their military commander, you'd have ordered God's troops to turn the other cheek?
OK, Let's try it again, noticing that I slightly modified the scenario to overcome your objections:
You are COMMANDED by Jesus (you ARE his slave, after all, right? Isn't that what you claim?) to prevent an act of violence that potentially would kill the suicide bomber AND many others, since the bomber is planning to self-detonate on a bus loaded with 100 innocent children. You are ordered to prevent this horrific event by TACKLING THE BOMBER just moments before they board the bus, potentially killing yourself, but leaving everyone else ALIVE, INCLUDING the would-be suicide bomber.
Yes, you MAY die, but you WILL prevent major bloodshed, and having the FAITH that if you should die, the decision of whether you earn resurrection as your reward is placed into God's hands. By engaging in this act, YOU are following Jesus' greatest command: "Love has no greater act than this: that one lay down one's own life for another".
So, what do you do? Do you follow Jesus' ORDERS on FAITH that God will provide? Or do you hem-haw, ask a bunch of other questions, and insist that Jesus pick someone else for the task, since your FAITH is all about what Jesus does for YOU (how it makes you FEEL) doesn't include actually taking any kind of action on your part ("faith without works is dead", and all that)?
Adam
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tec
Please, Tammy. Do I look like I was born yesterday? You say "Jesus doesn't do things like that", and you can manage to keep a straight face? Do you REALLY BELIEVE everyone on JWN is that ignorant of the Bible accounts, and wouldn't KNOW better? Is that the same Jesus who claimed to be a chip off the ol' block, saying "if you know the son, you know the Father"?
I'm strongly leaning towards suspecting that you must have a bad case of "Torahamnesia", a highly-contagious condition amongst Christians who conveniently forget ALL ABOUT the immoral actions ORDERED by their God in the OT.
Note, that Christ says "If you know the SON, you know the Father."
He does not say, "If you know the God of the OT, you know the Father." OR "If you know the OT(Torah), you know the Father." Or even, "If you know God, you know the Son" (because no one knows the Father except the Son, and those the Son chooses to reveal Him to)
But rather He says, "If you know the SON."
What you are doing is what many do... and that is looking at this backward.
If all that was required to know God, was the OT, or the Israelites claims about God 'as written'; then what need for the Truth to come to them? If they HAD the Truth and/or needed only to look to their scriptures to KNOW God (even though these scriptures have contradictions in them, and I am speaking solely of the OT in this instance); then why would they have been told to look at and listen to Christ: the ONLY Image, Word, Truth of God?
Yeah, religious leaders like the worshipers of Jehovah, eg Moses.
Have you forgotten about the MANY instances in the OT where a "loving" Jehovah ORDERED the MURDER of individuals and groups of people, eg Moses cursing Egyptian first-born males, withdrawing his staff over the Red Sea to drown Pharoah and his troops who were chasing the Israelites to MURDER them?
Are you forgetting about all the Israelites KILLED by Moses, after God directed Moses to KILL the people for falling back into the horrific and brutal practice of worshiping a false god? Or the genocidal military campaigns commanded by Joshua to kill hundreds of thousands of Caananites, military and civilian (including infants) casualities alike? David killing Goliath? etc?
This is getting rather tiresome, with you denying your OWN Bible accounts! Are you SURE you're not still a JW?
Just because something is written and attributed TO God, does not mean that He DID order such things. Those who thought He did might not have understood Him (or those who later wrote down accounts might not have understood (scribes), or they might only have understood in part; or there might also be translation issues then and today)
So we have the SON, to show us the Father... no one and nothing else.
Now protecting the Israelites against those who would murder them (such as the whole thing with the Egyptians) that is another matter, and one that STILL needs to be understood within the context of what Christ shows of His Father.
The whole thing with the Egyptians also provides us with some physical examples of how Christ (the blood of the lamb) protects those who put their faith in Him (as the Israelites DID by putting the blood of the lamb over their doorsteps, thereby protecting ALL in that household) against death.
But even in Revelation, those who ride out to destroy those who belong to Christ, and God (at armageddon, which comes AFTER the thousand years and not before), are themselves devoured by fire that comes down out of heaven... to PROTECT... those who belong to them; those they have promised to protect; those in covenant (the new covenant in Christ's blood) with them.
