Contradictions in the Bible?

atpollard · Feb 27, 2021

SkyWriting said:
Not cut down by you though. You have no axes. No fire.
But you can keep trying.

Non sequitur.
It is not my place to “cut” or “burn” ... I am merely instructed to “know” by looking at the fruit (which is a direct response to your claim that “I could not know”).

You offer “forgiveness” as a passive-aggressive form of attack.

zoidar · Feb 27, 2021

Abide with me. said:
In Mathew 18, A brother who sins against you, .....
says that if a brother who refuses to listen to you, witnesses and the Church if he has sinned against you, then you should treat him like the tax collector or pagans, ( who I believe were shunned and despised, ) and then contradicts himself by saying in the next parable of the unmerciful servant, by saying he should forgive his brother seventy seven times if he has sinned against you.

I believe the parable goes on to say that the master ( God ) will not forgive a servant who will not forgive a fellow servant and will therefore be sent to prison and tortured ( hell? )
"This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart"

So which is it to be? Forgive at all costs? Or treat the unrepentant like the tax collector or the pagan?

Jesus NEVER contradicts himself. You can be asured about that. If it looks like that it's a misunderstanding (probably because we haven't studied scripture deep enough) on our part.

There is a difference when someone asks honestly for your forgiveness and when someone isn't interested in your forgiveness and keeps doing wrong to you. In the first case, we should never deny a person forgiveness who asks us. In the second case I don't think we have to forgive the person, though it's normally good for our own heart to forgive even those who aren't interested in our forgiveness. What if a person comes every Sunday to church just to ruin the sermon or to cause diversion. Then we should kick him out and treat him like someone that doesn't belong with us, a pagan or tax collector, until he is willing to change. At least that's my take on it.

SkyWriting · Feb 27, 2021

Abide with me. said:
In Mathew 18, A brother who sins against you, .....says that if a brother who refuses to listen to you, witnesses and the Church if he has sinned against you, then you should treat him like the tax collector or pagans,

People who Jesus spent much time with. Awesome!

There is a specific rule about treating others:

Matthew 7:12
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Luke 6:31
And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

Hebrews 10:24-25
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Matthew 7:1-29
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. ...

Philippians 2:3-8
Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ...

Ephesians 4:29
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Galatians 5:14
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ...

Romans 13:8-10
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Luke 6:27
“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,

Matthew 22:39
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Matthew 7:1
“Judge not, that you be not judged.

Matthew 5:48
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:39
But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

SkyWriting · Feb 27, 2021

Abide with me. said:
in the next parable of the unmerciful servant, by saying he should forgive his brother seventy seven times if he has sinned against you.

Absolutely! Even if they are unrepentant.
What Does the Bible Say About Forgiving Others?

SkyWriting · Feb 28, 2021

Abide with me. said:
I believe the parable goes on to say that the master ( God ) will not forgive a servant who will not forgive a fellow servant and will therefore be sent to prison and tortured ( hell? )

It's more of a cause-and-effect thing. If you are in a cell (cut off from the living)
who is there to forgive you? Now there you are (in hell) and are never forgiven for eternity.
It doesn't matter if you have killed someone or if you have thought poorly of your mother.
In all eternity, any sin is the same. You remain unforgiven by your own hand. That is Hell and you have eternity to experience it.

So scripture reminds us......best to practice forgiving others.....70 times seventy times. Because you will need that forgiveness yourself.

SkyWriting · Feb 28, 2021

Abide with me. said:
.... then you should treat him like the tax collector or pagans..

We really don't give a hoot what the early church did or said or how it was run or how jews treated pagans or any of that society balcony. The Jews and the early churches were a Hot Mess.

God gives us our own rules about treating others.
What Does the Bible Say About Do To Others?

atpollard · Feb 28, 2021

setst777 said:
God does not forgive all people their sins,
We are to follow God's example.

Lord Jesus beautiful Parable in Matthew 18:21-35 illustrates this truth so plainly, that a child could understand.

Matthew 18:21-35 (WEB)
...21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
...22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
...23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
...26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
...28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
...29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
...30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
...32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
...35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Quoted for truth as a reminder of what GOD actually said (as quoted by setst777), since the comments in this topic seem to indicate that some have forgotten the actual scripture.

Abide with me. · Feb 28, 2021

St_Worm2 said:
Hello Topher694, I rarely disagree with what you have to say, but what you just said doesn't seem to line up with what the Bible says. For instance, the Lord Jesus told us this by command,

Luke 17
3 “If your brother sins, rebuke him; and ~if~ he repents, forgive him.
4 And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, ~saying, ‘I repent~,’ forgive him.”

