For example, the word “key.” When you hear this word, what do you think? You need to hear the entire context to understand what is being referred to: a door key or a clean water key. You understand me, don’t you?
No -it isn’t. It’s not even remotely the same. It’s just a spin you put on the old addage - “All that is required for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.”
But doing nothing (evil nor good) is not “the same” as doing nothing to stop evil.
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Maybe some people familliar with law should weigh in.
As for the Bible tho:
- James 4:17:
“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for them it is sin.”
Proverbs 24:11–12 says, Rescue those who are being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter
Ephesians 5:11
11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
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I’m familiar with the law… 
Doing nothing when a crime is being committed might be distasteful, unacceptable or even immoral. For instance a woman was lit on fire recently on a New York subway. Many people saw this and stood helplessly by as she burned to death. They were not considered culpable and certainly not on par with the illegal migrant who lit the woman aflame.
Interesting … Good to know… Filing that away…
Absolutely no offense taken!
Also, pardon my bluntness in my original comment. I’m a noob. This is the first Christian sight I have joined.
Now you talk about Elohim. Just as man was created a little lower than the angels, I can scarcely comprehend what another ‘god’ is. I do believe the Most High created them.
As in Psalm 82 prophesied by Asaph. The first verse states,
God(Elohim) standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods(elohim)
Verse 6,
I have said, Ye are gods(elohim); and all of you are children of the most High.
The entire chapter is fascinating and rarely preached to this day.
But then I am led to John 10:33-36,
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
If he called them gods(elohim), unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
The word sanctified caught me as if Jesus Himself was among them, though He was from the beginning of all things yet God set Jesus apart even before the world began (John 17:5.)
Thank you for the awesome knowledge, God has given you and share with us!
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If you are interested, perhaps this can be the first little rabbit trail we track. There are no capital letters per se, in Hebrew. That’s the work of scribes and translators who. instead of writing elohim, they chose to replace it with generic god, or capitalized God, without much to differentiate beyond their feelings. Similarly they write Lord, or LORD when the word in the text is actually Yahweh, or Jehovah, or simply lord.
It’s worth considering-- and I’ll explain why in depth here
there are also no vowels. So some words could be interpreted differently. There are fun rabbonic interpretations because of this.
A fun story and discussion about the interpretation of a word in the old testament and the belief that those in the line of Joseph are protected from the evil eye.
You do realize that Berakhot, and Mishna, and Talmud are not scripture, right?
Teachings, and oral traditions, are simply opinions of various Rabbis and not scriptural text.
My point, mre, is about how easily an interpretation can be mistaken or altered.
You can claim Scripture is unerring, btw, but that does not change the fact that the Christian Bible was put together less than 2000 years ago by a group of select men who did not represent the totality of the Christian church at that time. All the while under the direction of a Roman emporer with ulterior motives and bias.
The religion was intentionally shaped to help conquer lands for Rome, with the church going as far as celebrating Christ’s birth at the opposite time of the year during a Pagan celebration, (his death ironically falling close to another one,) and then turning the gods and goddesses of these cultures into recorded Saints, Satan, demons and angels in our larger historical church heritage.
Nor does it change the fact that more than half of said book belongs to another culture’s religion, a stunt that is not too different from John Smith’s version of a sequel in America. That being said, I think insight in how that culture interprets the Word is necessary if not respectful.
As Jeremiah (8:8) says,
How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? (Wasn’t he murdered for speaking up?)
Or Mathew (13: 24-43),
Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
Mark chapter 4: 13 shows seed to refer to God’s Word.
Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14 The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.
Jesus, after all spent quite a bit of his time tweaking what people believed in his own time. If the Word of God had not been altered, why would he need to?
It is funny how we have an account of young king Josiah being approached by the priests with an exclamation that a lost book of the Law had been found. A young king so eager to obey God that he lifted this lost book up only to, according to his enemy, die in judgement later.
And, funnier still, that we currently have two nearly identical books in the Old Testament. Exodus and Deuteronomy. Except for a few minor tweaks…
The scribes have lied, indeed.
False prophets appear disguised as faithful servents to the Lord all the time only to decieve people into their own destruction. Could you ever trust a man to keep God’s Word, when they have such trouble keeping their own? Yet we hinge faith on the idea that these special men so long ago did God a solid.
Instead of teaching people not to question, it would be better to teach people how to cut that book in two… How to tell the kingdom of God from the devil’s own.
My question was simple and direct, as well as specific to what you quoted. You didn’t answer it.
It’s not a claim I’ve made. I agree with what you assert here.
I couldn’t agree more.
You might find the conversation here interesting.
To answer your question quite simply, I don’t even know exactly what they are… But Yes I did know the source I mentioned was not scripture.
It was what I believe to be examination of Scripture, context, and a play on words. An example of how the original culture of said Word takes the Word and uses it
It is my slim understanding that Rabbis and theologians debate the meaning of Scripture, sometimes for fun which seems the nature of the story I referenced. It seems very tongue in cheek. Which is a far cry from hellfire and brimstone speeches in the church. But I could be wrong.6
I love this explanation. It has me thinking…
It’s difficult to have a dialogue with those who have read the Scriptures quickly or superficially, who have not delved into the Scriptures and have not prayed for the Holy Spirit. A person who has heard or seen something somewhere and then starts to argue and tries to prove their point of view without providing facts or referencing the Scriptures. Worse still, by taking verses and phrases out of context, they do so in a way that is convenient for them.
Farid
Maybe; I hear you, but I don’t know about all that. I really don’t know much about other people’s motivations (I barely understand my own), nor do I know the “depth” or “speed” with which they have studied the scriptures. We have an “accuser” so I’m not needed in that role. I recognize that we are all in some state of growth, somewhere between infancy and perfection (I’m closer to the infancy side of the process I guess). I appreciate those of you who have given time and attention to carefully handling The Word of Truth. I am in this with you… till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that you and I should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things into Him who is the head–Christ-- Ephesians 4:13-15 (NKJV)
Thanx for your thoughts.
The conversation feels as if it is with an atheist who is waiting for proof or a miracle to be shown to him. The Bible says, “Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld” (Hebrews 11:1).
На самом деле, мы должны ко всем относиться с любовью и делиться, но нужно это делать с особой осторожностью, чтобы не попрать святое. Матфея 7:6: Не давайте святое собакам и не бросайте жемчуг перед свиньями, чтобы они не затоптали его, а потом не растерзали и вас.
I do not seek glory for myself; all glory belongs to God. I am not myself if it were not for God, and I do not speak from myself, but only from Scripture. Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, “If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered Him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:31–36).
You mean-- “real people” - the people that you meet, when you’re walking down the street and those you bump into at the Crosswalk?
Exactly right. We need to meet people right where they are-- and none of us should think of ourselves more highly than anyone else. To set up some sort of artificial standard— like “I can only dialogue with those who have delved deeply into the scriptures” --here fill out this form so I can determine if you have only read quickly or superficially… Once your answers have been analyzed and adjudicated, someone will get back to you to set up a session.
Well, that’s a very backwards approach in my opinion. You got a verse? You got a question? Let’s look at it together and start right there. Isn’t that the pride and purpose of discussion boards?
You know, when you communicate with a person, it’s immediately clear what interests them and what they aspire to: money, well-being, or politics. A person strives to hold on to this world, to accumulate wealth here on earth, and to gain illusory fame. You see, it’s difficult to explain this to such people; they won’t hear you, just as some did not hear Jesus Christ.