A Biblical Question?

Question

Would you care to tell me how the New Testament is any more important than the Old Testament, or why the reduction in the number of public executions is actually how god intended it to be, why don't we kill the drunk disobedient children in the streets, why don't we hold public executions for various other reason.

Is it because religions like to pick and choose, is it because "Times have changed", if it is well then I'm sorry to say that the Old Testament hasn't changed, we see the constitution being amended but we don't see the great Bible being subject to "change".

How do you justify your unbiblical actions, and before you say it also says to love your fellow man, remember that he who is without sin shall cast the first stone (at the sinner of course).

So the question is:

Do you agree that it is common sense or it is part of your religion to ignore violent and unsavoury parts of both testaments because "times have changed", or for some other reason, and please elaborate.

Dear Pastor, please tell me where I am wrong about the passage that mentions a child that is disobedient and a drunkard, and by the way, your vague explanation, and your attempts to lure me into your domain of propaganda, do not explain the decline in popularity of public executions, and why they are not still common practice, so I am afraid that seeing as you did answer my entire question, you are WRONG.

I am afraid no answer has explained the decline of public executions, if the Old Testament was God's word, and God said to publicly execute people, then religious people, according to God, should be doing so, therefore, the religious people who think execution is wrong are disobeying God's word as well.

As I only asked this question to point out the hypocrisy of those who like to pick and choose what is right or wrong, and what is and isn't in the bible, I was only looking for an answer that justifies why religious people seem to defy or deny parts of God's word, and as no one has provided an answer as such, there will be no best answer.

I am an Atheist by the way, and the appropriate inconsistencies in the answers, proves my point.

Debbie you came close, however with God and his word apparently not changing, the explanation as to the decline of public executions seems to lie in the domain of the law of man, which is the only power system I put my faith into.

So you see it was the laws and ideas of men, not Gods that have improved moral standards, increased the age of marriage, and childbirth, abolished slavery, and given equal rights to many races sexes and sexualities.

Answer 1

What you seem to fail to understand is that God's relationship with Mankind has changed through the intercession of Jesus Christ:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

I see you are still among these:

"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior."
Colossians 1:21

Repent, change your mind and your ways, and believe the Gospel. Only then will you find peace.

Answer 2

Good question, yes religions do like to pick and choose. Why? Because all humans like to pick and choose, and religions are man made. God however is not man made, at least the true one anyways. The new testament is by no means more important then the old testament. If we went by the new testament alone than it would be unsupported because the old testament tells us why we need to follow this messiah, and if we went by the old testament alone, than it would tell us that we are still waiting on this messiah.
The reason the Bible cannot, or should not be amended is because it is God's inspired word. If you don't believe its God's inspired word look up Bible prophecy.
As for your final question, no we do not ignore the violent parts of the Bible. For example Noah's ark. We teach that in Sunday schools when in reality it is such a violent gruesome event. All those millions of people drowning, being swept away from there families drowning gruesomely. The thing is that God works on a bigger canvas. So if we would have allowed those people to be our ancestors imagine how much worse off we would be if he flooded the earth because it was so wicked. The crucification of Jesus...etc.

Answer 3

Good point "he who is without sin shall cast the first stone " no person is without sin. Christian must understand that we cannot pick in chose what parts of the bible we want to follow we have to follow it to the point it was written, yet time have changed and I know God will see us through.

God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Answer 4

First of all, not all believers in Jesus and God interpret the Bible the same way.Never have. You're zeroing in on an interpretation of the narrow minded right wing Christians. The spiritual wing of Jesus and God followers would never suggest God is capable of anything other than unconditional love. We realize the Bible was written by men who were not spiritually enlightened. It may be the word of God ,but that doesn't equate to man understanding it.You can't lump all believers together.

Answer 5

True Christians shouldn't ignore ANY of the Bible, because 2 Timothy 3:16, 17 says: All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work. So, the whole Bible, Hebrew and Greek scriptures, are beneficial for us; not just one testament over another.

