How do Christians deal with the violence in the Bible?

This is God's judgment against sin and given as a warning to all that this is how His justice works in this universe. Absolutely. And He still does and still will, though He always gives ample time for repentance. Hundreds of years. The Bible was given to be a warning. Hardly. He offers his virgin daughters as SUBSTITUTES for the angels, who the Sodomites wanted instead. What do I think of it? I think they lived in rough times, the very primitive culture of the Middle East of the time. There are many such examples of this, such as the revenge killing by the sons of Jacob of the whole family of Shechem for his rape of Dinah, even though he loved her and wanted to marry her according to all the rules. This was before God gave the Law to Moses, which put restrictions on such disproportionate vigilante justice. Lot was protecting his angelic guests, messengers from God, from an offense he regarded as worse than the rape of his daughters. Nothing pretty about any of it. Yes, there's a ton of theology about God's justice in this, like it or not. Israel was God's own "firstborn" and He was avenging the slavery of His firstborn against Pharoah in terms the people could understand. You misrepresent the text. They killed only men, as you just quoted. Again God's judgments being illustrated. These were His own people who were committing adultery against Him. Idolatry is also called adultery in the Bible. Sad but true. Jesus is God.Obviously you don't like to see justice done against sin. These are GOD's own doings, never commanded of His followers, as we are to be "meek" and "peacemakers," following Jesus who died for sinners. What you are leaving out is that God sent His Son to suffer these very judgments in our place, yes, God the Son taking the punishments, the just punishments of our sin, into His own body so that those who believe in Him might escape them. It is important to distinguish between acts of God which go on all the time, and what Christians are commanded to do, which is to be bringers of God's mercy, the antidote to His justice, bring the gospel to sinners so that they may ESCAPE these judgments. Christians who denounce God's justice have a pretty senseless gospel of salvation from God's justice to offer people.This message has been edited by Faith, 07-30-2005 11:02 AM

Hardly ignored it Mr. Frog. Showed that it is God's justice and what we need salvation from.

Excuse me but what "victims" are being blamed here? You simply refuse to accept God's righteous judgements on the GUILTY. We're ALL guilty, by the way, not an innocent victim among us with respect to God's law against sinners.

1) God's judgments go on every day, but their causes are usually not obvious. 2) The judgments given in the Bible are more than anything else a warning of the ultimate Judgment to come.3) God no longer uses His people as instruments of His justice as He did in the time of Israelites. Now His people are to spread the word of salvation FROM His judgments.This message has been edited by Faith, 07-30-2005 11:38 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 07-30-2005 11:41 AM

Besides committing our own sins we also inherit sin. The consequences are very sad.

The problem people have is distinguishing between murder of innocents and the execution of justice. God is God, all His acts are justice. Of course you are free to hate Him if you like and accuse Him of violating YOUR moral code, but this is His nature as revealed in His word, pure righteousness and perfect justice. Terrorists may in fact BE executing God's justice as prompted by God behind the scenes, but the Bible makes it very clear that they are committing murder as viewed from their point of view, and will be judged in their turn by God for that. Over and over in the Old Testament God brings one nation against another in judgment, many of the pagan nations such as Babylonia and Assyria and Persia against His own people for instance. He sent prophets well in advance to warn them of what was coming and then it came. It is all cast in terms of judgment for their violations of the covenant, and He also says that those who have been the instruments of their punishment will be punished in turn because their motives were evil and not good.You may not like any of this, and it is a hard thing to like I admit, but it is justice, it is not murder, according to the Bible, and that's what I believe. But when human beings do it to each other their motives are simply evil and they will be judged by God for that in their turn. It all started when sin and death entered the world, and it will play out like this to the end. But salvation from it all HAS been offered. Of course. The problem people have is the inability to appreciate just how bad sin is. God is good in his judgments, and He wants us to help people who suffer from His judgments, and He wants us to pray for mercy. It's exactly like a loving parent teaching a child what is good for him, that if he does what is right he will be rewarded and if he does what is wrong he will be punished in order to learn what is good and right. God gave us a ton of examples in His word, it's not as if we have been given no clue to what is required in His universe -- and this IS His universe, not ours. Doesn't sit well with me either but I have to think that in the context of the times Lot must have concluded that it was better than letting God's own messengers be sodomized. It raises a lot of questions of course. But this story is not put forward as any great righteous act, it is simply how Lot dealt with the situation and he may have been wrong in God's eyes. Prayer might have brought a better solution. Those were angels after all. There are many stories in the Bible of people doing wrong rather than right. I haven't studied this one but I may look up commentary on it if this conversation continues. First, the "firstborn" are not necessarily children. Why would you assume that? Whoever was the firstborn would have died, at whatever age he was. And again, God cannot commit murder, by definition. Because He's God, and all His acts are righteous perfect justice. We aren't in a position to judge Him, He has the right to judge us, and there is no doubt that what He does is good. There's nothing more to say. If you do it, it is murder, if God does it, it is justice because He knows exactly what each person deserves, you don't, and you would be acting from wrong motives. Look, God's judgments are beyond us, but that "child" is not going to be punished for no good reason but for the sins he commits in this life, and far from being tortured for its entire existence it may have a very happy life. The punishment will be quite just, only in relation to actual crimes/sins committed, and in this life God is kind to all his creatures, as He says, extending mercy to all who reject him, so that "child" may enjoy all kinds of happiness in this life while he rejects God. No, we don't grasp God's ways. To understand why God does what He does takes faith and meditation on the meaning of such things in the light of our knowledge that God is good. They aren't natural to us. But calling it "murder" misjudges it. It is justice, not murder.
You put yourself above God with judgments such as these. That's the fallen nature talking. This is not the place to start learning about God, by accusing him of injustice. His goodness is not going to be revealed to you this way. Of course if you want to ask Him about it, respectfully and sincerely, He answers such questions. You simply refuse to distinguish between justice and crime, and to acknowledge that God is God, and that God cannot commit anything but righteous acts.Well I've done my best to explain it. I understand why people have a problem with it, but the point is that we are sinners and we do deserve it, and there's really nothing more to say. Meanwhile we are to be good to each other because this supposedly bad God commanded that we be good to each other. And again, He did offer salvation but of course you are free to hate him and reject his offer too.

