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 Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:49 am
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 7:31 pm
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edited to fix typos & clarify about government authority being God-given
So, I went through all 8 pages (at the time of my reading this) and there are a number of things I would like to address—because the subject is not as simplistic, and cookie-cutter, as theologians and apologists would have us believe (and as they erroneously paraphrase [in either their pride to win an argument or in fear that they will make God look bad]).
First of all, yes, there are legitimate areas in which the Quran nullifies Biblical claims (which I'll get to in part 2, as a separate reply), but this isn't one of them. YHWH was using the mouth of the unbelievers in your chatterbox topic to make you realize that the sacred text of Islam is no more representative of a religion of peace or a religion of violence than the Tanakh or the New Testament. Because the means by which God “makes” peace is through the destruction of wicked ways or the wicked people along with their wicked ways if they won't let go of them (after He has given them sufficient warning and time to repent). He does use His creation (human, angelic, or otherwise) to carry this destruction out. The New Testament does not describe anything different:
New Testament
Revelation 6:3-4 (NIV)
3 When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.
Revelation 6:8 (NIV)
8 I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
Revelation 9:20-21 (NIV)
20 The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.
Revelation 2:18-23 (NIV)
18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
Old Testament
Ezekiel 14:21 (NIV)
21 “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals!
Ezekiel 33:11 (NIV)
11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’
1 Chronicles 5:26 (NIV)
26 So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria (that is, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria), who took the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile. He took them to Halah, Habor, Hara and the river of Gozan, where they are to this day.
Isaiah 10:5-12 (NIV)
5 “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
6 I send him against a godless nation,
I dispatch him against a people who anger me,
to seize loot and snatch plunder,
and to trample them down like mud in the streets.
7 But this is not what he intends,
this is not what he has in mind;
his purpose is to destroy,
to put an end to many nations.
8 ‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says.
9 ‘Has not Kalno fared like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad,
and Samaria like Damascus?
10 As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols,
kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria—
11 shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images
as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’”
12 When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. 13 For he says:
“‘By the strength of my hand I have done this,
and by my wisdom, because I have understanding.
I removed the boundaries of nations,
I plundered their treasures;
like a mighty one I subdued[a] their kings.
Footnotes:
a. Isaiah 10:13 Or treasures; / I subdued the mighty,
And noting from the last verses above, when YHWH uses people as the violent tool in His hand, the violent tool in YHWH's hand gets attacked/destroyed in return as well for whatever evil / sin is in them. No favoritism. In this case, the pride in the king of Assyria gets attack in return for thinking he did this all out of his own strength and intelligence; when really, it was the divine favour of YHWH that was with him. He's out to conquer, while YHWH is using him to punish the idolatry He sees across many nations.
Similarly, in recent years, and to use one small, specific example: YHWH—who is the Most High God and is Sovereign over all nations / over all groups of people—used ISIS (or militant Muslim individuals) to physically attack the unrepentant homosexuals in a night club in the USA to death. But then, God uses the USA to attack unrepentant ISIS members to death (because they too commit sins meriting death—like kidnapping [which they have gotten a lot of their funding from, by holding people hostage and asking for ransom payments]).
Sexual sin or kidnapping, both merit death...
Exodus 21:16 (NIV)
16 “Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.
Leviticus 20:13 (NIV)
13 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
...and God will make sure they get death, if they don't repent. Even by using human agents outside of His set-apart nation (Israel) to carry out His judgment of death on those sins (those human agents being people in the USA's government/government agencies, or members of ISIS and their militant bodies), YHWH uses any and all countries, in and outside of the courts, known or unbeknownst to them that God is using them in this way—and they are not guilty of bloodshed, in God's eyes, for carrying out His Lawful judgment, whether ignorant or fully aware that they are doing so.
Assyria, in Isaiah 10, was ignorant of how they were being used as a pawn of divine justice in YHWH's hands, a pawn used by YHWH against MANY nations to bring destruction to them for their idolatrous practices, including (but not limited to) the divided kingdoms of Israel (the southern kingdom of Judah, which contains Jerusalem, and the northern kingdom of Samaria). The king of Assyria and his armies were just bent on conquering many nations, but God was using them to render out judgment against those nations for their capital sins (of which idolatry is).
ISIS, on the other hand, is not ignorant, but aware of how they're being used by God, wanting to be used by God to defeat idolatry itself, against MANY nations, including against the unrepentant in the land of Israel. God is the one stirring up / manipulating their hearts and is Sovereign over their plans to carry out His “sword” judgment. YHWH impedes certain aspects of their plans and gives them success in other aspects to suit His purposes (just like He does with the USA) to have mercy on whom He wills and render judgment on others.
