This is not meant for discussion but just a reminder that God's Holy 7th Day Sabbath begins at sunset. This 7th Day of the week has been set aside by God since the days of Adam and Eve and has never been abolished or changed by God. However, men have abolished it or changed it and therefore mankind has been reaping all kinds of curses for doing so. ---------- Today is the preparation day. Post Date Hebrew Calendar: 12-Av-5771 Post Date Roman Calendar: 2011-08-12 Keeping the Seventh Day Sabbath Holy is the Fourth of the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Exodus 20:9 Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: Exodus 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Keeping the Seventh Day Sabbath is part of keeping the Ten Commandments. Christ did NOT do away with His Father's Commandments but kept them and told His disciples to keep the Commandments which includes the 7th Day Sabbath. Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Matthew 5:18 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. Matthew 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
I find it interesting you didn't post these as well. Exodus 31:14 Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do any work on that day must be cut off from their people. Exodus 31:13-15 (in Context) Exodus 31 (Whole Chapter) Exodus 31:15 For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death. Exodus 31:14-16 (in Context) Exodus 31 (Whole Chapter) Exodus 35:2 For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death. Exodus 35:1-3 (in Context) Exodus 35 (Whole Chapter) Numbers 15:32 [ The Sabbath-Breaker Put to Death ] While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Numbers 15:31-33 (in Context) Numbers 15 (Whole Chapter)
If God is such an egomaniac that he requires people to brown-nose him on a certain day under threat of punishment then I wouldn't follow him even if he did exist.
Luke 23 Ver 54 And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. Ver 55 And the WOMEN also, WHICH CAME WITH HIM FROM GALILEE, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. Ver 56 And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and RESTED THE SABBATH DAY ACCORDING TO THE COMMANDMENT.
I know I will be nit-picking but in fact the 7th Day Sabbath begins at sun-down and not at sunset. Many Sabbath keepers might not care about this small difference, but it is a legal technicality that sunset is still daytime while sundown starts the night time. Link = Genesis 1:5. Those verses are misleading because they are written as a law and not as a record of fact. As like today our Courts will order a person into jail for life and then they get released after 5 - 20 years, because the laws are intended to frighten the citizens with scary laws but never actually executing the laws. Those Bible text do not report that any person was actually ever "put to death" for breaking the Sabbath, and surely whenever some person was accused of such a crime then the high Judges would tell them not to do it again and let them go. Way back them they did not have jails or prisons as we do today, and saying they would kill a person as a means of other objectives is known to happen, see King Solomon threatening to cut a child in two but does not, 1 Kings 3:16-28. People today still say such things as like - You touch my car and I will kill you - because the threat is meant to control other people without doing the action. That was a big part of Jesus telling us to avoid the letter of the law and seek mercy and justice instead, Luke 6:1-11. Modern Scholar Biblical Criticism.
It makes a difference if one wants to seek out the truths, and wants to study Theology, history, our humanity, and such things as that. If one only want to criticize God and criticize the Bible then such a rebuttal would be irrelevant indeed. As you declare people do claim the Bible as a or the "good book", but the Bible itself never makes such a pompous claim.
The word of god should not include capital punishment for working on a particular day. A truly respectable religion would not condone such acts. Whether or not someone was executed is irrelevant, just an whether or not a minority is lynched is irrelevant if there were a law allowing it. The law would be bad, the law would be struck down. No one would maintain the law in an attempt to preserve a piece of history.
The Bible is not really the "word-of-God" as that is an exaggerated pretense, and there is an aspect called the laws of Moses which are different from the laws of God. So if we use the Bible as our source then both God in the Older Testament and Jesus in the Newer Testament said that they did not support those such laws. Hosea 6:67 "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me." Matthew 9:12-13 "But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." So you are correct that law was wrong, and it was struck down.
A god, an all knowing and perfect being would not have had the law to begin with. If we all supposedly have a purpose, than the higher power would have certainly see the law struck down. It doesn't make sense.
The "Law" was not for the Perfect God, it was for fallen man--like rules given to children to discipline them and keep them safe so they can grow. And hey! Looky us! We're big kids now, we don't need so many rules, and Dad may even let us borrow the car and stay out later!
What benefit would a death sentence offer? What crime is committed by working on the sabbath? How did mankind change in such a way that people no longer needed to be executed for providing for their family? It makes absolutely no sense.
