Yep. An almost 3 decade indoctrination in critical thinking skills was jammed into my head by a wide variety of types of people involved in my government-funded educations. That’d be about 28-30 years (I’ve lost track a bit) in public schools and public universities. That is precisely the kind of indoctrination we all need.
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That does not answer the question.
The point is, there were no Jews for over 1000 years after the time that the narrative illustrates it started. It is complete nonesense to claim Jews existed in that period. Is about as applicable as me claiming Anglo Saxon roots. I was neither born in that region nor lived there. I have a distant history but I’m not alone in making claim to that around the world…I have no exclusive claim to it…neither do the Jews with Abrahimic origins. The Bible clearly claims we are all descended from Genesis origins…Adam, then Noah. I don’t think Abraham is relevant to the discussion…we as Christians accept the Jewish lineage through him, however Noah had a number of other sons through which others can trace their heritage other than Shem.
Indoctrination is a good thing, if the doctrine is true (not that it can’t be misused). Anyone who drives a vehicle has been indoctrinated, I hope!
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I didn’t claim Jews existed back then. It’s still a Jewish story; the writers were looking back in faith.
Hello again.
I’m not sure what this is. Is it implying that because one group is not perfect in interpretation, it doesn’t matter what stance we take–that all stances are the same?
When I was in undergrad, I really struggled with this. A well meaning Christian (the Godliest and kindest man I have ever known; I wish I could be like him some day), said we all make mistakes, no matter how honest we are, and interpret things fallibly. So, I understood that to mean that we could take the Bible and ignore other things, as there could be a mistake with the others (in retrospect, I’m not sure that that is what he meant). However, when I talked with my professor about that impression, he was very kind. He said slowly, “then how can we know anything at all, if we are not able to reason?”
He was right. Jesus asked us to strive for perfection. Any mistake on another’s part does not make it right for me not to self examine.
I learned even more that as a Christian, I chose the faith because I wanted it. I don’t want to leave my comfortable environment, where I interpret things the way I see them. I don’t want to ask questions that leave me uncomfortable.
It is not an impregnable position, to be a person of faith.
If we asked a Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu why they believed the way they did, and they said they could not question anything that their faith forbade, would we feel that they were being honest?
On the other hand, I love the passage in Psalm 103–“As a father pities his children, the Lord pities those who fear him; for He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust.” Surely, God knows exactly how limited we are, for He made us. He also made us able to seek and ask questions. Like a parent watching a child stumble on the first steps, he probably claps his hands and says, “Well done!” when we ask questions.
I’m not worried if my faith changes, because I know He is just.
Austin Fischer wrote,
“People don’t abandon faith because they have doubts. People abandon faith because they think they’re not allowed to have doubts.”
Too often, our honest questions about faith are met with cold confidence and easy answers. But false certitude doesn’t result in strong faith—it results in disillusionment, or worse, in a dogmatic, overweening faith unable to see itself or its object clearly.
If the man behind the curtain says, “Don’t look! Don’t touch,” then we must think that our hope is not built on something solid. Only a true God would not be afraid of our looking. That is the God that Jesus showed us, as George Macdonald remarked.
Thanks. Blessings!
By the way, I would like to learn more about you. I am a missionary kid, from Northwest Africa (my parents are from Michigan). I love learning about other languages and cultures. My background is nondenominational/ GARB Baptist, and I have attended a very conservative. YEC Baptist church for 17 years. We live in the small town of Fremont, Michigan. The last time I went on a missions trip was 6 years ago–now that Covid restrictions are opening up again, we’ll likely go again.
Randy
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to treat others like you want to be treated is a selfish outlook on life and sadomasochism does not work on everyone.
Love your neighbour as yourself refers not to oneself but your family/tribe, e.g. those you would lay down your life for, as:
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends"
and one can not do that for oneself.
I’m not sure how exceptions to a rule disqualify a rule. They don’t in my book. We all want to be treated fairly (those of us who are sane and not full of ourselves). It’s good practice to treat others the same.
Don’t forget:
What good is it if you only love those who love you?
Or
Love your enemies.
Or
The parable of the Good Samaritan.
Or
if someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other.
Anyone can disagree with Jesus if they want to. His message was rather simple at times. Following it has always been the hard part.
