Posted on 05/19/2013 12:21:32 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
Edited on 05/25/2013 2:44:13 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
"Where were You, God?" The question arises daily as news of tragedies abound, and even from time to time as the tragedy involves ourselves. Servicemen die in a bungled military defense operation that should have been a cake walk, and no government official has credible answers. A son is shot dead in his prime by a wanton criminal. A wife dies decades too soon from a deadly disease. A busy mother dies unexpectedly from a sudden heart attack. Maybe you were emotionally abused when a child and have been saddled with a destructive habit that you acquired in an effort to escape from the torment by the only means you knew, and prayer -- once you realized you were in a trap -- seemed scant help or comfort. In these myriad situations the bitter questions often arise: "Oh Lord, where were You? Dear God, why did You roll over for this? Almighty Father, I've always heard that you are righteous and omnipotent, so why did You not act when it would have been so simple for You to stop it from happening? Oh, the heart-rending woe! Why did You lose, God?"
This is not a modern question, and it was not discovered by modern atheists, agnostics, or freethinkers. It arose many thousands of years ago to a man named Job (pronounced with a long "o") who kept a tender conscience towards God about what he did, and as a result displayed a very upright life, and was blessed with a large, loving family and many earthly riches. And yet without warning this man's world came crashing down upon him. It began with the destruction and theft of his great riches, and was topped by the loss of most of the lives of his dear family. Then, the trouble soon escalated with an inexplicable illness that covered him with sores. His wife, in an apparent hint that God was fickle and undeserving of love, in great disgust told him to curse God and die. His friends, who initially wisely comforted him in silence, then began to lecture him sarcastically about how he must have done something terribly wrong to provoke God's wrath, and his agony grew as a heated argument erupted and Job insisted he had done nothing to deserve the tragedy. Finally a wiser friend suggested that Job look to God's sovereignty, and then God answered Job from a whirlwind, challenging the limitations of Job's knowledge about what God can do. With a deeper appreciation of God's capabilities, Job stopped complaining, and soon God blessed Job twice as much as he had been blessed before.
There is a simple enough answer to the question, at least to the mind: by allowing the world and even our selves to fail so dramatically at times, God highlights His capacity to save, a faith in which we sometimes are sorely lacking, and even if we know it in our heads, our hearts are slower and lag behind that and need to be taught. For God is not merely solving complex intellectual problems. He is solving problems that encompass our entire beings that He has created and bestowed with capabilities that are an image of His own.
Daniel,Several of the boys who became the 12 tribes of Israel were born of slave women.The “wives” in a competition as to who would have the most children gave thier slave women to bear more children for them.All were equally blessed yes,but doesnt change the fact that God saw it as perfectly ok to have sex with youre slaves.
Also,Abraham was not a king,yet he had concubines.
So you claim it's a *fact* that "God saw it as perfectly ok to have sex with youre [sic] slaves".
Where do you find that in Scripture?
God permitted divorce because of the hardness of mens hearts but that's a far cry from it being *perfectly OK*.
You do realize that Abraham lived before the Law, don't you?
You know, anyone who wants to find fault with God can and will. Nothing God does, ever has done, or ever will do will be good enough for those people.
We could spend the rest of our lives answering pointless questions which have no other purpose than to impugn God.
This nonsense of trying to find something with which to accuse God is nothing more than trying to find an excuse to reject Him.
Anyone who wants to reject God ought to at least have the integrity to be honest about it and just fess up and admit it.
If we gonna be this accurate, then we need to learn Greek and Hebrew, for NONE of the words we are discussing here are found in 'scripture'.
Your request will not be obeyed.
You asked me a question and I simply want you to answer a question first.
WHY should I follow YOUR wishes, when you do not extend the same courtesy to me?
If you want to interpolate the ASSUMED response of the woman from a bunch of opinion, then by all means, do it.
I will not.
The rich young ruler went away sad.
But; was he saved or not?
The scriptures do not say.
Fill in blanks at your peril.
And what of the Trinity?
Please supply a link to that phrase from the Bible.
The "several" was 4 , by Bilhah and Zilpah, which were to Rachel and Leah, respectively, by their dad, and consequently were given to Jacob as wives. And who wanted sexual relations. >But contrary to how your objection was expressed, it is not that God saw it as ok to have sex with one's slaves, but that He sanctioned slavery and taking them as wives and thus having relations with them, though this meant becoming mothers in (and in this case) of Israel.