Proverbs 19:21 (NIV)
21 Many are the plans in a person’s heart,
but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
Just because our courts don't punish these capital sins (transgressions of God's Law that merit death) to death, doesn't mean God has stopped doing so. However, if the courts would n** this behavior in the bud, then God would not have to resort to mass-level-tragedy to punish capital sins. People would fear the government's punishment once someone was made an example out of and stop their wicked ways before it ever got to that (though under the New Covenant with the Law written on our hearts, it's not fear of punishment that should motivate us to obey / abstain from evil, but the love of righteousness, no longer cherishing sin in our hearts. However, for everybody else, the law of the land is suppose to do that).
When God sends judgments on the earth like this, however, mankind is suppose to learn from the calamity that He orchestrated, and repent of the sins in response to realizing God has judged those sins in their fellow neighbours:
Luke 13:1-5 (NIV)
13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
The sword judgment (war, killing, violence, fighting, animosity, malice, strife, argument, between two people or millions—be it launched by a single individual or a group) hasn't ceased to be a tool in His hand, neither the bloody kind nor the verbal kind. YHWH continues disciplining people back into proper behavior using these judgments, just like in the Old Testament (His desire is not to kill them off, but He will kill a number of them off—using violent humans [amongst other of His creatures] as agents of His wrath—if they stubbornly persist in their sin).
Note: there is a killing that Jesus orchestrates against His obedient followers though, but that's another matter entirely (righteous suffering).
Revelation 6:9-11 (NIV)
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters,[a] were killed just as they had been.
Footnotes:
a. Revelation 6:11 The Greek word for brothers and sisters (adelphoi) refers here to believers, both men and women, as part of God’s family; also in 12:10; 19:10.
But the sword judgment is what the people responding to your topic are addressing (they just don't know the terminology). And they clearly are Biblically-ignorant of the distinction between what is lawful killing (thus killing allowed by God, carrying out His Lawfully-allowed vengeance, a.k.a. justice), whether in- or outside of man's courts, vs. unlawful killing.
---
On that note, however, why are theologians and apologists so hesitant to embrace the word “genocide” if the definition being given actually describes what is happening in the Bible? Who said “genocide”, in and of itself, was bad a thing...? the world? Or God? is the Bible against genocide even when the groups' idolatrous beliefs and practices (thus harmful practices, in their daily living) are what's being eradicated? along with the people who refuse let it go but cling on to the harmful culture / way of life?
Genocide is intentional action to destroy a people (usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group) in whole or in part.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide
the intentional killing of all of the people of a nation, religion, or racial group
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/genocide
Contrary to what the speaker/theologist/apologist said in “Did God Command Genocide in the Bible?”, some definitions of genocide don't require all killing, just “in part” killing of the group. But even if you granted him his definition of genocide, he evaded (or is simply unaware of) the examples where God did command the whole group to be eradicated.
For instance, long after the Israelites inherited the promised land, after the periods of the judges, and we get to the point of having kings appointed over the Israelites, YHWH commands king Saul to annihilate ALL the Amalekites, spare none, even though they are not the generation that directly sinned against the Israelites for what YHWH is asking vengeance/divine justice for. So forget this fluffy, appeal-to-emotions argument he gave about children—not even this adult generation was personally, and directly guilty of what was being meted out in judgment. Is God unjust? No.
Numbers 14:18 (NIV)
18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’
And so, genocide—by any definition you can come up with—is still commanded against the Amalekites by YHWH.
1 Samuel 15:1-3 (NIV)
15 Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
Footnotes:
a. 1 Samuel 15:3 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them; also in verses 8, 9, 15, 18, 20 and 21.
Note: God is destroying them by using the king of Israel and his army (God's Law enforcement) to destroy them.
But did king Saul listen completely, as it was commanded by the Most High? No. Saul spared some people, didn't he? Yes. And was that obedient? No. Consequences? I reject you as king because you don't fully do as I say. Read slowly:
1 Samuel 15:7-26 (NIV)
7 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. 8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves[a] and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.
10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.
12 Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.”
13 When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.”
14 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”
15 Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”
16 “Enough!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”
“Tell me,” Saul replied.
17 Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18 And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; wage war against them until you have wiped them out.’ 19 Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?”
20 “But I did obey the Lord,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. 21 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.”
22 But Samuel replied:
“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has rejected you as king.”
24 Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men and so I gave in to them. 25 Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord.”
26 But Samuel said to him, “I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel!”
Footnotes:
a. 1 Samuel 15:9 Or the grown bulls; the meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain.
