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General And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, ...?"

frederick

frederick

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There are situations recorded in the Bible where we see Jesus using a question or questions to confront people in their erroneous thinking or attitudes about something. For example, in Luke 6:6-11 Jesus was in the synagogue and was about to heal a man on the Sabbath. Knowing the minds of those present, He said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to destroy it?” I'd like to follow His example and be able to have questions to challenge or even confront those who are caught up in error regarding a man having more than one wife.

I'm wondering, are there specific questions you have used or might use to confront anti-polygamists in their erroneous thinking or attitudes about this topic? What were the circumstances or line of discussion and what did/would you ask?

I'm keen to get ideas of the sorts of questions you ask from both men and women here, and especially from women who e.g. have been accused of supporting her husband in 'adultery' by allowing him to have another wife? What questions do you ask? I'm more interested in questions than in lines of argument.

A question I asked when someone was using the 'creation ideal' argument for one man married to only one woman is; Why didn't Jesus Christ live up to your creation ideal? A related question; How could He be sinless if He didn't live up to your creation ideal?

Look forward to your ideas however I do realize we will probably get a similar reaction to what Jesus got. In Luke 6:11 we are told, But they themselves were filled with rage, and were discussing together what they might do to Jesus.
 
frederick said:
I'm wondering, are there specific questions you have used or might use to confront anti-polygamists in their erroneous thinking or attitudes about this topic? What were the circumstances or line of discussion and what did/would you ask?
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I've had a few anti-poly zealots contact me in the past and I've often had to delete their profane comments from my blog. A few moved the correspondence to email and I was happy to answer their questions but I did also ask some of my own.

The people who usually get all upset over poly are secular liberals so I try to ask them questions that challenge them on their core beliefs:

1. If polygamy is wrong then why is it socially acceptable for black men to have multiple "baby mommas" who they do not support?
2. Why was it socially acceptable and even socially praised for Hugh Hefner and Charlie Sheen to live with multiple women at one time?
3. If a man has a mistress and has a child with her why is this socially acceptable but if he commits to her and her children then it isn't?
4. Why are Muslims allowed to immigrate to the West with multiple wives? Why are Muslims living in the West allowed to marry more than one woman?
5. Is it your real complaint that heterosexual people are living together and raising culturally and religiously Christian families?
 
frederick said:
For me, it's been those claiming to be Christians who have got the most bitter and twisted over poly.
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I hate to say but too many Christians are prone to getting bitter and twisted over lots of things that distract from the love of God, the grace and mercy of Jesus, and the embrace of the Holy Spirit.

Like how some people get all caught up in believing the world was created on a specific day of a specific week in a specific year and that if you don't believe this too then you're not a Christian. :rolleyes:

Myself, I look at the vastness of the universe and see that there are stars and galaxies so far away that it took sometimes millions and billions of years for their light to reach us. And then when I consider that billions of years ago God created everything and how all those billions of years ago He had in mind to set things in motion to cause each one of us to come into existence I am in awe.

My husband once built a canoe. He spent hours hand carving and bending each piece to fit in a specific place of the canoe. It took him several years of fine detailed work to complete it. It is a thing of beauty that is made more beautiful by the fact of his forethought, planning, and skill that was needed to bring it to completion.

Now some people will be offended that I don't believe the universe and everything in it was only created 6,000 years ago. This despite so much evidence that speaks to a much older universe.

That's fine if it makes them happy to think that it was all just in a week's work for God. I agree that it would be in God's power to do that.

But now think how we would value a canoe that took only a few days to build? Versus one that took years of hard work and loving dedication?

Look up in the sky tonight and look at a star. Just pick one. Now know that God in His infinite wisdom put that star in that place perhaps millions or billions of years ago so that its light would someday entertain you on a specific starry night millions or billions of years later.

When I was a little girl one of my favorite shows on TV was Touched by an Angel and the 'angel' this one time says that 'all of human knowledge is but a grain of sand on the beach of God's wisdom'. That's like twenty years ago and it stuck with me.

