Please be careful w/these blanket statements.


Capt,

The laws in Leviticus were for a specific people at a specific time in order to govern the land. If you read Leviticus carefully, you will see that it's more of a read of the first judicial system for the land than anything. Most of the laws in Leviticus are cleanliness laws, to keep the Israelites pure, untainted. They were to be a special people in a special land, set apart from the rest of the neighbors around them.

Says who?

If we wanted to, could we not say the same exact thing about all the rest of the bible? Or at least the OT anyway?

I don't see how stoning adulterers and blasphemers to death has anything at all to do with ritual cleanliness, nor why any group of people would have to distinguish themselves from others by following such bizarre rules.

Even if we dismiss Leviticus, I can find plenty of similar passages in other books of the bible.

In the end, this is just a selective interpretation of the bible with a convenient excuse.

Still cafeteria Christianity as far as I'm concerned (and hey, I guess I'm a cafeteria Christian, so don't take it as an insult. I'm glad you don't stone people to death, I don't either ).

Believer, you are doing this too. You (and not you alone) are creating your own version of God and of Heaven, choosing what to believe and what not to believe, what rules to follow etc.

Do you work on Sunday? Even if it's just in your garden or doing the laundry? You are bending the rules, even slightly.

Come on, you're not adhereing to all of the rules layed before you in the Bible. Only the important ones. You pick and choose! Look at how Christians follow the teachings of the Bible today as compaired to a thousand years ago. You've relaxed the rules just a bit since then, have you not?

When reading from Genesis up through to Leviticus, it is a progression. God tells the Israelites in Exodus that He was bringing them up out of the land & settling them into a new land. As they were travelling in the wilderness, they were running amock. When making a new nation, laws need to be established w/in that nation. The whole time in the wilderness was a preparation for when they got to the new land they were to possess.

There are several different parts to the OT. There is history of the Israelite people, prophets who come to warn them that they are turning away from the God who brought them out of the land of slavery & history of the kings they had as a nation & also poems written by King David praising God or going to God in fear of his life. So that is how the OT must be read.

That particular example you gave is not on ritual cleanliness, but on keeping the nation of Israel pure as a people. They also distinguished a seperate land for those that did not deserve death for their crimes, but instead needed to be seperated from the others so as not to "infect" the nation.

Following that progression on to the book of Numbers, we see that Numbers is really a book of censuses to get the armies lined up for battle.

I have read various messages on this site and I cannot stop being amazed at the amount of messages posted by people searching for answers to their questions. Those who try to answer them only produce more questions. I understand that some of the people are sincerely looking for answers, while others also seek a good debate or discussion and a small few just like to be controversial. Many of these questions cannot be answered by anyone. They are like asking what came first the chicken or the egg. If you are searching for proof that God exists, you are going to find that no one can proof or disproof He exists. If you do not know the answer to the question of His existence, the answers to heaven, hell, sin and religion etc. are immaterial even more so if God does not exist. Therefore the first order would be to find out if God exists or not. I already said no one can proof or disapprove the existence of God to you, however, that does not mean that someone cannot point you in the right direction. The only one that can proof to you God’s existence is God himself. All we can do is point you towards him. I cannot establish the relationship between you and God, only you can do that. I am not a Christian just because I grew up in a so called Christian home, went to church, was an altar boy and knew the priests and nuns. All of that caused me to doubt and ultimately reject the idea of God’s existence. It was not until I came before God did I truly believe in Him. Once God’s existence was established, I was able to seek the answers to some of my questions. There are questions I will not know the answers to some of my questions until I am face to face with God and truthfully I do not care if I do not find the answers. We complicate the relationship with God and allow many things to spoil the joy of fellowship with God. For example when I was young my friends and I played ball and just had fun. Some of us had gloves and some of us did not. If we did not have a ball or a bat we created them and although they were not as good as the real thing, they sufficed. It did not matter who won or how good you were because all we wanted to do is play and have fun. As we went along we learned the rules of the game without losing the joy. However, nowadays I see kids playing and they have to know the rules, they will not play without the proper equipment; winning has become everything and they feel like crap when they lose. From my perspective, I do not see them enjoying the game as they should. Religion has done just that. It has complicated things and has taken away the joy of knowing God. Everyone wants all the rules, regulations and questions answered before they come to God instead of just establishing a personal relationship with Him and enjoying it. Everything else will come and be answered as you enjoy being in the company of the Lord. This does not mean you have to leave your “intelligence” at the door but that some things are done by faith and when you don’t have the faith, just ask Him for it. There is a song that says “Come just as you are”. You don’t have to know everything and you don’t have to first change or become good enough, just go to Him. This again may sound simple and it is. Some years ago there was a commercial on TV in which the person said "Try it, you'll like it".

