To continue from Part 3, discussing the following article:
Spare the Rod: The Heart of the Matter
We last left off with the author of the article insisting that, even if one is not convinced by the butchering of the translations, we can just do away with all of it because we're now under a "new covenant" anyway. What this does is undermine the entire article up to this point, because if she's willing to dismiss anything that was in the old testament under the "old covenants", then it doesn't matter how they get translated at all in the first place.
Such contradictory behavior does not bode well. Let's continue.
We accept that Jesus brought a new and better way, a way of the heart, “Not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:3b), but don’t seem to want to acknowledge that better way with our children. We accept God’s grace and forgiveness for ourselves, but often don’t share those gifts with, and model them for, our children. But we are our children’s first taste of God. Is it any wonder people have such a hard time understanding grace and mercy and unconditional love when they may not have been taught those things by their earthly parents and don’t exercise them with their own children?
God's love might be unconditional, but God's wrath is not.
Failing to demonstrate this is why people's understanding of God now is so screwed up, why people think that God's attribute of love is so powerful that it overrides every other attribute permanently.
At no point is there an understanding that none of God's attributes overrides another, that none will singly define God, that you can't add or subtract from those attributes and end up with a being that even remotely approximates God.
Parents wanted to pick and choose which attributes of God to model, and in so doing, created a false image of what or who God really is. By pretending that there is no anger, no hatred, no animosity in God, people have created their own god to worship and adore, while the God of the Bible, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is ignored.
The God that commanded the extermination of sinful peoples simply does not exist anymore, and that's because Jesus Christ died on the cross so that instead of eternal damnation, we could have eternal life. The disconnect between the temporal and the eternal is significant and jarring to those who are paying attention.
Through Jesus’ sacrifice, he tore open the veil dividing man from God and brought a new kingdom, a kingdom of inner governance through the Holy Spirit whose fruit is “peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Nowhere does Jesus say to follow him except when it comes to our children. He doesn’t say to offer grace and mercy and forgiveness to everyone except our children. The Bible doesn’t tell us to show the fruit of the Spirit to everyone except our children.
There is no "inner governance", there are just fewer barriers between God and man.
Further, we are not the Holy Spirit, it's a separate entity that resides within us to help us, but it is not an overriding force, it is an assistant.
This kind of subtle twisting of scripture is how female emotions were ever treated as an equivalent to the Holy Spirit.
Realize that if there is an "inner governance", then obviously truth is found "inside" and not "outside", so if "inside" you feel like something is wrong, that must obviously be the Holy Spirit really trying to tell you something, right?
Nope.
That's not how the Holy Spirit works, because the Spirit is often busy fighting the desires of the flesh, which do not disappear with the arrival of the Spirit as a new tenant.
The strength of convictions tells us almost nothing about whether such convictions are from God or not. How strongly we feel tells us nothing about the source of such feelings. We are still broken, at war, on the inside, and we won't find lasting peace until the next life when sin has finally been conquered.
Such misunderstandings are not the foundation upon which any parenting advice should be based.
If we truly believe that, based on five verses in the Old Testament with disputable translations and debatable interpretations, we are being disobedient to God’s commands if we don’t spank our children, then we must take that belief and walk it out fully.
It's just her disputes and her debates, based mostly on her feelings and not any truth, but we're not supposed to notice that she's trying to pretend that her convictions are really important in the grand scheme of things.
How well would a police officer respond to "but there is dispute and debate on how fast I am really supposed to drive!"
As stated in previous my entries, understanding is not prerequisite for obedience.
Further, it should be noted that what the Bible says about parenting won't align with God's message on salvation, because they are two very different circumstances. The two topics are connected in that they're discussed in the Bible, but because what's literally happening is different, what the Bible says about what a person is to do is going to be very different as well.
A user's manual for a car may list information on headlights and the stereo, and they both even may use electricity from the same battery in the car, but how you turn on or off headlights won't tell you anything about how to find a particular radio station.
What worked for one set of circumstances might work in another, but that should never be assumed to be the case. Different sets of instructions for different circumstances we'll encounter, and we can know the author of the article doesn't understand this because of how she continues.
In other words, if we must obey that supposed command, then we must obey all the other commands such as...
- an “eye for an eye” (Exodus 21:24) and stoning adulterers (Leviticus 20:10) …but didn’t Jesus bring forgiveness?
- we shouldn’t feed the homeless because “if a man doesn’t work, neither shall he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) …but aren’t we supposed to be the heart and hands of Jesus?
- we shouldn’t give Christmas shoeboxes to prisoners’ children because “the sins of the father are visited on the children” (Exodus 20:5) …but isn’t the “kingdom of heaven made up of such as these?” (Matthew 19:14)
This is retarded.
She's arguing that if God made any command on any topic in the old testament, then we can't just follow some of them, we have to follow all of them.
I'll say that again.
If God made ANY command on ANY topic, we have to follow ALL of it or NONE of it.
There is, according to this woman, no other option.
Which is why she chose to re-write scripture to her own liking by rejecting everything she didn't like and keeping only what "felt good", and that's before we even excoriate the detailed points she is trying to bring up.
The punishment for sins as detailed to the Hebrews were part of regulating their monarchy/theocracy. That was part of their legal system. As Gentiles who are not a part of that legal system, there is no need for us to enforce the Mosaic laws as were used to dictate the rituals and practices of the historical Israel.
But notice that the parenting advice references don't come from the Mosaic law, but instead come many many generations later, as wise advice from men who were described by God as being wise. These weren't commands for Israel to put into law, these were guidelines for behavior that would need to be adapted to the circumstances of the parent. If a child reacted merely to words, great, but refusing to do anything else would be a failure on the part of the parent to not actually provide effective correction and rebuke.
As to feeding the homeless, there is no command for Christians to take care of non-Christians. Every reference to charity and giving is within the scope of the Church. Those who are outside, still in rebellion with God, are not to be given access to the storehouses of the King when they plot his demise.
Even in the final days, when Jesus Christ judges the nations (races) of "goats" and "sheep", the "sheep" are not condemned by how poorly the "goats" treated their own. Read Matthew 25:31-46, and notice how the "sheep" and "goats" lived among each other until the end when they were finally separated. There will be nations of "goats" intermixed with nations of "sheep", but Jesus knows which are his, and the sheep are judged based on how they took care of Jesus' people.
So if a homeless person is a Christian, that is one thing. It's another if the homeless person is homeless because they are suffering the consequences of sinful rebellion and refuse to repent and turn to God. Job suffered greatly, but never stopped giving glory and honor to God. If people declare Jesus as Lord, then they are part of the family, and we are called to care for our family.
Except in cases of unrepentant sin. So even there, if someone declares Jesus as Lord, but is bringing sin with them into the fellowship because they will not repent, then they are not entitled to be cared for as the natural consequences play out.
Finally, anyone stupid enough to think that "not encouraging materialism" is somehow "visiting the sins of the father on the children" is simply not worth listening to. Buying gifts for someone who is struggling is a nice idea, but children whose parents are incarcerated don't need "stuff". It is not loving to them to buy things for them and then pretend like anything of value was done on their behalf. Such shallow and vapid gestures are why most churches, and most 'Christians', are a complete waste of time.
And it gets worse, as things continue on into Part 5.
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