Last week in my church group we were discussing the verses in Matthew which talks about Jesus raining curses down on certain villages because they rejected him. "Woe to you Bethsaida and Chorazin, if the miracles had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah that had been done in you, they would have repented of their sins," and so forth.
My first reaction was, Wow, this dude has a serious rejection problem. My second was, as an Aspy, what exactly is meant by "repenting and turning from your sins?" What specific sins are meant and what specific actions? What were these people doing that was so bad that they deserved condemnation?
I mentioned to the Bible group that Jesus sure didn't make it easy on himself or on others. He goes to a people that he knows is not going to accept him and then gets all bent out of shape when they don't. If these other two cities were so open to him, why didn't he go there? "Well," they said, "he went where he was needed most." Ok, fair enough.
The thing that bothers me in all this is that it sounds like Jesus is insisting that this decision to accept him as Lord and God and everything else ought to be made as a snap decision, right there on the moment, without taking any time to think about it. If their version of Christianity is true, this is the most important decision one can make. It ought not to be a snap decision. But there seems to be no room for conscience in the matter. There is no justification for unbelief.
They said that the reason all these towns stood condemned was because the townspeople had seen Jesus work miracles and yet they would not believe. However, Moses himself in Deuteronomy 13 told the Israelites that if a prophet or dreamer should arise among you, it doesn't matter what kind of miracles that person performs, the bottom line is, is that person encouraging you to follow other gods? If so, don't listen to them because it is God testing you to see if you really love him with all your heart, mind and soul. I think it is easier to understand where the people of Bethsaida and Chorazin and Capernaum and all the other villages were coming from if one takes that verse into account.
According to the Biblical prophets, the reason the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were repeatedly overrun by invading armies and the people sent into exile was because they had strayed from the worship of the one true God and were worshiping idols. By the time of Jesus they were back in their own land but they did not have control over it. However, it does seem that idolatry (I mean classic, statue-worshiping idolatry like worshiping Baal and other pagan gods) was a thing of the past and that the Jewish people had finally gotten it straight. Along comes Jesus and not only does he claim to be God's Son, he claims to be God himself. This is something the Jewish people were not prepared to accept, then or now. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One. Not two. Not three. One. It is ironic that if Jesus is who he and his followers claim he is, he picked the one nation on earth least likely to accept his claim.
Because there is nothing in the messianic prophecies that explicitly states that God is made up of three individuals and that one of them is His son and this son is going to come to earth. It's interesting that this "deficiency" is corrected in the Book of Mormon, which is quite explicit about when and where and who this Messiah is going to be. It's odd how this information was given to the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the New World yet withheld from the very people who would have benefited from it most, the Jews. Since I don't for a minute believe the story about the gold plates I suspect that Joseph Smith put it in as his way of improving and correcting the Biblical record. Thus we have the strange situation of Christians in the New World centuries before Christ arguing about matters that wouldn't be raised until the Reformation!
I wanted to ask, but did not, because I didn't want to push my luck, suppose I stood up in this group, a woman, and announced that I was the incarnation of Wisdom, who is often spoken of as being feminine in the Bible, and therefore the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit? (For the record I am not.) How well would that go over? What miracles would I have to do in order to convince them? Or would no amount of miracles convince them? Remember what Moses said about paying no attention to miracles if what the person claims contradicts what he (Moses) said. I'm sure my friends, once they got over the shock, would come up with plenty of Bible verses to demonstrate that I could not possibly be what I claimed to be and that what I was claiming could not possibly be inspired by God. Moses didn't say anything about a Son. He didn't say anything about a Trinity. He said, "if that person encourages you to go after other gods, don't listen to them." And that is what the people of Bethsaida and Chorazin and the other towns were probably thinking and saying to Jesus. But instead of realizing he had a hard sell, he got P.O.'d and cussed them out. Seems to me a very strange way of winning skeptics over to one's side.
Well, I guess I am doomed then, because I find this sort of thing very hard to swallow and cannot in good conscience bow my knee and say the words others want me to say. So I guess I'll be joining the inhabitants of Bethsaida and Chorazin in the netherworld. I just hope they're interesting people.
