How do Christians defend this verse in the Bible.

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Great question girl who hates Hannah. Like a lot of posters have said; Christians do not follow The Old Testament. The Law of the Old Testament was extremely difficult to follow which is why we have Jesus Christ, who took on the burden of sin & fulfilled the law so that we can be free to have a relationship with God. I'm so happy I'm a Christian :smile:

You should try an alpha course if you're interested in Christianity, not to convert you but to help answer all the questions you have. I have so many questions about my faith, but it's always good to ask questions :smile:

Have a great day

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Reply 81

JM999

If so, how is God omnipotent?

Reply 82

Lxxa14

Working on the sabbath is a sin and as with any sin the price to pay is death. This is why before Jesus came along some Christians used to sacrifice small animals like lambs in their place. Jesus (lamb of god) came and died for us and was the ultimate sacrifice. This means that although the price of sin is death, we do not have to pay for it immediately like they did back in the day. As a result of Jesus death is now delayed but obviously we will eventually die.

Reply 83

admonit

Original post by JM999

If so, how is God omnipotent?

God by definition is absolutely perfect. Any change means that He is not perfect enough.

Reply 84

username1539513

Original post by JM999

If so, how is God omnipotent?

Look, I'm not a theologian, I'm a chemistry student, but the way I understand it is that if God was to do something that would change the way He is then he wouldnt be God anymore. The point of him being God is that he is immutable (unchangeable) so if he was able to change the way he was he just wouldnt be God anymore. No doubt if he could change you would be accusing him of inconsistency plus if he could change do you really think he would have put himself through what Christ suffered on the cross if there was another way?

Reply 85

anosmianAcrimony

Original post by cashcash871

Christians do not have to obey the laws of the Old Testament except those which are reiterated in the New Testament. Christians recognise that the Old Testament was written specifically for Israelities and Jesus' teachings overruled the Old Testament.

In my eyes that doesn't help much. The point stands that at some point, God told someone that people who worked on a certain day should be put to death.

Reply 86

champ_mc99

Original post by JM999

If so, how is God omnipotent?

If you replace her cannot with won't, it makes sense with omnipotence.

Reply 87

math42

If god is all-powerful, i.e. he can do anything, which would necessarily include changing the way he is, and yet he insists on shedding blood, then he is malevolent,in the vein of that famous Epicurus quote. If he cannot change the way he is then he is not all-powerful.

Reply 88

username1539513

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

One of God's many characteristics, alongside the fact that he is love, justice, mercy, patience etc, is that he is immutable. This is not a contradiction to his power because it exists alongside his other characteristics. The fact that he requires a sacrifice (done for us by Jesus) is part of his justice characteristic. All sin is offensive to God and because God is an eternal God unless payment is made the sin cannot be forgiven. It's just the way God is there is no point arguing about it. He is immutable which means he cannot change because if he could change he wouldn't be God anymore.

Anyway, debating with you atheists is pointless. No matter what I say you will hate God regardless.

Reply 89

navarre

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’[a] you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

Matthew 12 NIV

Reply 90

CheeseIsVeg

*cough* bible *cough*
*cough* bs *cough*

Reply 91

PlayerBB

Original post by chazwomaq

OK sure, but now you can't criticise Islamic State (Daesh) when they murder gay people, or unbelievers, or adulterers etc; or the Westborough Baptist Church for their antics. After all, "God says so".

In fact, you should be criticizing Jews who don't murder people who work on the Sabbath. They are not doing what God told them.

It's funny how you're trying to include Daesh, Baptist Church which both has nothing to do with God says so, plus this thread is talking about an old verse from OT that we explained we Christians don't follow anymore, other religions has nothing to with this OT

God has never supported murder, human beings have NO right in finishing the life of a person, only God is responsible for the life of a human being and we have no right in deciding wether they should be killed or not

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Reply 92

chazwomaq

Original post by PlayerBB

It's funny how you're trying to include Daesh, Baptist Church which both has nothing to do with God says so,

Both groups claim otherwise.

plus this thread is talking about an old verse from OT that we explained we Christians don't follow anymore

And I've already said I know, and that is sensible, and I do the same. But that doesn't stop the verse in question being morally wrong.

God has never supported murder, human beings have NO right in finishing the life of a person, only God is responsible for the life of a human being and we have no right in deciding wether they should be killed or not

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Some bits of the OT definitely support and indeed command murder.

Reply 93

PlayerBB

Original post by chazwomaq

Both groups claim otherwise.

And I've already said I know, and that is sensible, and I do the same. But that doesn't stop the verse in question being morally wrong.

Some bits of the OT definitely support and indeed command murder.

As I said, Christians don't follow the OT, the OT has murder because that's how people in the past used to deal with each other but it doesn't literally mean that this person should be murdered, ask a Priest and he'll explain, and Jesus overruled many of the verses of the OT.

What I meant that God doesn't say that we should do what these two groups think we should do, they have clearly understood religion other way round

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Reply 94

chazwomaq

Original post by PlayerBB

You are saying that we should not take all the OT literally or as morally good and I agree. But verses like this are a problem for Biblical literalists regardless as whether you see them as mandatory for Christians. The verse is still immoral.

What I meant that God doesn't say that we should do what these two groups think we should do, they have clearly understood religion other way round

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Well that's easy to say when you have a monopoly on the truth. You can only counter their claims by admitting that you should not take religious texts as literally true or morally and legally prescriptive. Yet many Christians (and other religious folk) will not do that.

Reply 95

username1245326

Original post by chazwomaq

I disagree. While it may be true that Christians do not and need not follow the old testament law, that doesn't deal with the problem that God declared that people should be put to death for working on the Sabbath.