Beyond these direct instructions from YHWH's mouth recorded down in Scripture, however, I'm going to cue up this clip to the 2:24 mark that demonstrates this concept as well, even strictly operating off of the pictographic form of the Hebrew language written in the time of Moses, specifically what the Hebrew hieroglyph for the word “shalom” reveals about what peace-making is and how it is achieved: https://youtu.be/VUvGlAccRB4?t=2m24s
(After you watch that...)
Thus why we find:
God commanding destruction, done by violent authorities (human or angelic), in the Old and New Testament alike:
Whether to destroy / remove fellow believers or unbelievers committing capital sins from amongst us / the community:
Old Testament
DONE BY HUMANS
Deuteronomy 13:12-18 (NIV)
12 If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in 13 that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), 14 then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, 15 you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely,[a] both its people and its livestock. 16 You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt, 17 and none of the condemned things[b] are to be found in your hands. Then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger, will show you mercy, and will have compassion on you. He will increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your ancestors— 18 because you obey the Lord your God by keeping all his commands that I am giving you today and doing what is right in his eyes.
Footnotes:
a. Deuteronomy 13:15 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them.
b. Deuteronomy 13:17 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them.
DONE BY ANGEL
1 Chronicles 21:14-17 (NIV)
14 So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead. 15 And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah[a] the Jebusite.
16 David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.
17 David said to God, “Was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted? I, the shepherd,[b] have sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Lord my God, let your hand fall on me and my family, but do not let this plague remain on your people.”
Footnotes:
a. 1 Chronicles 21:15 Hebrew Ornan, a variant of Araunah; also in verses 18-28
b. 1 Chronicles 21:17 Probable reading of the original Hebrew text (see 2 Samuel 24:17 and note); Masoretic Text does not have the shepherd.
New Testament
DONE BY HUMANS
Romans 13:1-5 (NIV)
13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
1 Corinthians 5:11-13 (NIV)
11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister[a] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”[b]
Footnotes:
a. 1 Corinthians 5:11 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a believer, whether man or woman, as part of God’s family; also in 8:11, 13.
b. 1 Corinthians 5:13 Deut. 13:5; 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21,24; 24:7
DONE BY ANGEL
1 Timothy 1:20 (NIV)
20 Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
Note: obviously, a nation that does not unanimously come into covenant with the Most High, thus willingly agreeing with Him on what is sin/transgression of the Law, what is to be punished and how, is not going to have a Sanhedrin (courts based on YHWH's Law) as the judicial system; so, they won't punish to death by stoning. Thus the mention of swords in Romans 13. Here specifically, the church in Rome, is obviously under gentile government.
However, God upholds the death penalty by government-given (really, God-given) authority whether or not the government of the nation submits to His Laws. Jesus/YHWH-incarnate wasn't against capital punishment (not even under His own Law; He was against ignoring details of it [e.g. the Pharisees bringing the adulteress woman alone in John 8, while not bringing the adulterer. That was sinful/unlawful/unjust/lawless. The Law requires both. You either have mercy on both culprits in the case, or if you have mercy on one, you have mercy on the other. No cherry-picking. There's also the possibility that all the Pharisees were fellow participants of sleeping around with the adulteress and thus were not two to three witnesses at all, as the Law requires to condemn someone to death, but were the adultering half of her adulteressing, so if they condemned her, they were asking to be killed as well—because they weren't witnesses, but the participants.
Deuteronomy 17:6-7 (NIV)
6 On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. 7 The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.
Leviticus 20:10 (NIV)
10 “‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.
Thus, another Judah and Tamar situation? Burn the prostitute says Judah, but he is the one who slept with the prostitute, so who are you, Judah, to be lifting up the accusation? i.e. Genesis 38]).
But if the nation were to unanimously come into covenant with YHWH, it would be perfectly legitimate to stone people to death, just like the death penalty exists for other crimes today under less-than-perfect laws that exist in gentile nations today. How much more a nation submitted to the Most High's perfect Law? There is nothing wrong with YHWH's Law.
Psalm 19:7 (NIV)
7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
Deuteronomy 4:8 (NIV)
8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?
The Father's Law is not immoral, but righteous. Thus Jesus defending stoning to death in other passages when it 100% agrees with every detail contained in the Law of YHWH (His Law):
Matthew 15:1-9 (NIV)
15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[a] and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[b] 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’[c]”
Footnotes:
a. Matthew 15:4 Exodus 20:12; Deut. 5:16
b. Matthew 15:4 Exodus 21:17; Lev. 20:9
c. Matthew 15:9 Isaiah 29:13
So, yes, in short: the Biblical notion of peace calls for the destruction of what is causing the chaos, confusion, and disorder—whether it be a sinful idea, or the person clinging to the sin to the point that they too must be destroyed along with it (and destroyed by either man or God Himself or God working through man and the rest of creation) after they've been given sufficient warning and time to do so (and inside of a nation set-apart to YHWH, those Commands are posted visibly at the gates/entrance of the city, at the doorposts of every home, and people talking about those Commands when they rise up and lie down, when they walk in public along the road or when they sit at home, e.g. Deuteronomy 6:6-9, there's more than enough warning for any newcomer).
