Why don't Christians stone people anymore?

boneo

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That was a strange thing for you to expect. Cultural and intellectual contexts shift over time.


Not really, if the Bible is the word of God then I'd expect it to be quite easy to interpret, it's written in black and white but seems to be interpreted in different ways by many people even today.
 
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Incariol

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Not really, if the Bible is the word of God then I'd expect it to be quite easy to interpret,

That's random. Why?

it's written in black and white but seems to be interpreted in different ways by many people even today.

So, obviously, it isn't black and white.
 
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boneo

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Because if it's true it's the most important book ever written and millions if not billions of people will be and already have been damned to hell for misinterpreting it. If God loves us all so much why make it so difficult to understand the only book that matters?
 
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Incariol

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Because if it's true it's the most important book ever written and millions if not billions of people will be and already have been damned to hell for misinterpreting it. If God loves us all so much why make it so difficult to understand the only book that matters?

You do understand that the Bible was written by humans and compiled by humans in 4th or 5th centuries, not God, right?
 
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boneo

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You do understand that the Bible was written by humans and compiled by humans in 4th or 5th centuries, not God, right?

But isn't it the inspired word of God? if so my above question needs an answer please
 
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hedrick

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Ok, but the Catholic Church has around a billion members, are they all misinterpreting the Bible?
Sorry, I have a few questions and should maybe start new threads for them.

I believe if you ask current Catholics they will tell you that killing people in the name of religion as wrong as well. During a large part of European history the Church had an enormous amount of power, with no one really to hold it accountable. That kind of unaccountable power does bad things to anyone, Christian, non-Christian, or atheist. I think you'll find similar misdeeds from any group that was in that position. Currently Christian churches tend to be more accountable: to governments for some actions, and to their own members. The Catholic church took a bit longer to realize that it is accountable than others, but it's sinking in.
 
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whitetiger1

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Not really, if the Bible is the word of God then I'd expect it to be quite easy to interpret, it's written in black and white but seems to be interpreted in different ways by many people even today.
One thing you'll find is that those that go by Scripture alone do not have one meaning for anything. There appears to be unity but underneath there is none as I found with my question from Evangelicals anything goes as long as you say "the Spirit told me, or showed me" by using their single understanding and nothing else.

That's why they can say the Catholic Church and/or Orthodox Church is corrupt because they rely on themselves. Look at my threads and you can easily see this.

You ask why people don't get stoned anymore? It's because we are not under the Jewish law but now with the New Covenant given to all men are under the law of Grace.
 
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hedrick

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Not really, if the Bible is the word of God then I'd expect it to be quite easy to interpret, it's written in black and white but seems to be interpreted in different ways by many people even today.

I understand why you might think that. But look at what the Bible is.

The Old Testament has rules in it, but mostly it's a history of the relationship between God and his people, and that relationship is pretty complex. It's also got random poetry, satire, and various kinds of advice. Even the rules aren't directly applicable, both because our situation is very different from 3000 years ago and because the rules were part of a covenant with the Jews which doesn't apply directly to most of us.

The New Testament is the story of Jesus, and how his earliest followers understood him. You'll see that different followers understood him differently. And Jesus himself tended to teach in stories rather than clear rules.

This is not the work of a God who just wants us to follow the rules. Indeed Jesus' death isn't the work of such a God either. If people sinned, you'd expect God to use thunderbolts to get their attention, rather than join them and let them do their worst to him.

It looks like God's goal is to help people develop into responsible people with their own ideas. And he's chosen to do that by giving us some insight into himself but letting us react to it in different ways. I often get the impression while reading Jesus interact with people that he's trying to provoke a certain development in them, rather than just give them an answer. If things like this aren't what is going on, God has been surprisingly incompetent.

This observation is not limited to Christians:

"The Tao which can be expressed is not the unchanging Tao; the name which can be named is not the unchanging name.

"The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth; the mother of all things is the nameable.

--- Tao Te Ching

Of course many Christians don't agree with me on this. They think that God's goal was to teach us their specific interpretation.
 
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drich0150

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Thankyou people for your responses. I do however have concerns about the many (by todays standards) completely innocent people who were tortured and killed in the name of Christianity. These killings seem to have been justified somehow by some of the 'greatest' theologians of the time. I would appreciate your thoughts on this. Here's a link to some (the first site to come up when I Googled it)

If the "killings" you have identified are not sanctioned of call for in the bible then the "killings" happened in Name only. No matter the reason.
 
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ebia

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boneo said:
Because if it's true it's the most important book ever written and millions if not billions of people will be and already have been damned to hell for misinterpreting it. If God loves us all so much why make it so difficult to understand the only book that matters?

Maybe that God has something non-trivial to teach us.
 
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ViaCrucis

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The Bible is the Church's document. What this means is that we have a Bible because it's for the life of faith of the Christian Church. It's not a compendium of divine legislature, it doesn't lay out a social code or order for the saecular, it's not a missal or codification of law or ritual. It's a collection of texts received as inspired for the purpose of growing in faith. It exists to challenge us and push us toward Christ, to draw us to Christ, to present Christ to us front and center.

Having the "right interpretation" is not necessarily always the most vital aspect of Scripture (though rightly exegeting the texts are vitally important); right exegesis does not translate to "going to heaven" or anything remotely like that. Rather right exegesis ought to mean to be better challenged--and sometimes frustrated--by the Biblical texts in such a way that our presuppositions are questioned, our comforts are challenged, and we are compelled to be less lazy in our walk with God and our faith in God.

The Bible isn't just some "most important book in the world", it is a living, challenging, frustrating, dynamic collection of texts which we, in faith, receive as Word from God. It is the word that presents in a living, dynamic and intimate way the One, Living and Eternal Word of God, Jesus Christ Himself.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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elman

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But Jesus seems to endorse the enirety of the Old Testament law:

For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the Kingdom of heaven, but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. - Mathew 5:18-19

It seems to me that true Christians must obey the OT law in order to get into heaven, am I wrong?

Yes. Jesus said we must love God and man to have hope of eternal life.
 
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