I can't tell you when my husband built his canoe, on what day he started or on what day he finished. But I know he built it. I see the man I know in the way he made it so tough and flexible. It doesn't matter to me when he made it and that doesn't change that I know the fact of who built it.

Just the same with the universe, the earth, and everything in it. The mystery of when God created everything is not ours to know. But we can see in His handiwork the marks of the maker. When we behold an unimaginably complex universe that took immense eons to construct and not something constrained by our rules or regulations or dogmas then we can perhaps glimpse beyond our little grain of sand to get a tiny understanding of the true Glory of God.

I sometimes say that some Christians like to put God in a box like this:
☒

...and that it is actual size.

My faith is big enough to accept the love of a God that I cannot ever fully understand. Nor do I need to.
 
I suspect a derail may have occurred...
MeganC said:
And then when I consider that billions of years ago God created everything and how all those billions of years ago He had in mind to set things in motion to cause each one of us to come into existence I am in awe.
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It is written; For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it (Exodus 20:11).

Is there an error in God's Word?
 
Recently, I have been trying to formulate a good question featuring the Angel of the Lord sending Hagar back to her mistress to submit to her... Christendom generally agrees that the Angel of the Lord is Jesus/Yeshua in a Christophany and we know that Yeshua is the same yesterday, today, forever (Heb. 13:8).
 
MeganC said:
I hate to say but too many Christians are prone to getting bitter and twisted over lots of things that distract from the love of God, the grace and mercy of Jesus, and the embrace of the Holy Spirit.

Like how some people get all caught up in believing the world was created on a specific day of a specific week in a specific year and that if you don't believe this too then you're not a Christian. :rolleyes:

Myself, I look at the vastness of the universe and see that there are stars and galaxies so far away that it took sometimes millions and billions of years for their light to reach us. And then when I consider that billions of years ago God created everything and how all those billions of years ago He had in mind to set things in motion to cause each one of us to come into existence I am in awe.

My husband once built a canoe. He spent hours hand carving and bending each piece to fit in a specific place of the canoe. It took him several years of fine detailed work to complete it. It is a thing of beauty that is made more beautiful by the fact of his forethought, planning, and skill that was needed to bring it to completion.

Now some people will be offended that I don't believe the universe and everything in it was only created 6,000 years ago. This despite so much evidence that speaks to a much older universe.

That's fine if it makes them happy to think that it was all just in a week's work for God. I agree that it would be in God's power to do that.

But now think how we would value a canoe that took only a few days to build? Versus one that took years of hard work and loving dedication?

Look up in the sky tonight and look at a star. Just pick one. Now know that God in His infinite wisdom put that star in that place perhaps millions or billions of years ago so that its light would someday entertain you on a specific starry night millions or billions of years later.

When I was a little girl one of my favorite shows on TV was Touched by an Angel and the 'angel' this one time says that 'all of human knowledge is but a grain of sand on the beach of God's wisdom'. That's like twenty years ago and it stuck with me.

I can't tell you when my husband built his canoe, on what day he started or on what day he finished. But I know he built it. I see the man I know in the way he made it so tough and flexible. It doesn't matter to me when he made it and that doesn't change that I know the fact of who built it.

Just the same with the universe, the earth, and everything in it. The mystery of when God created everything is not ours to know. But we can see in His handiwork the marks of the maker. When we behold an unimaginably complex universe that took immense eons to construct and not something constrained by our rules or regulations or dogmas then we can perhaps glimpse beyond our little grain of sand to get a tiny understanding of the true Glory of God.

I sometimes say that some Christians like to put God in a box like this:
☒

...and that it is actual size.

My faith is big enough to accept the love of a God that I cannot ever fully understand. Nor do I need to.
Click to expand...
Isaiah 45:12 KJV
[12] I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.

Jeremiah 10:12 KJV
[12] He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.