My first reaction was, Wow, this dude has a serious rejection problem. My second was, as an Aspy, what exactly is meant by "repenting and turning from your sins?" What specific sins are meant and what specific actions? What were these people doing that was so bad that they deserved condemnation?
I mentioned to the Bible group that Jesus sure didn't make it easy on himself or on others. He goes to a people that he knows is not going to accept him and then gets all bent out of shape when they don't. If these other two cities were so open to him, why didn't he go there? "Well," they said, "he went where he was needed most." Ok, fair enough.
The thing that bothers me in all this is that it sounds like Jesus is insisting that this decision to accept him as Lord and God and everything else ought to be made as a snap decision, right there on the moment, without taking any time to think about it. If their version of Christianity is true, this is the most important decision one can make. It ought not to be a snap decision. But there seems to be no room for conscience in the matter. There is no justification for unbelief.
They said that the reason all these towns stood condemned was because the townspeople had seen Jesus work miracles and yet they would not believe. However, Moses himself in Deuteronomy 13 told the Israelites that if a prophet or dreamer should arise among you, it doesn't matter what kind of miracles that person performs, the bottom line is, is that person encouraging you to follow other gods? If so, don't listen to them because it is God testing you to see if you really love him with all your heart, mind and soul. I think it is easier to understand where the people of Bethsaida and Chorazin and Capernaum and all the other villages were coming from if one takes that verse into account.
According to the Biblical prophets, the reason the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were repeatedly overrun by invading armies and the people sent into exile was because they had strayed from the worship of the one true God and were worshiping idols. By the time of Jesus they were back in their own land but they did not have control over it. However, it does seem that idolatry (I mean classic, statue-worshiping idolatry like worshiping Baal and other pagan gods) was a thing of the past and that the Jewish people had finally gotten it straight. Along comes Jesus and not only does he claim to be God's Son, he claims to be God himself. This is something the Jewish people were not prepared to accept, then or now. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One. Not two. Not three. One. It is ironic that if Jesus is who he and his followers claim he is, he picked the one nation on earth least likely to accept his claim.
Because there is nothing in the messianic prophecies that explicitly states that God is made up of three individuals and that one of them is His son and this son is going to come to earth. It's interesting that this "deficiency" is corrected in the Book of Mormon, which is quite explicit about when and where and who this Messiah is going to be. It's odd how this information was given to the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the New World yet withheld from the very people who would have benefited from it most, the Jews. Since I don't for a minute believe the story about the gold plates I suspect that Joseph Smith put it in as his way of improving and correcting the Biblical record. Thus we have the strange situation of Christians in the New World centuries before Christ arguing about matters that wouldn't be raised until the Reformation!
I wanted to ask, but did not, because I didn't want to push my luck, suppose I stood up in this group, a woman, and announced that I was the incarnation of Wisdom, who is often spoken of as being feminine in the Bible, and therefore the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit? (For the record I am not.) How well would that go over? What miracles would I have to do in order to convince them? Or would no amount of miracles convince them? Remember what Moses said about paying no attention to miracles if what the person claims contradicts what he (Moses) said. I'm sure my friends, once they got over the shock, would come up with plenty of Bible verses to demonstrate that I could not possibly be what I claimed to be and that what I was claiming could not possibly be inspired by God. Moses didn't say anything about a Son. He didn't say anything about a Trinity. He said, "if that person encourages you to go after other gods, don't listen to them." And that is what the people of Bethsaida and Chorazin and the other towns were probably thinking and saying to Jesus. But instead of realizing he had a hard sell, he got P.O.'d and cussed them out. Seems to me a very strange way of winning skeptics over to one's side.
Well, I guess I am doomed then, because I find this sort of thing very hard to swallow and cannot in good conscience bow my knee and say the words others want me to say. So I guess I'll be joining the inhabitants of Bethsaida and Chorazin in the netherworld. I just hope they're interesting people.