Rahvin, I understand your points completely. But to put it bluntly, the God you love is a God of your own invention. The real God you do in fact hate, as in: And so on throughout your post. You have every right to believe whatever, but if the God of the Bible is the true God then you are loving either a false God or a partial portrait of God at best, which He may well regard as idolatry. God does have the right to break His own commandments of course, but as a matter of fact, once again, He cannot commit murder, only justice, no matter what our morality has to say about it. Our morality is distorted by the Fall, however, and has to be corrected by God.You can be sure that if someone thinks God told him/her to kill someone, it wasn't God saying it. When God led the army of Israel in such slaughters there was a reason for it that has long since ended. He NEVER commanded an individual to commit murder, but He did lead the army of Israel in battles with the intention of complete annihilation of the enemy and He did prescribe the death penalty for various crimes which He laid out in His law. Interestingly the Israelites found it very difficult to carry out such intentions. They didn't even follow the law in many cases. There are many incidents of their only partially carrying out the commands to destroy the enemy and suffering the consequences of their disobedience, especially in the form of the survivors becoming a tremendous snare or enemy to them. I agree. We are to be good because it is the right thing to do, and that pleases God. But you raised this topic and I answered it from what I understand to be orthodoxy. It's not where our attention should be focused but since you have been challenging God's honor I've been defending Him. (And now we will hear from the Red Herring Chorus about how God doesn't NEED to be defended).The threat to kill was not analogized to human parents, merely the threat of punishment -- and besides there are many forms of punishment we all suffer all the time short of death. I checked some online commentaries and they disapprove just as we do, reflecting our natural horror at Lot's offer of his daughters, and a couple suggest that it was about the status of women in that culture, which had occurred to me too. In any case it's not taken as an example of a good thing: Well, I'm in the position of believing the entire Bible as the word of God. When one picks and chooses one just invents one's own religion. That's your right, but it really does deprive you of the very understanding of the reality of the nature of God and life which God went out of His way to give us, by providing His word. We ALL deserve to die. And we WILL all die because we deserve to die. The Bible merely takes us behind the scenes and shows us that there are reasons for death and suffering. Many don't. I personally think all who don't are going to be very unpleasantly surprised. Does it make sense to believe something simply because you LIKE it or disbelieve because you don't? I completely understand. But where did you get your idea of a loving merciful forgiving God in the first place? The only source is the Bible. So you affirm those parts and reject the rest based on your own moral feelings, but that's really the same thing as telling someone that their autobiography is true only where we happen to enjoy the story and false where we dislike the facts it presents. These are such SMALL fringe groups in the whole of Chrsitianity, it is absurd to make so much out of them. We know homosexual acts and abortion are against God's law and preach against them, but actually threatening or doing harm is NOT in God's will and the vast majority of Christians know that. However, the hijackers belong to a significant part of Islam, which kills people for simply not being Muslims, which is being debated on another thread. There is no hint whatever that the historical parts of the Bible were written as parables, but that's another argument, which has been debated here before. The Bible purports to have been inspired by God Himself. Over and over the prophets say "the word of the LORD came to me." The telling of the story is quite spare, just the facts mam, not at all showing any signs of imaginative embellishment it seems to me. Supposing that the authors embellished the truth is simply completely out of character in the context of the Bible which teaches fear of God and which inspired the copyists to an obsessional degree of exactitude in their work, far from any spirit of embellishment. Then to be accurate, it isn't that you don't distinguish, it's that you put your own judgments above God's, as many do. You hate the idea of a God who would behave as the Bible describes. If He is in fact the true God, as I believe, then isn't it true that you hate Him? So you've made clear, Rahvin, and you are far from alone, especially on this site. Nor do the Christian commentators as I showed earlier, so on this we all agree. No, but the God of the Bible apparently does. My belief in the Biblical God was established first of all on the absolute certainty that the Bible was the word of God because I know God to be omnipotent, meaning He inspired it all and would not allow His word to be compromised into something part true and part false; and on personal experience of Him; to such an extent that when I encountered the difficult parts I knew that was God too, whether it sat well with me or not. There is much in the Bible our natural condition objects to, and it takes time and thought to put it all in perspective.But one basis for the reconciliation of all the difficult parts in my experience is that they explain the reality we all experience all the time anyway, the sufferings of life, in a way we'd never have thought of, which I find very satisfying intellectually. Original sin (the propensity to sin) explains the mess we're in and can never seem to get out of. It explains human brutality and war and evil of every kind, and death and misery from all causes, and it explains the "acts of God" that we all suffer from. Otherwise there is no explanation for these things, just chance, accident, physical forces in blind action -- an idea that reduces any idea of God to something less than all-powerful to say the least. I think it's also interesting that Hinduism and Buddhism likewise recognize these things as consequences of human misbehavior, though they either have no God or their God is not personal as ours is, and the concept of karma ("what goes around comes around" at its most simplistic) is more of a mechanical thing, kind of a disembodied inexorable Justice Machine.GDR has many times mentioned C.S. Lewis' essay God in the Dock which is about people judging God instead of submitting to His judgments. I read it so long ago I've forgotten its argument but since it's on the subject you might find it illuminating.