(devoured by fires, as opposed to being devoured by water, as is what happened to the Pharoah's men)
No, of course not. Just like Moses passed judgment on those Israelites who built the golden calf, or those killed by Joshua who dared to live in a land that God had promised to Abraham (when the Caananites couldn't have POSSIBLY known about Abraham, with their ancestors being the indigenous people who lived there for 1,000 of years BEFORE the illegal aliens entered and tried to kill them).
See above, again... though the land DID belong to the Israelites, who had to come to Egypt in order to survive during the famine; and were then enslaved while in Egypt.
Are you missing the POINT that Jesus already HAD passed judgment on the individual I mentioned in the moral exercise, and HAD directed you to KILL THEM?
I didn't miss that... but that is a fictional account, and a fictional representation of Christ. In truth, we are not to pass judgment, just as Christ did not pass judgment during His time here, in the flesh... not on anyone. Because anyone and everyone was invited to come to Him, and so to Life; and He asked FORGIVENESS and mercy for those who killed Him.
OK, Let's try it again, noticing that I slightly modified the scenario to overcome your objections:
You are COMMANDED by Jesus (you ARE his slave, after all, right? Isn't that what you claim?) to prevent an act of violence that potentially would kill the suicide bomber AND many others, since the bomber is planning to self-detonate on a bus loaded with 100 innocent children. You are ordered to prevent this horrific event by TACKLING THE BOMBER just moments before they board the bus, potentially killing yourself, but leaving everyone else ALIVE, INCLUDING the would-be suicide bomber.
Yes, you MAY die, but you WILL prevent major bloodshed, and having the FAITH that if you should die, the decision of whether you earn resurrection as your reward is placed into God's hands. By engaging in this act, YOU are following Jesus' greatest command: "Love has no greater act than this: that one lay down one's own life for another".
So, what do you do? Do you follow Jesus' ORDERS on FAITH that God will provide? Or do you hem-haw, ask a bunch of other questions, and insist that Jesus pick someone else for the task, since your FAITH is all about what Jesus does for YOU (how it makes you FEEL) doesn't include actually taking any kind of action on your part ("faith without works is dead", and all that)?
I still do not think He would ORDER me to do this... over showing me what was going to happen (in which case I could then ASK what He wanted me to do about it)
But in this scenario, I can go along with the 'what if' and say that yes, I would.
(as much as anyone can say what they WOULD do, before actually being faced with that situation; Christ knows what is in us more than we do... just as He knew that Peter would deny Him, though Peter was adamant that he would never do such a thing)
I imagine that you will STILL have something to criticize about that, lol. But there you are.
Peace to you,
tammy
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DeWandelaar
@Adamah... I am with you most of the time in many discussions since they make a lot of sense and are completely logical. However I must say that times have changed (like you also try to point out by letting our modern moral principles shine on the past episodes/stories of thousands of years ago). Slavery as we KNEW it back then is almost gone (though still around 27 million people are living as literal slaves)... however... in these modern times we are still in some OTHER ways slaves (even if you do not want to acknowledge it). Why? because debts make for a different relationship between humans: one becomes a "master" of the other untill the debt is payed off. (I know it is also a biblical phrase but in this case it makes a lot of sense).
A lot of slaves back in the old days became slaves because of debts... It is called Debt Bondage . they had debts they could not pay off and where therefore made slaves.
Wikipedia states about this type of slavery in Ancient Greece: The most onerous debt bondage was various forms of paramone, "indentured labor." As a matter of law, a person subjected toparamone was categorically free, and not a slave, but in practice his freedom was severely constrained by his servitude. [7] Solon's reforms occurred in the context of democratic politics at Athens that required clearer distinctions between "free" and "slave"; as a perverse consequence, chattel slavery increased. [8]
They came into dominion of other people. In our times it depends on the "taskmaster" you have debts to... if you have debts to the mafia (which I never advise! :D) and not able to pay back you would probably loose your life. You are literally a free man in that situation and yet you are not: not paying or doing stuff for them means death. Some other "taskmasters" are not that rigouriously... however... they make take everything away you previously owned: they might throw you out of your homes. Surely they were not slaves literaly but the outcome is, in modern way of seeing it, disastrous. Banks have thrown people on the streets, leaving them homeless. Lets be honest: the amount of debts people (and even complete countries) have is enormous. There are therefore many "slaves" in our time (not literally mind!). Slave means: UNFREE human. Freedom has a very brood meaning. Slavery also has a brood meaning these days. It is not all that black and white (litteraly :P) anymore.
