- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
In the new testament it says that the Savior came to bring a sword between mothers and fathers and sons and daughters, and that he who will not “hate” his mother and father can’t be a disciple of Christ. On the other hand, the scriptures say you should honor your father and mother.
How do we reconcile these two sets of scriptures? They contradict each other….
I went through a phase where I tried to find the symbolic meaning of all scriptures. It was very useful for me. Now I just say, chuck anything unloving, unkind, intolerant and evil. Keep the kind, loving, tolerant stuff.
I’d say that is what the Light of Christ tells me.
The scriptures are full of contradictions and also paradoxical stories. IMO, that’s usually where the juiciest morsels are located, the ones that really stretch our minds and souls. In a metaphorical sense, the Savior came to change the order of things, especially the outer social world. You can also view this as him coming to break down the barriers inside us. You are referring to the passage in Luke Chapter 12. In these passages Jesus also talk about taking up our crosses and following him, and losing our old life to find the new one — the transformation of the spirit.
I look for the lesson I can take from each one – and if I can’t find one, I figure it simply wasn’t translated correctly. That seems like a mainstream Mormon approach. This past Sunday, the GD teacher, had us read a few verses in Deutronmey about getting away from people who try to tempt us. The two verses just below that (which she did not have us read) said to seek out and kill those who tempt us and stone them. Interesting, how it is so easy to take scriptures out of context or culture and know what parts we should believe and what parts we should not accept. Marcus Borg’s “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time” and Bart Ehrman’s “Jesus Interrupted” are both really interesting books on this subject. It helps to view the bible in a different light than as inerrant or even just not quite translated correctly. Borg is a Jesus scholar at Oregon State and Ehrman is, I think, the same at UNC at Chapel Hill. It’s always helpful to take the contradictions with a grain of salt and if possible keep them in perspective with the time and by whom they may have been written. SilentDawning wrote:In the new testament it says that the Savior came to bring a sword between mothers and fathers and sons and daughters, and that he who will not “hate” his mother and father can’t be a disciple of Christ.
On the other hand, the scriptures say you should honor your father and mother.
How do we reconcile these two sets of scriptures? They contradict each other….
I was looking for scriptures where Jesus taught us to “hate” our mothers or fathers…I’m not sure I see that anywhere.It did make me think of this confusing scripture:
Quote:Luke 12: 51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
But even that teaching…divided isn’t the same as “go and hate them”.
I’m pretty convinced scriptures can be used to support almost any argument.
Words have multiple meanings…context is important when comparing words. When in doubt, I like Just Me’s advice:
just me wrote:chuck anything unloving, unkind, intolerant and evil. Keep the kind, loving, tolerant stuff.
Quote:Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
This is the scripture requiring the disciples of Jesus to “hate” family members and their own lives.
I think this demonstrates the danger of quoting verses out of context, something that most Xians do on a regular basis, Mormons included. I think there is no contradiction here… it’s more a case of…
“Honour thy father and thy mother”
BUT
if they’re holding you back in your spiritual path, split yourself off from them.
Can you imagine living in a family whose father was a devout Pharisee? The family was instructed that salvation only came by complete obedience to the Law- weren’t there like 713 created laws at the time of Christ? I know that a couple of them were: 1) “No spitting on Sunday”- for fear that a seed might germinate and that is considered causing something to “work”. 2) You could not walk more than 2/3 of a mile on the Sabbath. etc Then Christ comes and says that the Law is fulfilled in Him. He no longer requires the keeping of the Law- but rather says there are only a few things required for salvation: 1) Brokenness- sincere acknowledgment that you cannot save yourself by obedience to Law. 2) Contrition of Spirit. 3) Belief in Christ. I love His words about Salvation-
thisis the Gospel in its pure, simple form. I imagine if a son or daughter came home to that family telling them of the “new” doctrine of Jesus Christ- heads would roll!! The father would argue that it was false doctrine and that Jesus was anti-God and anti-Abraham and Moses and a few others. Families would split up because of the new-found faith in Christ. The father would argue: “Look at all the good that the Pharisees teach! Look how disciplined they teach us to be, and how they help our kids stay out of trouble and the structure that is in place!! What more evidence do you need that our religion is true?!” “We must continue to keep the Law or we will be thrust down to hell!” I can see it all clearly because of the culture shock that happened within my family when I disclosed to everyone that I would not be an active member in the LDS church anymore but retained a firm faith in Christ and was committed to following Him.
Even keeping the commandments to love God and love your neighbor do not save us- they are merely what we do because He asks us to and because we love Him. And we love Him because He loved us first- even while we were sinners and were not deserving. No one ever “deserves” or “earns” salvation. What we
dois merely the evidence that our hearts are committed to Christ and that we remain broken, humble and believe in Christs’ power to cover our sins every day.What good is salvation if it only applies at the end of our lives? (And couldn’t the end of our lives possibly be today?) Isn’t it a daily salvation that we are offered? That we are perfectedevery day that we are truly humble and full of faith in the Blood of the Lamb? I believe it is so – and the burden of salvation has finally become light and the yoke- easy. I have known some people that make that connection M3GD. It is an interesting perspective to question ourselves as indeed being the Pharisee in the New Testament story — “likening the scripture unto us.” That seems like a healthy form of introspection indeed. Do I think all traditional believers are like that? No. That has not been my experience at all. But yes, we as individuals in any faith, Mormonism included, can fall prey to that impulse. When the law become an idol, that was one of the messages of Jesus. Paradoxically, He also said that he did not come to take away the law, but to fulfill it. There’s almost always a lot of juicy meat to chew on in scriptural paradox. It seems we can not abandon “the law” either, while we move forward in our fulfillment of it. That would seem to be one message to draw from the words of the Savior.