Not trying to argue with you, but it seems plausible that when God “stretched out the heavens” the light was stretched too. Also, if things were dying for millions of years before Adam sinned, then sin didn’t bring death, as Scripture says. Just something to think about.

As a carpenter, I’d be a lot more impressed if your husband whipped out that canoe in six days... just sayin’
 
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@MeganC I love your adoration of the majesty of God and His creation, which you have expressed so eloquently and poetically. And I do think that is the most crucial point - to recognise that God made this incredible universe, and bow before His Majesty in worship.

Like @frederick and @Asforme&myhouse I disagree with you on the facts, but I think that's the lesser point. I don't think we need to always quibble on the details every time they're mentioned.
 
PeteR said:
Recently, I have been trying to formulate a good question featuring the Angel of the Lord sending Hagar back to her mistress to submit to her... Christendom generally agrees that the Angel of the Lord is Jesus/Yeshua in a Christophany and we know that Yeshua is the same yesterday, today, forever (Heb. 13:8).
Click to expand...
That will be a good one! I look forward to your question.
 
MeganC said:
I hate to say but too many Christians are prone to getting bitter and twisted over lots of things that distract from the love of God, the grace and mercy of Jesus, and the embrace of the Holy Spirit.

Like how some people get all caught up in believing the world was created on a specific day of a specific week in a specific year and that if you don't believe this too then you're not a Christian. :rolleyes:

Myself, I look at the vastness of the universe and see that there are stars and galaxies so far away that it took sometimes millions and billions of years for their light to reach us. And then when I consider that billions of years ago God created everything and how all those billions of years ago He had in mind to set things in motion to cause each one of us to come into existence I am in awe.

My husband once built a canoe. He spent hours hand carving and bending each piece to fit in a specific place of the canoe. It took him several years of fine detailed work to complete it. It is a thing of beauty that is made more beautiful by the fact of his forethought, planning, and skill that was needed to bring it to completion.

Now some people will be offended that I don't believe the universe and everything in it was only created 6,000 years ago. This despite so much evidence that speaks to a much older universe.

That's fine if it makes them happy to think that it was all just in a week's work for God. I agree that it would be in God's power to do that.

But now think how we would value a canoe that took only a few days to build? Versus one that took years of hard work and loving dedication?

Look up in the sky tonight and look at a star. Just pick one. Now know that God in His infinite wisdom put that star in that place perhaps millions or billions of years ago so that its light would someday entertain you on a specific starry night millions or billions of years later.

When I was a little girl one of my favorite shows on TV was Touched by an Angel and the 'angel' this one time says that 'all of human knowledge is but a grain of sand on the beach of God's wisdom'. That's like twenty years ago and it stuck with me.

I can't tell you when my husband built his canoe, on what day he started or on what day he finished. But I know he built it. I see the man I know in the way he made it so tough and flexible. It doesn't matter to me when he made it and that doesn't change that I know the fact of who built it.

Just the same with the universe, the earth, and everything in it. The mystery of when God created everything is not ours to know. But we can see in His handiwork the marks of the maker. When we behold an unimaginably complex universe that took immense eons to construct and not something constrained by our rules or regulations or dogmas then we can perhaps glimpse beyond our little grain of sand to get a tiny understanding of the true Glory of God.

I sometimes say that some Christians like to put God in a box like this:
☒

...and that it is actual size.

My faith is big enough to accept the love of a God that I cannot ever fully understand. Nor do I need to.
Click to expand...
Well as Dr. Hugh Ross once said, "It's not what God could have done, it's what He did do." I like to turn that around on Old-earthers though. @Asforme&myhouse hit the nail right on the head. I challenged Dr. Ross one time at an Apologetics conference, and I had two follow up questions for him, because he kept getting the facts wrong. He finally cut off the Q&A. I agree that you can be an Old earther and still be a Christian, but I disagree that the distant starlight problem proves an Old earth. I subscribe to Barry Setterfield's C-decay theory. I have studied it quite a bit and found it to be a sound explanation for a young earth/universe. I will also point out that many of Ross' followers are quite divisive themselves.
 
