“Yes, I know the response: "You have to have the proper Spirit, then the Bible will say exactly what you want it to say, even though the plain meaning of the words is different."”
Actually you had no idea what my response might be & anyway, why would I say something like that? Perhaps the 'plain' meaning is not quite as plain as you imagine it to be.

“Nothing about apostasy, about not sinning as a practice, or sinning enough to become apostate. It's a simple test: if someone is sinning, they are not "born of God."”

You’re a clever man Richard but this is one of those times when you are wrong. Quite possibly you don't need me to explain to you that Biblically speaking there are two kinds of sin. The sin into which we are all born which we, as free agents choose to commit & there is the sin that leads to death, scripture is very clear on this. It is the latter sin (apostasy) leading to death that John is referring to in this passage. The fact that apostasy doesn't appear in those verses is irrelevant, you choose to ignore the many verses that give this understanding & context to Johns words.

"Whosoever abideth in him [God/Jesus] SINNETH NOT... Whosoever is born of God [i.e., "born again"?] DOTH NOT COMMIT SIN:... he CANNOT SIN... In this the children of God are manifest.”

A more up to date & accurate translation of that passage reads a little differently to the King James edition that you & the Mormons use, verses 6 & 9 read,

“No one who lives in him (born again) KEEPS on sinning. No one who CONTINUES (as before conversion) to sin has either seen him or known him…….No one who is born of God (a new creation) will CONTINUE (deliberately as before conversion) to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he CANNOT go on sinning, (a deliberate falling away, apostasy) because he has been born of God..”

Ok, it’s very late here & I’m off to bed so I’ll leave it with you to have the last word, should you be so inclined. J

donbagley
You & I will probably never see eye to eye but I’m quite sure that you will get to the heavenly places (assuming they exist) long before any of your Mormon detractors.

Ps. I do not claim to be a Christian & I’m most definitely NOT a Mormon, I just try to be fair-minded & to understand both sides.

OK, if the Bible is the inerrant unchanging Word of God, then why are so many parts of the "Old" Testament just ignored by Christians? Why weren't those parts just edited out by the Roman compilers of the Christian Bible as being irrelevant?

The point of my original posting when I began the first thread on this was that God is a hateful bigot who despises people with physical imperfections and can't stand to have them anywhere near him. God (or his spokesman) was not talking about "sinners", he was talking about people who have disabilities or didn't look 100% perfect. Here it is again:

"Whosoever hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. ... Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries.” Lev.21:17-23

Sorry but this IS in the "Christian" Bible (appropriated from Jewish scripture) and if Christian doctrine is true then the word of God is, as I said, inerrant and unchanging.

Come on, this hateful Biblical bile should be a deal-breaker for any decent human being.

I would suggest that God is an intolerant, bigoted, hateful bastard, based on these verses alone and is not worthy of anyone's worship.

All Christians do not believe the Bible is the unchanging and inerrant word of God.That belief came about during the Reformation and isnt believed by many Protestants today. It has never been a Catholic or Jewish view.You are looking at the Bible through a Mormon/Fundamantalist lense and it is a fact that many Christians and Jews do not see it that way and never have whether you understand it or not.I attended mass a fewnweeks ago and the priest made a point of Adam and Eve were mythical. No one batted an eye.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2014 09:29PM by bona dea.

Not sure why you feel the need to insult me. I DO understand that not all christians take the Bible to be 100% literal, and that in fact it is impossible to do so.

But there are tens of millions of "Reformationist" Christians (including Mormons) who DO claim that every single word in the Bible is the Word of God. I thought it was clear I was talking about those people, especially considering this is a Mormon-related message board. Sorry for not being clear enough for you on that but hopefully now you get it.

First of all I wasnt insulting you. Second, the literalists would say that Jesus fulfilled the law and it is no longer in effect. Even they will do some cherry picking. Even if the Bible is the literal word of God, a parable is still not meant to be literal.By its nature it is not.

Yes, I know parables aren't literal by definition. But they do have firm meanings which ARE meant to be taken literally by believers. Otherwise why would Jesus (or his authors) have included them in the Bible?

BTW, I'm not an ex-Mormon and grew out of my partent's Anglican indoctrination as a young child. My wife is Catholic and I know they no longer take the Bible literally and even accept that the sun does not orbit the earth - they finally admitted to that in 1992.

The 1992 writing was not a change in belief but an apology.

Maybe the point was to make people think a little. All of them are not clear cut. The Prodigal Son has some nuances for instance especially in regard to the son who stayed home and did his duty.

