Do you believe the bible should be obeyed?

Question

By that I mean - People often quote scripture to prove a point, or win an argument - yet the bible also states that menstruating women are unclean and should be kept away from, and that youths who disrespect their parents should be stoned to death. It also states that homosexuality should be punished with death. Surely if you take one comment literally, then you must take all of them literally?

How can a Christian decide which verses are to be followed, or which should be ignored? Or is it simply ignorance and trillions of Christians simply aren't aware that there are many many seemingly bizarre statements within its pages that any right thinking human being would scoff at and ignore.

I'd love to see genuine answers from genuine believers, as it seems to me to be a gaping hole in the validity Christianity.

Answer 1

GUESS...
The ‘Holy’ Bible advocates the KILLING of 2/3s of ALL HUMANITY – me, just because I accept tons of scientific evidence over zero evidence of any of humanity’s “Gods.”

BIBLICAL DEATH PENALTY: KILL UNBELIEVERS - Chronicles 15:12-13 (NIV) … They entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul. All who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.
( ARE SECULAR LAWS THE ONLY THING STOPPING CHRISTIANITY FROM KILLING ALL OF US NON-Xians? )
( In Any SANE Society, The Bible Would NOT BE READ. )

Answer 2

The commands you listed are all from the 600+ that were given to the Israelites. The Israelites were not the church. They were a nation, a political state that was set up for two contrasting purposes. One was to show that a properly run nation was more successful than those whose citizens worshipped idols. (Idols were just an excuse to do things like steal and rape.) The Israelites achieved this good state, sometimes, and were sometimes attacked for their better ways of doing things, sometimes admired and copied.

But most of the time, Israel disobeyed the commands. This showed that giving people commands does not make them good. People need to have their motivation changed if they are going to do good, and keep doing good. It was when God had showed conclusively that laws did not work that He came to earth as Jesus, to die on the cross and thereby provide the motivation that laws could not.

So not a single one of the Laws of Moses applies today, as laws. Obviously murder, theft and adultery are still wrong, but there is no need to execute wrong-doers unless society decides to do that. Christians are guided by love- doing whatever is the best for others as well as oneself. That's what everyone should do, surely. The difference is that the Christian has the motivation to do it.

(Some of the Mosaic Laws seem very odd to us, but it is very probable that they were adopted because they were common laws in the Middle East at that time, and surrounding nations would have found fault with the Israelites had they not followed suit. In fact the Mosaic laws are less stringent in some ways than some laws in other nearby nations. Remember, too, that Israel was a small nation with plenty of neighbours, and anyone who did not like Mosaic Laws could go only a short distance and be completely free of them.)

Thanks for the sensible and reasonable question. There are sensible, reasonable answers to everything in the Bible, imv, it's just a question of digging for them, at times.
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Answer 3

The old testament or hebrew scriptures were the law given to the Jews to protect them from disease and harm from their enemies.By obeying the law they were able to grow in numbers.From the line of David came Jesus Christ who basically ended the old law and institted a new covenant.
"For Christ is the end of the Law, so that everyone exercising faith may have righteousness."(Romans 10:4)
So in a sense he liberated all mankind from many of the now outdated laws that were no longer relevant and in fact showed mankind a new way of life.
"Consequently the Law has become our tutor leading to Christ, that we might be declared righteous due to faith. But now that the faith has arrived, we are no longer under a tutor. (Galatians 3:23-25)
Not all the old testament is to be ignored though as Christ clearly underlined the important principles such as the 10 commandments and many other parts of the law that were still relevant and made this clear in his teachings and parables.
So if it seems like there are contradictions it is merely the fact that the Bible spans many hundreds of years and many generations where certain rules were appropriate for that time.Today Christians look to Christ to understand what God requires of them today in 21st century.I hope this helps a little.

Answer 4

Understand that there's much disagreement over this, but much of what Jesus did superceded/fulfilled things in the Old Testament, including some of the extreme laws you cited above. Some of these that are more obvious are: we no longer have to offer sacrifices (since Jesus himself is the substitute for what would be our sacrifice) and we can eat all kinds of food now (according to a vision as recorded in Acts).

Less explicit are things that you cited above. This is a tough call, but most people would be interested in looking to the Church for these kinds of answers. For instance, most churches today (and historically) have definitely not advocated that disrespectful children should be stoned.

One final word: I don't think many people would disagree that Jesus should be THE role model for how to live our lives. This is why the phrase "what would Jesus do" came about - put yourself in his shoes. And consider Old Testament laws that do seem outdated, and imagine Jesus performing what those laws require. Can you imagine Jesus stoning to death disobedient children? Can you imagine killing homosexuals? Can you imagine Jesus avoiding menstrating women? I can't imagine any of these happening. They would all be out of his character.

Simply stated: the more you know the character of Jesus, the more you know how you ought to act, and which laws of the Old Testament should and shouldn't be followed. How do we know the character of Jesus? From the New Testament.

Answer 5

Why follow a book, just believe what is right in your souls and what is wrong.
Forget about those who quote scriptures for they are following what they believe, when you look at this book or read it, confusion and paranoia creeps in. Is this right what is written here surely not. The book is like some horror story.

What is in this book is against all especially the old testament and as far as the new testament is this correct as it has been changed so many times.

Nope I will stick to my ways.

Answer 6

First you need to answer this which part of the bible is true?
what part is man made? man has used religion to control others since the bible was written, yes we can prove some of the things in the bible with history records, but much of the bible has been miss interpreted by man, what man could not understand he made up, and filled in the bits to tell the story, I'm not saying the bible is wrong, but you need to know how to read it, it has not been used as God intended, because of mans greed

Answer 7

Someone told me that the idea that the Bible is perfect came about when the Catholic church was saying that the Pope was perfect and infallible. Then the Protestant church responded by saying that the Bible was perfect and infallible. Beyond that, I don't know where that notion comes from. The Bible seems to make a lot more sense to me when I see it as a book written by people who were trying hard to see God but may have been off sometimes. To make wild interpretations of Bible passages to preserve the perfection of the Bible seems crazy to me. I mean, aren't we then worshiping a book instead of God?

Answer 8

the bible is spilt up into two sections: the old testament and the new testament. the new testament starts with the birth of jesus and all that jesus did.

the coming of jesus was like a reform. it completely changed the rules because of his sacrifice. christians are supposed to follow the rules according to the new testament. the new testament also supports the ten commandments, so that's the only thing that is still in use from the old testament.
if we were to follow rules and traditions according to the old testament we would also be sacrificing animals.

basically jesus redeemed everyone and established new rules, that's why the bible is split up.
i hope that you fing some reason and logic in it.

Answer 9

From my own personal viewpoint (as almost every Christian's will be different), the bible is viewed more as a reference book/ field guide than a huge set of literal rules to follow.
I view the bible more as an Aesop's Fables; something of which its stories hold more moral value than it does a literal value.
I take the lessons taught in the bible and then apply them to my modern life.

Answer 10

No the bible is a load of nonsense Full stop no argument anyone who thinks differently is entitled to their opinion but they are living in the past!! Take it with a pinch of salt as my mother used to say.

Answer 11

So the Bible says that we should kill certain people but then has that commmandment that clearly states though shalt not kill. I don't know how any reasonable, clear thinking person could believe this stuff. I don't know whether there really is a god or not but the Bible is clearly the wrong place to look.