I’d say so:
It is right in the sight of the LORD to destroy all pagan places.
By the logic presented in the article, once all the pagan places are destroyed (if this is a priority), there will be a long list of other niceties from the OT to accomplish.
So how can we respond to the website. Whilst I would never harm my nonbelieving family, God’s word would suggest that we must do this
Well – at the very least our responses probably shouldn’t go beyond what Paul demonstrates. He didn’t go through Athens on an idol-smashing rampage, but rather used their religious appetites to point them towards the true God. So it seems to me that the pagan destruction ordered in O.T. times has (for Christians) been superceded by a pagan redemption instead. So, for example, instead of doing away with pagan holidays they redeemed them by celebrating Christmas with it instead.
Where do you find these things?.. The problem with this person’s approach is that they don’t have a clue how to interpret or apply the Scripture. When God gives a specific command to a specific person (or people) for a specific situation, we cannot simply treat that specific instruction as if it applies to all cases and situations. Should everyone tie up their firstborn son and lay him on an altar, as God commanded Abraham? This approach to interpretation and application is simplistic in the extreme and requires no real refutation.
All that you really need to do is ask yourself the purpose of the command, and then you will see the obvious application. So, why did God command the Israelites to remove or destroy all the pagan shrines and temples? If you follow the story of Israel from start to finish, you will see that the nation always faced two temptations that eventually proved their downfall – syncretism and assimilation. The command was a warning against adopting the religion and culture of “the nations.”
How does this apply to you, me, and everyone else in the modern world? Remove the sources of temptation from your life. “Bad company corrupts good character,” as Paul warned. Or, as James the Lord’s brother put it: “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
Deuteronomy 13:6
There is no textual evidence that the church co-opted December 25 from a pagan holiday. (Although that is a widespread belief.)
Haha, good one. I meant these websites. Hang in there. Seek, and you shall find.
Fair enough – I have no ax to grind on that. My point was that even if such things were true they don’t represent some sort of “score against Christianity” that some seem to think. Other indisputably real examples abound … sacred hymns using tunes from former bar songs, for example.
1 Timothy 5:23
I guess we all need to be doing this, on the ‘strength’ of this bizarre logic that everything ever said must apply everywhere, to everybody, and at all times.
(I hope you were being humorous above – I certainly am here.)
Guess we are going to have to find new names for months and days of the week.
Let’s see. today is Friday:
The name Friday comes from the Old English Frīġedæġ, meaning the “day of Frige”, a result of an old convention associating the Old English goddess Frigg with the Roman goddess Venus, with whom the day is associated in many different cultures.
Let’s start calling it “Outofhere Day.”
Why do you feel the need to respond to an extreme website?
I have to admit, the longer you are around, the more you see that there are some people who are really out there, and responding to them just pushes them further and never accomplishes much. Sort of like the “wrestle with a pig” quote.
Pretty certain you meant the website author, not @Reggie_O_Donoghue. But just to be clear … Not directed at you, Reggie!
I would say that before God made contact with Abraham and Sarah that Abram came from the City of UR in Mesopotamia. He probably was originally influenced by pantheism before the true God, Adonai Elohim, made himself known to Abram and Sarai, two people who accepted the true God and became known as Abraham and Sarah. After that, he would father of the Hebrew people.
Because they are correct that God does call for destroying these places. Maybe I didn’t need to link the website to be fair.
Yes, @Reggie_O_Donoghue! I was referring to the website! Sorry for my ambiguous wording! Ten lashes with a wet pool noodle for me.
But it raises the question as to ‘why’ God would call for this, if this wasn’t his ideal
Joshua 24: “2 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. 3 But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants.”
The key word there is really “was”, isn’t it?
ISIS is a radical violence-promoting Islamist group. Your website is a nutty extremist violence-promoting Christian site. So first we must get our extremist sects sorted out. (They would probably enjoy attacking each other!) If you take any of this seriously please stay out of museums, airports, etc.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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