On the Law Again There are well over 30,000 denominations in Christianity. All of them believe that they are right and the neighbor down the road is dead wrong. If he doesnt convert to their interpretation of the Bible he is blind. But if he convinces them to convert to his denomination he is a false prophet. Why this is so is because there have always been unschooled idiots who take scriptures out of context and out of its legitimate cultural framework and interpret to suit their whims, cultures, presuppositions and supposed revelations they received while they were sleeping. Examples are Joseph Smith of the Mormon Church who believed God wanted him to engage in polygamy and went on a rampage bedding every pretty woman he could lay eyes on. And William Miller, a leading figure in the Adventist movement who believed strongly and persuaded masses that Christ was returning in the August of 1884. When nothing happened, he recalculated and adjust to 1885. 200 plus years later and people are still doing calculations...good luck on them. A rather recent example would be Jim Jones of Indiana, USA. He began humbly, came out fiery, convinced everyone and had the largest Church in America in the 1960s. Everyone believed he was God-sent, followed him to South America, where he convinced them God wanted them to die with dignity because the world was bad and against them. He single-handedly manipulated them into sniffing cyanide. 2000 plus people died in a single day because someone read the Bible for himself and interpreted for them. The idea that you must read the Bible for yourself and see is not entirely true, because there sure are many things in the Bible. Not only that but each human being is distinct and has unique and individual set of neural networks and reading a material as vast as the Word of God and coming out at the end with a unanimous conclusion is plain impossible. It never happens. Personally, I dont entirely buy into the idea that I have to read the Bible for myself and understand. I believe there, through the ages, in the 2000 years of the existence of Christianity, were and are godly men and women of God who have studied it countless hours, and have written useful stuff; and there are traditional Christian thoughts which I identify as making sense with reality. For instance, I strongly hold to the thought that Scripture deals with three distinct group of people (Jews, Church and Gentiles). Jews are Gods old covenant people by virtue of Gods own choice. Gentiles are those who are non-Jewish by ethnicity and the Church comprises of both ethnic Jews and Gentiles, who profess faith in Christ as the sole substitute for sinners deserved punishment. When I read the Bible in this light it helps me. I know there are some lessons for me in Exodus and Deuteronomy but I know the intended audience of these two books (and many others) are ethnic Jews, so I wont loose sleep debating why I dont keep Sabbath. I am a Simbu from Papua New Guinea. I am a Gentile. Sabbath is irrelevant to me. If you dont get this I cant help you. Secondly, I subscribe to the traditional Christian thought that God is not done with the ethnic Jews just as yet. And reality seems to reaffirm that. Imagine the whole 7000,000 PNGans are scattered sparsely throughout the continent of Africa and after 2000 years some anthropologist wants to study them. There wont be a trace of them. It is highly unlikely that they will still be speaking Pidgin. Yes they will loose their identity as PNGans. But God kept the Jews people for 2000 years despite the fact that they were scattered through the globe. It a modern day miracle. God brought them back from the uttermost parts of the earth back to Israel in 1948 (2000 years absence) and gave them their lands back. Today Jews in Israel speak Hebrew, they observe the law and other dietary laws handed down to them. Replacement Theology, a thought so rampant in many Christian circles that God replaces the Jews with the Church, I think is wrong. And only God knows how many funny ideas you can generate when you read the Bible against a backdrop of Replacement Theology and try to import everything Jewish and superimpose upon the Church-Christianity. (Maybe our blunders are bigger and much more deeper than we thought...just a side thought) Third, I believe that God is a God of logic, common sense and order. I think it was GK Chesterton, one of the great Christian intellects who said when it makes sense seek no other sense. It is just the low hanging fruit of common sense that if God judges me against the ten commandments I know I cant hold together. I wont even be able to have the nerve to tell him that Hey God, look, at least I kept one, right? The most knowledgeable man who big time understood why Christ came was the thief on the cross. You Bible people fill in the names but, the mother of these two apostles wanted Christ have her sons sit on the right and left hand of His throne when Christ marched Romans out of Judea and bring in the nostalgic days of King David back. The apostles ate, slept, and went around with Christ everywhere he went and yet they did not see the real reason why he came. They debated who would be the greatest in Judea when the Romans are marched out. But the thief on the cross drove the message home. Having committed a crime so terrible that sent him to the cross, he understood Christ enough to beg him to consider him when he is at the throne of ultimate justice-his fathers right hand. What role does law play in here, if it has anything to do with salvation...SERIOUSLY??? A great writer wrote all the laws of heaven an hell combined cannot stop man from sinning. We are not wicked and sinners by the merits of what we do or we dont do, we are sinners and wicked by the admittance of our very nature. Thats why we have police, army, laws, prisons, and everything in between. The law is a constant reminder that when left to our own devices, we can do the unthinkable. Just a band aid notion of beginning to follow one law and emphasizing it above all else does not even begin to answer the question of our wickedness, much less provide a solution. If you read the Bible cover to cover and claim to be a Christian but deny the existential rottenness of human heart as essentially in need of regeneration, then you need a better sets of eyes to tell you how to read your Bible. People, lets face up to the fact....we cannot keep the law. Maybe thats why God invented common sense. Just take this one hypothetically, suppose God were to judge humanity on the basis of our keeping of the law. So here we are, the judgment day, all who claim to be Christians from say communist North Korea are told to pile in a single line. And God asks them did you read my Word? Ah yes The fourth commandment, did you read it? About the Sabbath, yes But why did you not keep it, why did you not rest, why did you work? We are sorry but Kim Jong Il was persecuting us so we couldnt hold services on a given day. We had to move from place to place... God interrupts him...so you are saying that you are afraid of him who is capable of destroying only your bodies and youve decided not to keep my Sabbath? No body answers. God goes on, You North Korea Christians for violating my Sabbath and thus breaking my law I will send to the place of eternal torment. I know you may have common sense questions like while it was Sabbath at North Korea, It was a Friday at USA or Sunday at England. But that specific point was yours to worship which you didnt. It specific time was sacred to you but you have violated it to there you go...into the fiery furnace. If we think that God judge with this pathetic notion of justice then we are big time Biblical illiterate. What waste these good many years of reading Bible are? This world is already a deeply hurting place despite the fact that we have hundreds of laws and restraints. We dont need a new set of rules to please God, we need a new nature. The Jews were redeemed from the law of bondage in Egypt first, then commanded to keep his commandments, not for Gods good but for their own. You need a Savior, then a set of rules to live by. Moses (a type of Christ) rescued Jews from the clutches of Egyptians and then gave the law. Redemption precedes Christian service (good works). To reverse it is deception. Note: arriving at truth is the ultimate quest of all quests. Now if you see some discrepancies, or things which you simply do not agree with my stance on Christianity, then Id invite you to deconstruct what I have presented point by point. Dont jump to what they call ad hominid attack where you make sarcastic comments like Peter your post is too boring, or false prophet, deceiver...etc... where you attach the person posting and not the post. Believe me it may be your first step to the world of civility and common sense.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 03:34:36 +0000
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