Anyway, the whole point of this thread was to discuss Lev.21:17-23.

Why is it that Bible literalists all ignore this, while embracing other "rules" from Leviticus, such as homosexuality being an abomination?

You have a point about the cherry picking

NoMoNoHow said
“Anyway, the whole point of this thread was to discuss Lev.21:17-23.
Why is it that Bible literalists all ignore this, while embracing other "rules" from Leviticus, such as homosexuality being an abomination?”

You say that the ‘whole point of this thread’ was to discuss Leviticus 21:17-23 so let’s do that, your additional reference to homosexuality, not found in the passage you wish to discuss, will have to be left for the moment, as I honestly don’t have the time to respond, perhaps someone else might care to do so.

I can certainly understand why you would think the way you do, if one takes the passage at face value God appears to be biased against all those with physical deformities of one kind or another but when the passage is read in the context of ‘instructions’ to a class of people appointed to be priests the picture starts to change.
You claim that Bible literalists ignore this ‘rule’ but that’s simply not the case, the passage isn’t ignored, it’s understood & by the way, I’m not a Bible literalist.
God is perfect & any animal offered in sacrifice was expected to be without blemish. It therefore follows that the priest offering a sacrifice for the covering of sin was also expected to be without physical imperfections. A priest, according to the Levitical law being expounded in chapter 21, could not enter the holy of holies to be a mediator between God and men unless he was free from every physical blemish, the law was foreshadowing the spiritual perfection that was to come later in the person of Christ, He was to be the ‘perfect sacrifice’ a man without sin forming the bridge between God & man. This is why the Old Testament sacrificial law is no longer applicable; it was fulfilled in Christ.

I hope that brief explanation makes the issue a little clearer. :-)

Firstly, it's not about sacrificing animals, it's about "offering bread", which is a metaphor for worshipping God. Otherwise it wouldn't be in the Christian Bible. The Catholics, for example, do this by eating bread which they claim is the flesh of God/Jesus.

Where does Jesus state that he has done away with this practice?

However, if it does only pertain to priests, as you claim, how many priests have you ever met who were perfect?

If we were perfect Jesus could have saved himself from the bother of bleeding at every pore, being flogged, and crucified on the cross.

Jesus came to save the sinners which apparently was everyone but him. It's interesting to note the people who really went after Jesus were the religious leaders who saw him as competition. Church leaders hate competition. NOthing has changed.

First, the "bleeding from every pore" is something added by Joseph Smith. Secondly, there was no bleeding in Gethsemane at all by Christ. Third, even the part of the angel and the "sweat like drops of blood" was not originally in the gospel, added by some later scribe. Get a more recent translation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/2014 06:37AM by rhgc.

You said the topic under discussion concerned Leviticus 21:17-23 so I discussed that passage, I explained it to you & your immediate response was to move the goaposts to include such inanities as this:

"how many priests have you ever met who were perfect?"

well, all I can say to that is, I'm not old enough to have met any Hebrew priests which is what this topic that YOU introduced, is about.

Now I really must get about my days business. Thanks for the debate :-)

What's that? "Inanities"? No wonder you prefaced your first comment with "don't abuse me" if that's the way you treat people.

It would only be an "inanity" if what you were saying made any sense to begin with, but sadly all you have are dogmatic Mormon-style apologetics, none of which are observed by regular people or even the other Reformationist cults.

As I've mentioned several times now, Jesus did NOT do away with the "old covenant" but instead made it clear that the old laws would never be done away with.

Dear me, looks like I need to trot it out yet again:

'For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.' Jesus, in Matt 5:18

Look out your window, the "heavens" and earth should still be visible.

Jesus is saying here that the OT laws will apply until the end of time.

No, he was not saying they still applied. I do understand that for TBMs who listen to Satan in the endowment ceremony, they still apply. Hell, JS was about to re-institute animal sacrifice. Mormons even accept oodles of ADDED commandments which MUST be adhered to. But Christ even violated the Hebraic laws and indicated that they were made for man but he gave the higher law. He also noted the law as given to Moses was changed and had been given on divorce "because of the hardness of man".

The sharp chirupp of the finch in the mulberry tree is what's real to me. The tinkle of wind chimes on the porch, and the crane flies batting themselves at the window screen let me know it's Spring. No deity could bring me closer to life. I am here.

You know, I get really irked when people tell me what I should do, believe.

When I was a Mormon it really got my goat when other Mormons would express opinions on what other faiths should believe.

I guess some exmos never got free of that annoying habit. ;o))