Brian Johnston wrote: Quote:It seems we can not abandon “the law” either, while we move forward in our fulfillment of it.
I would just add that the order of things changed- and that the order is important. We now keep the commandments to build His Kingdom and serve him because He loved us and saved us first. The need to obtain salvation through the keeping of the law was made irrelevant. We are now able to “buy milk and honey without money and without price”- because the price was paid by Christ.God doesn’t want a bunch of robots that are really good at keeping a bunch of rules- with no heart. He wants more than that- he wants out hearts! When He has that- then He knows that we will do whatever he wants at any time- and he’ll accept our imperfect efforts in doing it. The rules are just the means to the end of glorifying God and bringing people to Him. Do you agree?
I agree with that, M3GD – but, as in the other thread, I want to probe a bit more to understand exactly what you mean. Please believe me when I say that I really am trying to understand. Quote:He knows that we will do whatever he wants at any time
How are we to know what he wants us to do, if there is no reason to rely on understanding of any particular law or command or rule as part of what he wants? Are you advocating that we ignore rules instituted by man – and, if so, why are you sure that those written in the Bible were not instituted by man? If we can’t accept Joseph as a prophet who spoke for God in some things he said, why can we accept the NT disciples and/or those who wrote the Bible as God’s spokespersons? Are you sayin we need to rely only on what the Spirit tells us to do, since that is all that is totally divorced from man being a spokesperson?
Old-Timer wrote: Quote:How are we to know what he wants us to do, if there is no reason to rely on understanding of any particular law or command or rule as part of what he wants? Are you advocating that we ignore rules instituted by man
Are you talking about spiritual laws or laws of the land or both? I think we know what he wants us to do if it falls generally into the category of Love. Love God and fellow man. The interpretation of “how” to do that will vary from person to person. I think its cool that we all put it into practice in different ways- we are not to be “commanded in all things,” right? And we all have different talents and gifts. Its freeing to know that God will be pleased with us however we put it into practice once he has our hearts. I believe it is far more important to seek brokenness than making sure we are following the rules with exactness. I think most of the rules are made up by religions to keep order in their church. It’s like a corporation- it has to be run that way or things will run amuck. But we can become entrepreneurs and establish our own faith based on the main rules that Christ taught: brokenness, contrition, belief in Him, and love for God and man. That’s it.
Old-Timer wrote:
Quote:If we can’t accept Joseph as a prophet who spoke for God in some things he said, why can we accept the NT disciples and/or those who wrote the Bible as God’s spokespersons?
I would argue that the Bible (especially the NT) is far more trustworthy than Joseph Smith- on many levels. I will take the witness of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul over the witnesses for Joseph Smith. The Dead Sea Scrolls corroborated the translation of OT scripture with almost perfect accuracy- so the whole translation error argument is tenuous IMO.
But ultimately we have to choose and step out in faith on this one. We do not really “know” anything. Would you agree? In reading the NT and the BofM- there are very important differences in the doctrines about our salvation. I believe the conflicting doctrines are a big clue that the BofM was man-made.
So I have made a decision. I
choose to believein the words of Christ found in the New Testament over the words that Joseph Smith said he got from God. I don’t knowthat I am right, but my confidence is very high and I believe it without doubting. I have made a decision about what I believe based on all the evidence that I have studied. It’s that simple for me, really. If forced to choose…I will bet on the NT. And my life has been more peaceful and full since that decision was made. I still am a work in progress and fight against temptation a like we all do- but I am not burdened (unnecessarily IMO) by all the stuff that Joseph Smith or the Catholic church, etc says we need to do to gain salvation on top of what Christ said we need to do. I choose Christ as the way over the many possible “ways” that we have to believe in. Just the steak please- no toppings needed. And make it a lamb steak. Quote:the whole translation error argument is tenuous IMO.
Not at all. From what little I know of Greek, and the even smaller knowledge of Hebrew I have, there are quite a number of words and meanings which can’t be translated properly into English. In the case of the New Testament, the jury’s out as to how much of it was originally written in Greek, Matthew, for example. The “logos” of John 1:1 doesn’t translate fully into English, it means more than just word. In one instance Hebrew and Greek are similar with pneuma and ruakh, which both have the sense of wind, and of soul, amongst other things, but the English just doesn’t convey this. The first words of the Bible, “bereshit” were Hellenized into “Genesis”, and translated as “in the beginning”, but they also have the sense of “at the head of” that links up with the idea of the face of God over the waters.
In other cases, the sense of a word might have shifted over time. Many words have completely changed meaning between modern and ancient Greek and Hebrew, or their meaning has been lost.
Even German, a language closely related to English, has dozens of words which don’t translate into English properly or which have no equivalent at all. You can look them up in a German dictionary and it will give you equivalents, but these don’t convey the full meaning. Asian languages have an even greater divergence – a lot of words in eastern religions have no equivalent in English at all.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.