This passage (and others like in it) are concerned with "forgiveness", not reconciliation, yes? (certainly not directly anyway)

The Lord Jesus doesn't tell us to forgive those who have sinned against us so that we can "feel better" and/or feel better about ourselves, rather, He tells us to "rebuke" them, yes, for ~their~ good (and hopefully, for ours as well).

Where does the Bible/Christianity ever teach us to look to ourselves/to our own needs, while intentionally choosing to forgo the needs of others, even the needs of those who have hurt us (does the Lord Jesus not tell us Christians to follow in the footsteps of the Father instead, to love & pray for/to seek the good of those who persecute us .. cf Matthew 5:43-45?)

What the Lord commands us to do 'before' we offer forgiveness to someone who has sinned against us is to "rebuke" them, 1. to make sure that they know what they've done and how we feel about it and why, and 2. to give them the opportunity then to either repent and seek our forgiveness, or to refuse to do so.

I'm certain that the first part (the truly painful part) of the Lord's command to us, to "rebuke" those who have just hurt us (to get the process of forgiveness started), is what we so desperately want to avoid (I am just as guilty of feeling this way and just as guilty of sinning against this command as anyone else is, being the natural people-pleaser that I am, so unfortunately, I get it ), and I believe that's why the church, in general, has taken this modern-day, non-Biblical stance of ~"forgiving" others w/o actually forgiving them~, so that we, the hurt party, can begin to "heal".

But do we ever 'truly' heal when we remain silent, while the dark cloud of dislike/hatred that separates us from the other person remains in place?

So, instead of trying to make ourselves "feel better" (by offering a silent "forgiveness" to those who offend us, w/o regard for them or for the Lord's command to us), we need to ask the Lord to forgive 'us' instead,

1. for disobeying His command to us to begin the process of forgiveness by "rebuke" and
2. for hating the person who hurt us by seeking our good instead of trusting God and seeking their good instead/as well.

God bless you!

--David
p.s. - the position that we find ourselves in when we've been hurt, combined with the command that we are given by the Lord to begin the process of making things right, can be daunting for us, but that's where trusting the Lord comes in, yes .. e.g. Proverbs 3:5-6.

Wow, I never looked at it this way before, this is really helpful, I too did not rebuke my father when he broke my jaw as a teenager, because I was wary of his response, he died a few years ago unrepentant, I am now 61, and neither of us ever spoke of it, so in the sense you describe, I did not do God's will by not rebuking my father ( to his face ) and also did not give my father the opportunity to acknowledge or repent, and although I knew he would do neither as he blamed my mother for beating her also, I still need to ask God's forgiveness for not trying.

Abide with me. · Feb 28, 2021

St_Worm2 said:
Hello again @Catholic Philosophy, although a small point, while St. Peter told us that the untaught and unstable distort the meaning of all Scripture, OT and New, I believe that he bestowed the honor of being particularly hard to understand on St. Paul's Epistles alone (I could be wrong about that, of course). In fact, St. Peter seems to include himself as someone who found St. Paul's words somewhat difficult to understand, at least at first blush.

I believe that St. Paul said as much about "natural" men/women, for instance,

1 Corinthians 1
18 The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1 Corinthians 2
14 A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

--David[/QUOT

setst777 said:

If I do not forgive a person who does not repent of an evil he has done against me, does that mean I am to go through life with bitterness and anger, or can I pray for that unrepentant sinner that he will see the error of his ways, and then go on with my life?

So does not forgiving someone who does not repent for a sin against me mean I am destined to be bitter and angry?

If someone sins against God, but they never repent of it, does God still forgive them?

If not, then does that mean God is holding onto anger and bitterness and hurt, until they do repent?

What if hundreds of millions of people never turn to God in repentance, and God condemns them for all eternity... Is God then eternally full of bitterness, anger, and hurt for the hundreds of millions of people he never forgave?

Are we then better than a perfect and holy God, thinking we can forgive someone without them repenting so we don't feel bitter and angry like God is for not forgiving?

OR, if someone sins against us and they do not repent, why can't we just leave that person in God's hands, and pray for the unrepentant that they will in time learn from their mistakes?

Click to expand...

I'm new to the Bible, but so far I have come across so many quotes that says if you don't forgive others God will not forgive you, this is really terrifying if you think about everlasting hell! I spent most of my life in unforgiveness, and a lot of it was the kind of life you would want to wake up from hoping it was just a nightmare only it was real and just kept on and on..... till I finally turned to God. This is why the true meaning of the Bible is so important to me.
Either way, whatever understanding you glean from the word, it's safer, ( not easier ) just to forgive, the alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

St_Worm2 · Feb 28, 2021

Abide with me. said:
I did not rebuke my father when he broke my jaw as a teenager, because I was wary of his response, he died a few years ago unrepentant, I am now 61, and neither of us ever spoke of it, so in the sense you describe, I did not do God's will by not rebuking my father ( to his face )

Hello Abide with me, I'm very sorry to hear what you had to endure as a young girl

My father was a horrible alcoholic and 'mentally' abusive to my mother, my sister and me, but he didn't cross the line into physical violence with any of us.