Thus your real objection is to slavery and perhaps concubinage, but while the former invokes memories of slavery in the antebellum South of the US, it was not a monolithic institution , nor originally instituted by God, but an institution that was an integral part of the ANE and its economy, while OT slavery was only sanctioned as a regulated and ameliorated form of it.
And which in the NT was also dealt with (equal pay, no threatening, etc.) as existing in an slave state (perhaps half the church was made up of slaves), while obtaining freedom was exhorted and exampled. (1Cor. 7:21; Philemon)
Meanwhile the general Christian ethos worked toward its abolition when social and political factors allowed, but which was much delayed (as well as reduced) partly by the institutionalization of the church.
We could get deeper into this God willing, but a distinction is to be made between basic moral laws versus culturally applied regulations that work toward the full fulfillment of the former.
Also,Abraham was not a king,yet he had concubines
Just like a Buick; yet many ministers drive one.
But all priests are with one Accord.
Peace be to you
Girls! Boys!
I suppose some fine print comments could be made. It looks like the one who was told to go and stop sinning probably would have — that is quite often the case in practice — but we have no kryptonite plated guarantee about it, so to speak. It’s actually more an illustration of how the spirit of Christ ministers in mercy, than of what happens to a particular sinner.
OK, so the bible shows a refinement of norms as history progressed. Abraham, the first Jew per se, did not have the Mosaic law which increased the emphasis on the monogamous norm, though exceptions were still tolerated if not commanded (e.g. Solomon’s wives, and Esther being one of many of Xerxes’ concubines, later to become his new queen wife when his previous queen wife Vashti was deposed for disrespect). And then Jesus comes into the picture, with every hint and sign that He is God, and that He is the consummation of salvation, and calls for monogamy, period. You have to take God as He comes, not as you’d imagine Him before ever having come to really know Him.
Well, it says maidservants. It doesn’t say how they became maidservants. We have to be careful in any case about equating the biblical servant or slave to the relatively modern scourge of kidnapped chattel slavery the spiritual legacy of which has brought racial turmoil in North America to this day.
I have noticed this behavior too, when I could have sworn it used to focus me in on News/Activism. I was seeing stuff from Smokey Backroom, going there and then wondering how I ended up in that place. Is that a change of site design or do I just misremember how it worked in older days? It would be nice if I didn't get Everything until I had asked into it.
Well as a picky point, it really ought to be put as “Believe whom?”
We evangelicals, and the more spiritually oriented Roman Catholics, will answer that “Jesus Christ.”
“Churchians” will answer “My church.”
Evangelicals would put it more like “universal church [body of all believers in Jesus Christ] in process of being sanctified with an ultimate destination of perfection in heaven.” Many evangelical bodies do repeat the creed, which is rendered with a lowercase c “catholic.”
Evangelicals and Roman Catholics are unlikely to ever agree eye to eye this side of glory on some things that one or the other view as essential. I clearly state my evangelical “Protestant” bias and say the Roman Catholic church (according to the flesh) is a functional church but not a perfect one. But neither is any functional evangelical church a perfect one.
It was changed a few years ago to give an “everything” browse option which is now the default. Previously, you had to select a forum.
You got me.My first thought was...one accord?yeah right...and then I laughed till I stopped.It’s rare on these threads...cheers!
It was a hanging curve...
Could you please put an edit into the second paragraph of the main article. I got an event out of sequence in the Job account and I'm surprised nobody caught it. I guess I ought not to always trust my memory even with familiar bible stories. It ought to read like this:
This is not a modern question, and it was not discovered by modern atheists, agnostics, or freethinkers. It arose many thousands of years ago to a man named Job (pronounced with a long "o") who kept a tender conscience towards God about what he did, and as a result displayed a very upright life, and was blessed with a large, loving family and many earthly riches. And yet without warning this man's world came crashing down upon him. It began with the destruction and theft of his great riches, and was topped by the loss of most of the lives of his dear family. Then, the trouble soon escalated with an inexplicable illness that covered him with sores. His wife, in an apparent hint that God was fickle and undeserving of love, in great disgust told him to curse God and die. His friends, who initially wisely comforted him in silence, then began to lecture him sarcastically about how he must have done something terribly wrong to provoke God's wrath, and his agony grew as a heated argument erupted and Job insisted he had done nothing to deserve the tragedy. Finally a wiser friend suggested that Job look to God's sovereignty, and then God answered Job from a whirlwind, challenging the limitations of Job's knowledge about what God can do. With a deeper appreciation of God's capabilities, Job stopped complaining, and soon God blessed Job twice as much as he had been blessed before.
Thank you, HTRN
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