If you believe this was the word of God, that seems like a seriously immoral law. Even Jews today don't follow it (did they ever?).

So is/was God immoral? Did He realise His mistake and change His mind? Or is putting people to death for working on the wrong day actually OK?

It was the word of God, then it was superseded by the coming of Christ.

-You'd have to ask some Jews on their opinion on whether its moral or not or why the Haredim and Chasidim dont follow it today.

-I can only guess that you may be Christian as you capitalized "He" and "His" - if you are then you should know the Gospel well enough to know that Christianity was created entirely to follow the new attitudes of God - the God that isn't of such wrath that he'd wipe out Soddom and Gomorrah and allow the massacre of all inhabitants of Jericho, but the God that sent his Son to die for humanities sins and to give us free will to act how we wish, but knowing that our lives on earth would be judged.

-In my opinion, it's nothing more than blasphemy to say God made a "mistake". Most Christians if not all will tell you God is infallible and so the change was simply a turn to a more forgiving and loving God.

Reply 96

username1245326

Original post by ihatehannah

The fact of the matter is many Christians still follow the moral laws of the old testament and God said himself not to disregard it. i.e
'Do not think that I [Jesus] have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke or a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished'. Many other quotes that show Jesus supported the laws of the old testament. But what I am arguing is that how can a book that is called the 'word of god' have slavery, genocide etc etc etc in it.

Nobody has yet to tell me why the book thought to be the word of God has all these vile things and quite frankly I do not care anymore, believe what you want to believe- but personally I think religion should not exist in the 21st century.

fair enough, that is after all a very fashionable opinion nowadays. I think the fundamental answer then to your argument is: God was not always the loving and merciful God people perceive him to be now. Many will say "so why would I want to follow that God" - my personal answer is there only is one God and whether you want to believe in Him or not is neither here nor there, He exists. Now that turns into an argument - "is there a God" which will never be answered.

Reply 97

Truths

Wow. I'm very disappointed that 5 pages has passed and no one has mentioned that Jesus himself worked on the sabbath so why would Christians have to defend that verse. They simply don't :lol:

You can read more here:

I seemingly innocent act on the part of our Lord’s disciples precipitated an incident in which the Pharisees challenged the Lord Jesus to defend or denounce His disciples: “At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath through the grain fields, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, ‘Behold, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath’” (Matthew 12:1-2).Let us begin by gaining a sense of the context, gaining an overview of the passage. These verses describe two separate incidents: (1) the protest of the Pharisees that Jesus’ disciples violated the Sabbath by gathering grain and eating it as they walked through the fields; and (2) the issue raised by the synagogue leaders,253 knowing Jesus was about to heal the man with the withered hand. The Savior meets Jewish objections in the first instance by citing two incidents in the Old Testament where people were vindicated for technically breaking the Sabbath: David, when he took the sacred shewbread and shared it with his men, and the Old Testament priests, who regularly violate the Sabbath by working at their priestly jobs on this day.Undaunted by the challenge of the Pharisees, our Lord catches His opponents completely off guard by referring to an Old Testament text which remarkably paralleled this situation: “But He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did, when he became hungry, he and his companions; how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests alone?’” (Matthew 12:3-4).

https://bible.org/seriespage/16-sabbath-controversy-gospels

Reply 98

username1245326

Original post by moggis

Very good post.

But I have a question. See,to be honest there's only one thing that I care about with regard to religion.

As long as religious beliefs dont adversely affect my life then I'm all for them. I genuinely like religious people of all faiths . I think it's quaint that in the 21st century when we all now know there's no such thing as a divine spirit millions of people spend their lives pretending otherwise.

But my question is relating to this business of not working on a Sunday the OP brought up.

I'm old enough to have suffered a significant number of utterly boring Sundays because there was no soccer on a Sunday when I was a boy and everything was ******* closed .

(Really really really ****** me off and at the time made me despise religious people and think they must be the most stupid annoying boring people on Earth)

And I just want to know if the reason there was nothing to do on a Sunday for 100s of years in this country -and presumably many others-was because of the OT or the NT or for some other reason can someone tell me?

And IF it was something to do with the OT then ffs why given the previous answers?

Presumably Jesus ,were he on Earth today,would be watching the Premiership Super Sundays on sky?

Cheers

firstly well done, youve beaten many people on tsr to be the most condescending p**** that ive ever come across.

Sunday has always been the church going day of the Christian faith as that's what we consider to be the appropriate day of rest and thanks. Therefore society adapted around it and poor you, you couldnt watch the football and you couldnt go down to whatever Gregg's predecessor was and go get your pasty.

that is one way in which the Judeo-Christian foundations of this country shaped your lives: why don't you feel free to remember the other ways in which its altered our life today - the rule of law, our judiciary, our parliament, art sciences (look it up before you hound me for saying that), the growth of literacy etc etc etc

Reply 99

chazwomaq

Original post by JNDSAN

-I can only guess that you may be Christian as you capitalized "He" and "His" - if you are then you should know the Gospel well enough to know that Christianity was created entirely to follow the new attitudes of God - the God that isn't of such wrath that he'd wipe out Soddom and Gomorrah and allow the massacre of all inhabitants of Jericho, but the God that sent his Son to die for humanities sins and to give us free will to act how we wish, but knowing that our lives on earth would be judged.

I have already explained I am a Christian in this thread.

I also don't think God would or did wipe out Soddom and Gomorrah, but the OT clearly states that he did. So moral Christians (and Jews) should conclude that the Bible is not entirely true.