One of the things that were typical for slaves was that they were OWNED... they had no own identity and did not own property. Now... can you really state that someone who has a shitload of debts really OWN's anything? That he is able to CHOOSE his own life? No... he isn't. So... litteraly he is NO slave but yet because of circumstances he is because he can not walk away from his problems (maybe not even caused by himself). Even children of someone who is in debt can be forced to pay off the debts of their parents or their (ex)spouse (in the situation their parents die)... this is even a law in some countries.
Now for the record: Am I stating that working for a boss is slavery? No I don't... I do not mean you are a slave of the "boss" you work for. What I DO say is that we are slaves of debtors who we owe money to. It is one of the reasons why we have to work our butts off: governments, banks etc etc etc all demand money to be able to "rule" or "regulate" a country. Disobedience leads to (legal) punishment. It is THEY we need to pay... the "boss" is giving us money for labour in order for us to pay off our debts. Please do not forget that for example governments can DEMAND money of us and can raise taxes without our consent and although we can object it most of the time does not help a bit. So as you see: although we have a choice most of us actually have not much of choice ;)
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adamah
Dewandelaar, I still say comparing God's endorsement of ownership of non-Jewish people to a modern-day "wage slave" (or to claim that debt to the Mafia (!) is valid: does it need to be pointed out that they'd BREAK THE LAW in order to murder someone? Mafia's practices are NOT endorsed by society) is a false equivalency.
Jesus seemingly didn't believe in fundamental human rights of slaves, eg freedom from torture (Jesus spoke of beating slaves), even the right to a fair trial before depriving slaves of their life (in the parable of faith wise servant, Jesus didn't blink an eye when he cited the right of a master being allowed to deprive his slave of his life for merely disobeying him). Heck, that concept is reflected in the idea of God destroying humans who refuse to be Jesus' slaves, for not hearing his voice.
Never-mind that the Bible doesn't contain any such high-minded concepts as freedom of speech, thought, conscience, religion, etc and the OTHER basic human rights you currently enjoy: of course, it often contains the OPPOSITE, but OF COURSE you wouldn't see a problem since you've always ENJOYED those rights and take them for granted, such that you don't even know what they are.
You cannot claim with a straight face that the Bible has ANYTHING close to the morality encapsulated in, eg the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights
Adam
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DeWandelaar
@Adamah ... true that ;) Human Rights can be totally turned down when "God" comes into play. That is one of the reasons I find it difficult to believe the bible can be seen as a moral guide (as well as other "holy books"). Have you als read some parts of the book of Jasher? Even though Jasher is called the "faithfull one" he mentions the "killing" of a slave child (who was brought to Nimrod who believed it was Abraham) as something that you can just legally do... it is incredible how people of these times where using other people as if they are simply dust.
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tec
Heck, that concept is reflected in the idea of God destroying humans who refuse to be Jesus' slaves, for not hearing his voice.
And whose idea is that?
Adamah, you (and many others) speak about the bible as though IT is the Christ (the word of God, the image of God, the truth of God). You might not come out and say that; you might not even think you are doing that... but you are using the bible AS IF it were Christ.
This is a mistake.
The question the OP asked was why God had been silent all these years since Christ. Some groups or religions might answer that He has not been silent because He gave us the bible... and some will answer that He has not been silent at all, but speaks to us, through His Son.
The bible is 'walking by sight'
Christ, the Holy Spirit, is 'walking by faith'.
Many of us need to walk by sight before we learn to walk by faith.
Peace to you,
tammy
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latinthunder
Adamah, you (and many others) speak about the bible as though IT is the Christ (the word of God, the image of God, the truth of God).
Tec, what is the difference between the use of the word logos at John 1:1 and Hebrews 4:12 ? It would appear that Paul used the term "word of God" when referring to Scripture. Was he wrong to do so?
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tec
Latinthunder, why do you think that Hebrews 4:12 is referring to scripture?
Just a few verses above that, the author of Hebrews quotes, "Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." (and earlier, he says, As the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts)
Peace,
tammy