However, when it gets to the latter, God rendering judgment outside of man's courts, many people are affected at once by a single catastrophic event sent by God (that catastrophe may be God stirring up war in the hearts of man, thus large groups of men or a single man, gets utilized to render this judgment on earth, with or without their knowing that God is using them for this).
Man's courts (and the capital punishment they render in said courts) are suppose to n** those behaviors in the bud to avoid God's judgments being poured out on earth). But there's no escaping it: violence against the chaos/lies/confusion-maker is needed to achieve peace. God does not achieve peace, from a chaotic situation, without utilizing destruction of someone or something, be it their idea/thoughts or their physical body to stop the dissemination of the thought.
As much as I already said about this, there are so many more examples of what those judgments are, described with Scriptural examples, in this topic: [The Divine Judgments of God]—both the literal and spiritual examples of each judgment. Though it's not an exhaustive list, by far, because Scripture is full of them, they are “the four” main ones fleshed out with more detail and application in daily life in less severe manifestations of these judgments as well. |
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 7:40 pm
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edited to clarify meaning: "accurate allegations of contradictions caused by the Quran"*, not "accurate statements made by the Quran", could lead to misunderstanding, although once you read the topics it is clear what I mean.
Part 2.
Having addressed the real heart issue of your topic (that you posted in the chatterbox—how peace and violence are used by YHWH), a word of warning: you're relying too heavily on extra-Biblical definitions of words, instead of allowing Scriptural examples and verses to do that for you. And consequently relying a little too blindly on theologians and apologists. David Wood is guilty of falling into the same kind of indirect attacks on Scripture that all these theologians and apologists are committing (as I exposed in my replies to these topics):
[Pray for Nabeel]
[Islam’s View of God and His Revelation
[Loving Your Muslim Neighbor]
The first one even exposing examples of “wife beating” demonstrated by God in both the Old and New Testaments. These ideas are not foreign to the Bible, and supposedly solely found in the Quran. Do apologists alert you of this? No, and yet if you blindly parrot what they say, you'll end up accusing God Himself of a having a sinful nature, [unaware of] what is written in the Bible.
Please read through these (and that's where I included mentions of the accurate allegations of contradictions caused by the Quran that actually do nullify Biblical ones).
By your third reply, on page one of your chatterbox topic, I knew you were puffed up by the theologians and apologists who do not realize that their arguments are indirectly attacking Scripture (just like the Pharisees and Sadducees in Jesus' day, who were authoritative religious sects in charge of teaching theology, but who had started to deviate from what is actually written in Scripture, in its totality, opting instead for what the prestigious Rabbi's [teachers] traditionally taught about it).
You are doing more harm than good by linking people to these arguments, which I can tell is not your intent. However, they contain unsound reasoning, and erroneous paraphrase that does not fully reflect what is written in neither the Bible nor the Quran once you allow the verses in the Quran to read literally, all of them. Many apologists and theologians (regardless of what book they're "apologizing" for or against) fit the passage in the Bible where Jesus accused the Sadducees of being ignorant of what is written.
Mark 12:24 (NIV)
24 Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
As more thoroughly addressed in my reply here: [The Tragedy of Rejecting Christ (Zechariah 11:1-17)], Jesus exposed them for the lawless sects that they really were. Jesus submitted all things to what the text actually says, as it is written, in its entirety, and called them hypocrites when they didn't.
Please, please, please read through those topics. If we don't grasp what the totality of Scripture is saying, then we start sinning against God's Word, speaking against His nature, unbeknownst to us and to the confusion of those looking to us for truth. Plus, you know how He feels—based on king Saul's example—when we start ignoring details of His Word / Instructions. Reject details of His Word, then He rejects you. By the way, there are many examples (Old and New Testament alike), aside from Saul's rejection, that conveys this concept, as covered in the “How You Treat God” area of this topic: [Do Good: A Man Reaps What He Sows]. So, I'll include that there because it is also helpful.
And once the Quranic verses are allowed to read as they are without Muslim commentary, there's a lot that is in agreement with the Bible (as I addressed more thoroughly in the latter two of the three topics that I posted at the beginning of this reply).
In a nutshell: rely more on the Word of God directly than on what theologians are saying. Otherwise, deviant ideas that sound nice/right, but that deviate, infiltrate. Then, out of laziness and fear/respect of man's opinions (over and above the totality of God's), we just start doing what man says, what man argues, and not necessarily what God states.
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