I dunno--why is it helpful to swat a child's behind after attempting to run into the middle of a road? How about, in terms of teaching man proper respect for a life of balance, that there are other important things in life than simply working. All work and no play makes Wolverine a dull boy. Also, time needs to be set aside for contemplation of things greater than money and accumulating things.
I realize you are making a sensible point if you were talking to most people and to most Christians, but I am not orthodox and so I see you are mixed up based on the common orthodox claims. As in, the Bible does not say that God is all knowing, and even though it does say God is perfect it does not qualify that with absolutely perfect and surely the creation is not perfect. Adam and Eve hid from God and they hid their sin, then Abraham argued with God and prevailed, Moses contradicted God, and God sent Angel / messengers to Sodom and Gomorrah to see what was going on, and Jesus cried "why has thou forsaken me", and the flood of Noah was God destroying His blunder. So viewing God as omnipotent and infallible is not accurate nor Biblical - but it is orthodox doctrine. A correct way to view the God-thing (we do not know what it is) is like the people who built the Space Shuttle, because the Space Shuttle was the most advanced and complicated creation that such people could invent. When a couple of the Shuttles exploded then the scientist and engineers cried for the blunder. So too humanity is the most complicated and sophisticated invention and the God thing has very much extended Himself. And when humanity screws up then God is set back too.
My biggest issue is the punishment of death for working on a sabbath. Being homosexual. Disrespecting parents. These are not moral values that anyone should live by, now or ever. A supposedly loving and caring deity would not place such punishments on his people. The New T estimate does not reconcile the Old. You justify death with setting time aside for other things? Are you serious?
Not quite--to teach mankind the importance of putting God in the proper context and perspective. OBEDIENCE. WORSHIP. SUBMISSION. These are things taught with the Law of Moses. The Mosaic Law is given in the Torah--and Torah means "to teach." It is first and foremost INSTRUCTIVE.
By imposing the death penalty for working on a particular day? Does anyone else view this as being a bit insane?
Are you bothering to look at the Mosaic Law in a cultural and historical context, or are you judging it based upon today's standards?
I fail to see how judging it from today's standards would be an issue. Or any time frame really. Killing someone for working on the wrong day is extreme no matter how you look at it.
"Extreme" by what standard? --yours? Historical development of civilization has no meaning to you? You must live in a bubble.
Extreme by any standard. Historical development has importance, but by what means? Killing someone because they work on a particular day? Because they are homosexual? Disrespects parents? Because of cultural or ethical ties? It is fundamentally sick.
I agree that stuff makes no sense, and as such unless we believe the people of those times were senseless then there must be a sensible reason which we do not know. If one's point is just to criticize the Bible and to criticize God and to criticize humanity as ignorant or senseless then there is no answer, otherwise the reasoning must be more complicated then it appears. I do not know the matter-of-fact reasoning myself, but I do know that in the old days the sabbath played a very significant role, including that it is a pivotal point for the beginning of creation and of the Bible as Genesis 2:1-4, and all throughout the scriptures. There is a record that ancient Egypt kept a 7th day sabbath too, link, which makes the sabbath over 4,000 years old, and now today it is the reason we have a two (2) day weekend as Saturday is the same 7th day and Sunday is the Catholic day of the sun (son-God). As far as can be determined it is the beginning of people counting of time. Everyone knew winter from summer of course, but the 7th day sabbath meant counting of days and everyday had to be counted. The subject of the sabbath has huge Biblical significance as like the idea of the earth being 6,000 years old with the coming thousand year millennium is based on every year being equal to a thousand years, link Bible HERE and HERE, therefore 6,000 years plus the 1,000 years is an application of a 7 thousand year sabbath day. The earth is NOT just 6,000 years old as that is a naive and foolish mistake, but the Bible is referring to a 7,000 year cycle, as in before the past 6,000 years was a previous 1,000 year sabbath, and not the creation day. So why does the Bible say people must die for breaking the sabbath is not now known, but we can know that there is some unknown or even secret reasoning for the sabbath day, and it is a mystery which is not easy to discover. And as I said before - we do not know if any person was ever executed for such a crime, and even today our own society executes prisoners for unsubstantiated reasons as humanity is still barbaric in many ways.
