Religous freedom versus Child neglect

[Zoii]

I'm interested to know what emphasis people place on Faith healing, particularly when it comes to children

 

[Dave-W]

See Luke 12:47-48

That is punishment in this life - not eternal judgement.

 

[Paidiske]

Zoii, I'd say pray for healing, by all means. If it happens, thank God. But don't abandon the means God has given us through the medical sciences to seek healing that way, either.

 

[Dave-W]

I'm interested to know what emphasis people place on Faith healing, particularly when it comes to children

"Faith Healing," and all of the other supernatural signs of Mark 16 and 1 Cor 12 are for signs to the unbelievers, used during evangelism. As Paul wrote:

1 Cor 2.1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,
4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.​

That means we are to use the medical arts for many or most of our ills, and that includes our children.

Now there is another ordnance for divine healing:

James 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;
15 and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.​

So that means you start with prayer. From then on you are free to pursue traditional medicine. Please note the text does not say HOW the sick person is to be restored to health. Sometimes it is in a miracle. Usually it is not. God can work thru an MD or DO as well as any other means.

 

[samir]

I don't see any of these as suggesting that among the unsaved, there will be degrees of eternal punishment. That's one interpretation, and I think I see how you got there, but I fundamentally disagree. I think there are different consequences in this life, but that at the end, those who find themselves outside relationship with God will all be equally separated from God, and that is their punishment.

If you accept the book of Revelation, it clearly specifies different punishments in Hell based on the sins a person committed:

25. And near that place I saw another strait place into which the gore and the filth of those who were being punished ran down and became there as it were a lake: and there sat women having the gore up to their necks, and over against them sat many children who were born to them out of due time, crying; and there came forth from them sparks of fire and smote the women in the eyes: and these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion.

31. And other men and women were being hurled down from a great cliff and reached the bottom, and again were driven by those who were set over them to climb up upon the cliff, and thence were hurled down again, and had no rest from this punishment: and these were they who defiled their bodies acting as women; and the women who were with them were those who lay with one another as a man with a woman.

33. And others again near them, women and men, burning and turning themselves and roasting: and these were they that leaving the way of God

Source: The Apocalypse of Peter (translation by Roberts-Donaldson)

I realize the Revelation of Peter is probably not in your Bible but ask yourself why is it any different than the Revelation of John or the epistles of Peter that the Catholic Church included in the New Testament. If the Catholic Church was wrong about 2 Maccabees and other books Protestants removed from the Bible, then why couldn't they have been wrong about the Revelation of Peter?

"Clement of Alexandria appears to have considered the Apocalypse of Peter to be holy scripture. Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae (VI.14.1), describes a lost work of Clement's, the Hypotyposes (Outlines), that gave "abridged accounts of all the canonical Scriptures, not even omitting those that are disputed, I mean the book of Jude and the other general epistles. Also the Epistle of Barnabas and that called the Revelation of Peter." Apocalypse of Peter - Wikipedia

 

[samir]

That is punishment in this life - not eternal judgement.

Your interpretation appears to be at odds with the context. Luke 12 says (in context), "You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him... The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows."

 

[keith99]

"Faith Healing," and all of the other supernatural signs of Mark 16 and 1 Cor 12 are for signs to the unbelievers, used during evangelism. As Paul wrote:

1 Cor 2.1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,
4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.​

That means we are to use the medical arts for many or most of our ills, and that includes our children.

Now there is another ordnance for divine healing:

James 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;
15 and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.​

So that means you start with prayer. From then on you are free to pursue traditional medicine. Please note the text does not say HOW the sick person is to be restored to health. Sometimes it is in a miracle. Usually it is not. God can work thru an MD or DO as well as any other means.

Does that mean the Cardio unit nurse who was about 100 yards behind a man on the Santa Monica Beach Bike Path should have taken the time to stop and pray before she started CPR? I was a mile or 2 and thus several minutes behind them and when I got there the Lifeguards and Police had just arrived. So she was the lone responder for several minutes.

I'll opt for the way it happened. At least he was alive to transport.

 

[Audacious]

Does that mean the Cardio unit nurse who was about 100 yards behind a man on the Santa Monica Beach Bike Path should have taken the time to stop and pray before she started CPR? I was a mile or 2 and thus several minutes behind them and when I got there the Lifeguards and Police had just arrived. So she was the lone responder for several minutes.

I'll opt for the way it happened. At least he was alive to transport.

Statistically, intercessory prayer isn't effective, so it's better not to waste time with it when you're in an emergency.