Fish, I agree with absolutlely everything you just said. The problem I have with conventional Christian thought is that it's usually summed up more like this: "try it, or rot in hell".

Point taken JesusFollower.

skr, you ultimatly will decide where you spend eternity. Like fish said I cannot prove God to you. I cannot present you with empirical proof that God exists. These are just my beliefs after years of searching, and asking for guidance from God.

Pulled from another thread:

So when I look at all of these searches to explain how we got here, and where we come from, I can't help but think that what we're all searching for is to prove God wrong. Because if there is no God, then there is no sin. And if sin doesn't exist, then there isn't a hell,and we can pretty much rest easy and do what we want because there's no punishment for doing wrong beyond this life.

So our search for self is really just a reason to prove to ourselves that we're ok. We're fundamentally good, and there's no one out there who will be uspset with us for messing up his world. We don't need God because we just existed from radom nothingness, and we'll return to random nothingness.

This is correct, for reason I pray to God when studing the scriptures. I ask him for wisdom and discernment. Another rule I follow is not to look up commentaries, which are the opinions or understanding of others, prior to developing my own understanding. Later I check and if there is a difference I pray to God for wisdom and discernment. If what I am reading is in the old testament, I sometimes research what the Rabbi's have to say about the passages. When I read the new testament and know there may be varying opinions, so I research what is said by the different denominations. Just because I attend the church I do, does not mean I agree with everything they say and just because I am not Catholic, Baptist, Episcopalian, etc, does not mean I disagree with everything they say or do. Years ago a pastor was on the radio and stated something that I was adamantly against and I called the show to argue. Well he never convinced me that he was right on that subject, but I began to attend his church because I agreed with a many of his views. We stopped going there only because we moved far away.

Jesusfollower: Thank you for your thoughtful (as usual) reply. If I understand you correctly, you are basically saying that parts of the OT are nothing more than a historical record, and that the rules in them only apply within a specific historical context, in other words that they don’t apply to us here and now. So then, how are we to know what God actually intends us to do or not to do? Could we not take your argument one step further and say that the ten commandments were only meant in the context of a particular situation in a particular time? What about the new testament, then? How do we know how much of what Jesus preached was meant for everybody at all times and how much of it was meant for a specific audience? JF, while I certainly recognize that you are very knowledgeable about the bible and generally articulate and well informed, I still have to say that this idea of the OT or Leviticus being a historical record and not applicable today is your own interpretation, and not one necessarily shared by others. There are many Christians out there who quote Levitical and other OT laws in present day moral contexts. Christian opposition to homosexuality is a well known example of Levitical laws being used to justify moral stances on current day issues. In the end, I reach the same conclusion.: You are selectively choosing bits of the bible to follow, even if your selection is a well thought out one. This is not an accusation. I think we all do the same. [quote]Originally posted by fish: [b] Many of these questions cannot be answered by anyone. They are like asking what came first the chicken or the egg. If you are searching for proof that God exists, you are going to find that no one can proof or disproof He exists. [/b][/quote]I tend to agree with that. Personally, I do believe in God. However, I don’t think I could ever articulate my reasons for believing in Him. Or perhaps I could, but I would never expect anyone else to understand. My reasons are not logical, they are deeply personal. As such, I understand that others may believe different things, and I accept that they may be right and I may be wrong. It doesn’t stop me from believing what I believe. I am bothered by those people who act as though they know better than others, or that they are somehow closer to God than you because they can rattle off more quotes from scripture. There is a hint of arrogance in saying “I have sought and found the truth and you just haven’t yet.” Some people use religion as an ego boost. I think in some way that that is taking the Lord’s name in vain.