Forgot nothing, Arach, simply answered the quotes that were given by Rahvin in his first post. I did, however, address this kind of example in the answer to him I just posted, above. 1) "Genocide" is merely a special case of criminal homicide, and God cannot commit homicide, but only justice. The numbers and genetic relationships are irrelevant. (It's rather an artificial concept anyway: If only one person of childbearing age is killed that could be said to be the same as genocide if you think about it). Anyway, again, it's not murder, it's justice, as God ONLY brings about death because of sin. That's the whole story of Adam and Eve.2) Yes, a slaughter commanded by God that is reported as part of the history of Israel, unique to the circumstances and not generalizable as a command in any other circumstances. But all the OT is intended to teach God's nature, and how God's judgments work in this world for any willing to learn.3) It's no less BY God, as God usually uses instruments of one sort or another to enact His judgments, whether "acts of God" or armies or whatever, but that's an academic point I suppose.4) I think I've lost track of your point. Or mine. There was something else I was going to say but can't remember it. Oh well.

Judgment of sin is ultimately a good thing. When at the Last Judgment we see the sentence given to the great injustices committed throughout history we will know that God is good.You simply haven't learned to read God's actions as justified. It's hard for us, as I said in my previous post to you, but the more time you spend in the Bible, or hearing it well taught and preached, in the frame of mind of being willing to be wrong, the more you see it.

God does NOT violate His command against killing, which correctly means murder, or the killing of an INNOCENT without cause. He also prescribed the death penalty for many of the offenses He spells out in His law, and the way to understand God's "killings" is to recognize that they are in fact the Death Penalty -- justice, not murder. Human justice systems execute criminals (or should) for certain crimes after they have been proven guilty, often for the murder of innocents. The distinction is between innocent and guilty. In human justice, we decide innocence or guilt on particular crimes, all being innocent until proven guilty. God does the same, as shown in the Bible, but also in God's eyes we are all guilty and will all eventually die, though we normally never know when or how. All we are seeing in the Bible is particular judgments of God from behind the scenes. Without the Bible's revelations of the causes, all the wars and slaughters that go on in the world all the time would still go on, but without any explanation beyond the evil propensities of humanity.

As usual, you didn't bother to get the whole point let alone think about what I was saying. I continued as follows:

quote:

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The distinction is between innocent and guilty. In human justice, we decide innocence or guilt on particular crimes, all being innocent until proven guilty. God does the same, as shown in the Bible, but also in God's eyes we are all guilty and will all eventually die, though we normally never know when or how.

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My point, dear Schraf, is that he picks and chooses from the Bible, only the parts that fit what he wants God to be like. I explained it quite clearly as the post proceeded but you like to pretend I just made a flat assertion, don't you? As for being famous, well, I'm one of millions who believe as I do. I may be famous HERE of course because there are so few of us here ...

We can agree to disagree.

It's a cry to God to avenge them against their enemies, the Babylonians, for justice against those who had dealt with them unmercifully. A case of a call for "what goes around comes around" to put it most simplistically. This message has been edited by Faith, 08-02-2005 04:03 PM

I'm not entirely sure that's so. The Jews treated their Babylonian captors with utmost respect and deference, they themselves did not do any killing. Nevertheless under Christ we don't pray for God's vengeance any more, but that God will have mercy and save our enemies. They WEREN'T called on to kill others. They were calling on GOD to avenge them and avenge His own honor."Vengeance is MINE saith the LORD", not ours.