Vinnie
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I’ve given up struggling with info like this. A good friend died in the foulest of ways two weeks ago. A pillar of the church. From necrotizing fasciitis. Leaving a shattered widow and two lovely kids. You cannot imagine the stench as he was eaten alive.
Anyone got a theology of suffering? That doesn’t blame the sufferer? Or excuse God? Especially while He’s off intervening for those worth loving?
Anything I can share with his widow a week tomorrow?
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Silent tears are good.
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So sorry for your loss and for your friend’s family’s loss. I lost a couple of friends to Covid, and still it is painful at times.
We have been studying Job, and while no good answers are given, his friends did the right thing at first to just be there and listen. Sharing the pain helps you bear it.
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I have found a shoulder or an elbow of a thoughtful, silent friend most helpful myself. Also someone, who can, when the time is right, help me orient my mind to the necessary tasks for the current day. And as crisis abates in other people’s minds, having that friend show up who remembers and can continue to help reorient is of great value.
I”m so sorry.
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I’m sorry. That’s terrible for all the family and friends.
Merv
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I am so sorry.
A coworker of mine lost her young husband to suicide in the last few weeks. She has 2 children under the age of 5. I do not know anything to say.
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”-- Henri Nouwen
You have talked of an “emmanuel,” Christ suffering with us, an immanence. I do not know any answers.
Necrotizing fasciitis is horrible. As a physician, I have had patients with this (recently as well). I hate it. With sincere prayers.
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How perverse.
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what you should share is yourself and the joy of having known him.
To live forever
is the art
to learn to live
in Jesus heart.
it looks like your friend was well on his way for that and instead of trying to talk theology to someone or to ask God to help them in the name of Jesus pray to God for inspiration how you can help her in his name. Apart from probably getting some inspiration on coming up with practical ideas it might prepare you to listen to their needs.
However your comment
makes me wonder if you are in a state of providing useful support to the wife and the children if you carry thoughts in your heart blaming God for suffering. God is the only way to overcome suffering.
Perhaps the important thing that needs checking before you see them is that you do not look at death and suffering as punishment for sin, so you do not make her suffer more.
Do you blame Jesus for his suffering? for a theology of suffering you can look at the cross. Jesus could sing the psalm that glorifies his suffering and death whilst on the cross, reflecting on the feeling of his followers thinking of being abandoned. But he knew he wasn’t, fully aware of the end of the psalm and why he was there, and that is what helped him to go through it, to know that for his glory it is done. The suffering we experience becomes a measure for the love we have which is that what glorifies God for having given us that ability to love when making us in his image. So where is God in all that suffering? He is in those who we are there in his name to alleviate the suffering, thus do his will and glorify him.
Where does suffering come from?
Other than the physical pain, thus the materialistic side of it, in an abstract way you can describe suffering as the discrepancy between our expectations for reality and reality. As an atheist you have no justification for suffering as you have to accept reality as is. As theists we have to ask ourselves were the “ought to be” reality idea of not physically dying comes from as for us to suffer physical death. Is Gold life physical? Do we expect Jesus to be a physical entity? If so, how could he then live in us - and if he does, can he be physically removed? …
We will all dye physically sooner or later, so help her to stay alive spiritually as that is what allows you to leave your physical body behind one day
If God grounds being He grounds suffering. That’s what nature does. Suffers. Suffers as if there were no God. I’d accept all of that and believe that all will be well for all forever and go my way if God spoke to me as He did Job. As He did through the divine intelligence of the Pericope Adulterae. Until I read the footnotes after nearly half a century of ‘bible study’.
The attitude of skeptical theism is pretty much ignored by most, and not because it should be. (Thanks for the introduction to the articulation of it, @heymike3. ; - )
suffering death is the logical consequence of the fall as it requires the definition of the self independent of God to create the suffering. as long as mankind was with God there was no suffering as your physical death was the normal way to return to the father as the human beings lived in him and he in them, thus being part of eternal life.
With regards to Job, did he have faith because God spoke to him or could he hear God speak to him because Job had faith?
Those who have it are more childlike.
Check out the book “God Can’t” by Thomas Jay Oord. He offers a quite different view of suffering and evil.
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