I always ask why the word "gunaika" was translated "woman" in Matt 5:28, when everywhere else Matthew used it, it was translated "wife".
 
FollowingHim said:
@MeganC I love your adoration of the majesty of God and His creation, which you have expressed so eloquently and poetically. And I do think that is the most crucial point - to recognise that God made this incredible universe, and bow before His Majesty in worship.
Click to expand...

Thank you and to me this is the thing that matters the most.
 
Daniel DeLuca said:
I'm sure if you search for it, you will find a Christian nudist group out there somewhere.
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But are they vegetarian also?
We must be consistent. 😉
 
Young earth, old earth.

Adam was created “fully growed”, it’s not inconceivable that the universe was also created fully growed.
I’m not arguing either side, because it doesn’t affect my life either way.


Arrrrg, and I was doing such a good job of staying out of it 😜
 
frederick said:
Is there an error in God's Word?
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No, but there can be an error in the limited understanding of the people who received God's Word.

Genesis 1:8 (KJV) And God called the firmament Heaven

These six words led to centuries of religious leaders denying any idea that the heavens (not Heaven) were something other than a hard surface of some sort with lights from Heaven shining through or that the planets moved along some sort of fixed course in the sky like a railroad. Men were persecuted and sometimes executed for suggesting that the specific altitude of a solid sky was indefinite because it wasn't solid. Galileo was persecuted for daring to look at an imperfect Moon with a telescope. It was heresy to view the imperfect surface of the Moon.

The sky is absolutely not a firmament like the land that divided the seas. Yet that's what a nomadic sheepherder from around 5,000 years ago believed and that's what he wrote down because this was how he understood the wisdom that had been revealed by God. God in His Wisdom has given humanity the ability to learn and to discover that stars are not just holes in a solid sky. We know that the sky is not a firmament and while I'm sure there are people who will try to explain away why the firmament of the land is somehow different from the not-a-firmament of the sky the fact remains that firmament is what was said.

Now do I think God was wrong? No, of course not. But I think the people who received His Wisdom had two challenges:

1. They had to wrap their heads around God's Wisdom and in a context they could understand and accept.
2. Then they had to pass along this wisdom to their peers who had to have perhaps highly sophisticated ideas and concepts translated into a simplified context they could understand and accept.

To me I look at the immensity of the universe and I see the Hand of God. If someone else wants to believe the world is a few thousand years old then I am happy for them. For me I have no problem accepting that God performed His work of Creation not in six days of human perception but over unimaginable eons of time that are measured by numbers that even the most educated of nomadic sheepherders would have been unable to consider.

All of the interpretation of God's Wisdom is I think part if why He summoned Moses and wrote His Ten Commandments in stone and then He did so in a way that the skilled stone carvers like Joshua would instantly recognize as being carved by a hand other than that of men. None of these skilled men had any doubt that the stones were carved by God because no man could have carved them. I know the Bible doesn't say this but it's easy to figure out just by reading the Bible.

The Ten Commandments are the literal Word of God, written in stone by God Himself, and there's no fooling around with the interpretation of them (unless you're a Catholic). They're clear, simple, and easily understood. God being a very effective writer.

Now to go back to what I wrote at the beginning: No, but there can be an error in the limited understanding of the people who received God's Word.

I have a limited understanding of God's Word because I can read the words and some of them don't resonate for me. I am incapable of understanding them. I look to other people to see how they've made the Word of God real in their lives and my understanding comes from seeing the fruits of faith in their lives. I do a lot of things that I don't understand but the proof of my faith and the proof of the wisdom behind these things is revealed in the better life I live.

In this much I can relate to and admire the nomadic sheepherder from around 5,000 years ago who did his best to understand the revealed Wisdom of God and who worked to implement that Word in his life and to pass it along to his children in the hopes that they could live better lives as Godly people. He had faith.
 
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