Answer 6

The Old and New Testament are a group of 66 books written by God's servants, the prophets and scribes. They tell the story of the true God and Creator of the universe, and of a singular group of people that God made for the purpose of giving eternal life.

The two testaments shouldn't be divided, as the Bible represents the first 4,000 years of life on Earth, through the eyes and experiences of God's special creations, His Chosen Ones. The two testaments represent their history from Adam to Jesus, the prophets that predicted Jesus, and a variety of true stories which highlighted God's incredible power.

Before Jesus came, God introduced Himself to the peoples He created through the Exodus of the Israelites - Sons of Jacob (not to be confused with modern day Israel). God virtually wiped out the country of Egypt with the plagues, and the whole Earth has been talking about it since.

God continued to demonstrate His power and wrath to the world through the Judges, and through many of the Kings and prophets before Christ, killing millions in the process. However when God sent Jesus, He stopped with the outward exhibitions of His power. Jesus was introduced to the world to teach them how to live forever, which is the real meaning, purpose, and goal of life. God then left the world in the hands of Satan, to screw it up as badly as possible. Satan has not disappointed.

So God created all of life (and death, and misery, and all things unsavory) Jesus Christ, Satan, billions of non-chosen, and a host of chosen ones, all for the purpose of teaching His Chosen Ones the real difference between right and wrong. He put His people to the test over the course of history. God taught right and wrong, and His people had to do what was right. Those who passed the tests were given as their prize, eternal life. All the others were created for the benefit of God's Chosen, for demonstration purposes, if you will.

Religions ignore the true violence and ways of the true God, because they cannot explain to their sheople why God does the things that the Bible says He does. They package God and Jesus as all loving, wouldn't hurt a fly types, which is simply a poor, inaccurate, and deceiving representation. Jesus Christ taught. Jesus taught people how to teach others. Jesus taught that the purpose of a church (a collection of people adhering to the same Godly principles and rules) was for education. Churchianity does not teach. They open their doors for an hour or two a week, and count the unbiblical tithes each week. How much can a person learn in one or two hours a week?

God's first commandment (not a suggestion) to man is, "Love your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your strength, all your spirit." Modern churches and their brand of religion cannot accommodate the first commandment, because God expected His Children to give Him far more than a few hours a week. Modern churches know this, and continue to feed their flocks the garbage they do, because they know that they will not bother to research God themselves. And don't you know, Christianity in its modern form, is huge business.

Answer 7

Thats one things that really steams me about christians. Buffet religionists. They take what they want to observe and leave what they dont. Take the book of leviticus, in it xians are told that for a man to lie with another man as a woman is an abomination to the lord, and that all those who do such should be stoned(and not the good stoned either) to death. Yet only one chapter away, the same book commands that disrespectful disobedient children should also be stoned to death. So why do we not see any brats being killed? No, they only go after the gays and abortionists. Even the xian god commited abortions. Religion is only tolerant if you are a card carrying club member. Even the christ said "It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid." (Luke 16:17 NAB). So they deny parts they don't like and accept what they want. Hypocrites, buffet religionists, idiots

Answer 8

the Bible, both old and new testaments, is also a history book. When it comes to Biblical exegesis one you have to take the entire scene into account. In other words, if some of the things done in the bible seem rather odd to us it most likely was very common to the time and culture which it was written. We must draw out the theme or lesson which the particular text is dealing with.