You did ~nothing~ wrong (which would have been true even if you had been a Christian back then). Quite frankly, the jaw that your father broke was the only 'rebuke' that you needed to give him, as such a thing speaks louder and with more clarity to a person like your father than your words ever could have. So, your "rebuke" was given .. loud and clear .. and the ball was in his court to immediately repent and beg you to forgive him, but he did not (which is truly a shame for both of you).

There are many situations, most perhaps, where we need to rebuke the person who caused us harm (if a person acts in an insensitive manner towards us, on social media perhaps, or if someone fails to do something that they promised to do for us, etc.) for the reasons I gave earlier in this thread. However, you did exactly what you needed to do in your case. Your "rebuke" was given, and you needed to protect yourself from further, physical harm. God's commandments are meant as blessings to us, and as such, are intended to be beneficial, not cause additional harm. But your father, in his failure to repent and ask you to forgive him, showed that he did not want the great blessing that God was offering to him.

God bless you sister!

--David

Der Alte · Feb 28, 2021

Abide with me. said:
In Mathew 18, A brother who sins against you, .....
says that if a brother who refuses to listen to you, witnesses and the Church if he has sinned against you, then you should treat him like the tax collector or pagans, ( who I believe were shunned and despised, ) and then contradicts himself by saying in the next parable of the unmerciful servant, by saying he should forgive his brother seventy seven times if he has sinned against you.
I believe the parable goes on to say that the master ( God ) will not forgive a servant who will not forgive a fellow servant and will therefore be sent to prison and tortured ( hell? )
"This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart"
So which is it to be? Forgive at all costs? Or treat the unrepentant like the tax collector or the pagan?

How did Jesus treat sinners and tax collectors? Matthew 9:9-10? How did Jesus treat a woman who was a notorious sinner? Luke 7:37-38

St_Worm2 · Feb 28, 2021

Abide with me. said:
I'm new to the Bible, but so far I have come across so many quotes that says if you don't forgive others God will not forgive you, this is really terrifying if you think about everlasting hell!

Hello again Abide with me, I thought I should point out to you that the passages that you are referring to (like the Lord's Prayer and the two qualifying verses that follow it .. e.g. Matthew 6:9-15) are concerned with the loss of ~full fellowship~ with the Lord (with the loss, as King David put it, of things like the "joy" of our salvation .. Psalm 51:10-12), NOT with the loss of salvation itself (nor are those verses and passages concerned with some sort of inability on the part of an unbeliever to be saved because he/she has failed to forgive others).

God saves the wicked/ungodly, those who know that they are sick with sin and in need of the Savior, not those who suppose themselves righteous somehow (even partially) .. e.g. Mark 2:17; Romans 4:5.

We are saved by God's "grace", yes? .. e.g. Ephesians 2:8-9, by His ~unmerited~ favor towards us, which means (in Bible-speak, I guess you could say) that we are saved by the things that Jesus did for us .. alone, not on the basis of anything that 'we' do/have done/will do. In fact, even the saving faith that we exercise when we believe is a "gift" to us from God .. Ephesians 2:8.

Finally, our salvation is not an end in itself. Rather, God quickens us and saves us, then He makes us into wholly "new creatures" as "His workmanship/masterpiece", "created in Christ Jesus for/unto good works", ~not~ because of them (or because of any of the many other wondrous things that "accompany" our salvation .. like our desire to forgive others whenever they ask us to

.. Hebrews 6:9) .. e.g. Ezekiel 36:26-27; John 3:3; Romans 5:8-10; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:4-5, 8-9, 10.

Blessings to you in Christ! (Numbers 6:24-26)

--David

Titus 3
5 He saved us, ~not on the basis of deeds~ which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy.

98cwitr · Mar 1, 2021

mod hat on

This thread has been permanently closed due to multiple violations of CF rules. Please remember to address content and not one another. Do not flame. Stay on topic.

mod hat off

Contradictions in the Bible?

Well-Known Member

loves Jesus the Christ! ✝️

The Librarian

The Librarian

The Librarian

The Librarian

Well-Known Member

Active Member

Active Member

Simul Justus et Peccator

This is me about 1 yr. old.

Simul Justus et Peccator

Lord forgive me

Similar threads