 

[Dave-W]

Does that mean the Cardio unit nurse who was about 100 yards behind a man on the Santa Monica Beach Bike Path should have taken the time to stop and pray before she started CPR?

First off, it was doubtful if the nurse was an elder in the man's congregation.
So no.

But there was nothing to stop her from praying as she is running up to him and starting CPR.

 

[keith99]

First off, it was doubtful if the nurse was an elder in the man's congregation.
So no.

But there was nothing to stop her from praying as she is running up to him and starting CPR.

So she should have sent for the elders first! Sure DOA!

 

[Dave-W]

So she should have sent for the elders first! Sure DOA!

Not possible except in rare instances. How would she even know which congregation (if any) he attended?

 

[keith99]

Not possible except in rare instances. How would she even know which congregation (if any) he attended?

Which is why it is a good thing we don't follow Biblical teachings as some see them!

 

[PsychoSarah]

There is only one God.

In your opinion. I'd say there don't seem to be any, and when people say they "base morality on god", it's a reach for the authority to push morally questionable views without being accountable to them or having to justify them.

What you personally believe is irrelevant. There's no point on trying to assert the authority of a deity that the majority of humanity doesn't even believe in... unless you want to try to claim that the Jewish and Muslim interpretations of the deity also count (even though those push different moral perspectives). Then you'd have about 55% of the world at least believing in the deity you are using to push a specific moral system.

Probably not but what they believe is irrelevant.

It most certainly is not. Who would follow a moral system based on something they don't believe in? Why should Hindus ever view your morality as valid if they don't believe in the same god as you, let alone recognize it as a legitimate moral authority?

I'm confident enough that Christianity is true that I have no problem doing the will of the one and only God.

Society doesn't consist of only you and people that feel as you do. I don't view slavery as moral. I'd never view slavery as moral. I don't care if there are gods that do view slavery as moral, because I don't think being a deity makes one a good moral standard by default.

 

[Paidiske]

I realize the Revelation of Peter is probably not in your Bible but ask yourself why is it any different than the Revelation of John or the epistles of Peter that the Catholic Church included in the New Testament. If the Catholic Church was wrong about 2 Maccabees and other books Protestants removed from the Bible, then why couldn't they have been wrong about the Revelation of Peter?

Who says the early church (pre-schism) was wrong about including 2 Maccabees in the canon?

The Apocalypse of Peter is a later work, 2nd century. We don't have a good textual version; there's a Koine Greek version, which we have only in fragments. And there's a Ethiopic version which differs significantly from the Greek fragments we have. And one of the earliest mentions of this work - in the Muratorian fragment - mentions that it is not universally accepted as Scripture.

So all up the support for treating it as Scripture looks to me to be remarkably weak. The Didache or the Shepherd would have a much better case.

 

[Dave-W]

If you accept the book of Revelation, it clearly specifies different punishments in Hell based on the sins a person committed:

I accept the Revelation that John wrote, but NOT that document falsely attributed to Peter. (pseudepigrapha) If it lied about who wrote it, how can anything else in it be trusted?

 

[Paidiske]

If it lied about who wrote it, how can anything else in it be trusted?

I think it's anachronistic to look at pseudoepigraphical documents from the ancient world as "lying." They understood what they were doing slightly differently; positioning their works as being "in the spirit of" the person to whom they were attributed, and so forth.

Besides, if you're going to say you can't have pseudoepigrapha in the canon, you'd have to be prepared to lose some of "Paul's" letters, for starters...

 

[samir]

I accept the Revelation that John wrote, but NOT that document falsely attributed to Peter. (pseudepigrapha) If it lied about who wrote it, how can anything else in it be trusted?

How do you know it wasn't written by Peter?

 

[Zoii]

I've been struggling a lot with cases I really should learn to not read. I cry my heart out for these children. But I feel it's wrong to look away from them. And I feel determined to make it part of my life to do something about it.
Redirect Notice

Prosecutor: Man tortured 8-year-old boy to death because he thought child was gay

These are both recent cases. Although extreme examples of child abuse, I ask you, to what level would you find it acceptable for parents to discipline a child before you think authorities should intervene

 

[Dave-W]

How do you know it wasn't written by Peter?

Since it surfaced in the gnostic community a century after Peter died.

 

[Hieronymus]

Examples in this include Christians who handle snakes and do not seek medical attention even with children, refusal to allow the administration of blood products even in life threatening circumstances, female genial mutilation, tattooing or scarring...in the name of their religion. If govt should stay out of religion, are you ok with all this?

Are you sure you mean Christians here??