Answer 9

First, let us agree what the bible even is:
The bible is a written history, set of folk tales and folk lore of one group of starving shepherds living in the Middle Ages during the stone age... and not much else. (it was a horrible place to live then, and it still is, isn't it?) All groups had similar holy books to explain how they got here... Hittites, Hyksos, Abyssinian, Egyptian, Nubian, and all the others. Some groups of tribes were rather large, as was Egypt, and some rather small, as in Kaddish--a city that controlled a large area of land. And most used each others' tales, and adopted them into their own... they traded during non-war periods--- goods as well as brides, grooms, and commodities. The Old Testament is simply the history of the tribe of Israel, and the Commandments, for example charged only the tribe of Israel to follow them... it was fine to murder your enemy, sleep with the wife of your enemy, and covet his pig, or goat, just not anyone part of the Tribe of Israel. All the others were that way as well. As an example of sharing, the twelve denials of Egypt preceded the 10 commandments of Moses by some 1200 years. They are almost exactly the same, word for word, in about any translation...Greek, Aramiac, Demotic, Latin, etc.

Do today people pick and choose what they like in the bible? Yes, of course. Ought you to run your life according to the bible??? Of course not... we don't live in tribes any more, we are parts of huge states, and huge countries, and for sure we do not get our morality from the bible... read it carefully.... scare the socks off of you. (Women particularly get a bad rap.)
Have times changed? sure, and obviously. Few believe in a personal god any more, and even the Catholic Church accepts that evolution happened. That does not mean that we must abandon all parts of religion.... Creationism is religion, and Evolution is science. We can still participate in some of the rites of those of the bible..--- religion, marriage ceremonies, communion, etc., but refrain from putting a supernatural spin on it... God is often now regarded as "being itself", the wonder of life, but not a personality who answers prayers, or saves us from death in an auto crash. "he" "listens" to no one, since "he" isn't conscious, nor can "He" "decide". Many of us when we pray, do not pray for our selfish little concerns nor our selfish little wishes to be answered. Most of us pray for the internal fortitude to have the strength to do what we know we must do, do what is right, and moral. It is only, I think, those really uneducated and brainwashed in very simple religious ideas who think that there is some sky daddy up there, who sits, and waits for their prayers to get answered, and of course, these people are rather disappointed when, BAM nothing happens....

Answer what you wished answered??

Oh, and PS. Probably most of your responses will be from people giving you a long bunch of bible quotes... these would be those still holding onto the idea of a sky daddy...
"revealed truths" are no truths at all, simply faith....and one revealed truth, (holy book) is as good as any other holy book...faith with no proof

Answer 10

The reason God gave us His written Word, the Bible, is to tell us about His love for us by sending His only begotten Son, Jesus through His chosen people the Israelites.

In the Old Testament He tells us how He created everything, the History of His chosen people, the Israelites and the Law which tells us what sin is. The laws other than the 10 commandments were for the Isrealites, not us. He gives us wisdom through the Proverbs and encouragement in the Psalms.

In God’s Word in the flesh, Jesus, in the New Testament, which is called New Testament because it is the new way of love, grace, redemption and forgiveness, through Jesus. Jesus came to SHOW us how much He loves us by giving up His life for us so that we can live eternally.

Jesus also came to show us how to live here in order to have good and happy lives for ourselves and those that we love. He came to set up His church, the people who are the holy city of God who are God’s adopted children. He came to forgive our sins, to rise from death so that we who belong to Him will also rise.

The Bible is God's written Word to us.
It was written by human authors, under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit.

“Above all you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:20-21. (New International Version)

Breakdown of the Bible
36 human authors inspired entirely by God over 1600 years.
66 separate books

39 Old Testament
Genesis- The creation of the world, sin, flood and birth of Israel
Exodus to Esther- History of the nation of Israel
Job to Proverbs- the books of poetry and wisdom
Isaiah to Malachi- Prophecy or foretelling of the future events to come.

27 New Testament
Matthew to John - Four Gospels representing the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ now with all authority in Heaven and earth.
Acts- Birth of the Church (The Bride of Christ)
Romans to Jude - Letters to the Churches
Revelations - The ultimate future plans for: The Church, Heaven, Hell, a New Heaven and a New Earth.

Here are some Bible Study Resources for anything you may want to look up:
http://www.Biblegateway.com
http://www.Ntgateway.com
http://www.Bible.org
http://www.bible-history.com
http://www.answersingenesis.org/