Originally Posted by
alanmolstad
My previous answer was addressed to the idea that because I follow the New test Biblical condemnation of the Gays that I also must follow the teachings on hair length....
as I point out in my post, I do.
For a certain value of "follow". Others, who take the text more "literally", would likely describe your interpretation as playing-fast-and-loose-with-the-plain-meaning-of-scripture.
Morality as I know it must be
based on the text of the Bible alone, or it is of no value to us...
Nonsense. Each of us has opinions and moralities that range far and wide, on topics both familiar to and utterly foreign to the writers of scripture.
The Bible is not a rulebook. Trying to read it as a rulebook doesn’t work. Read it that way and you’re bound to be frustrated, misled and confused. Filtering through the Bible to pluck out the rules produces two results, neither of them helpful. First it gives you a jar full of context-less rules, and second it leaves behind the vast bulk of the Bible — all those stories and songs, prophecy, proverbs, parables and promises filtered off to the side by the quest for rules. (
source)
in other words:
The Bible says it-
I believe it -
That settles it!
Um, no. A human writer "said" something, 2000+ years ago, in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, to an audience consisting of other Hebrew, Aramaic and/or Greek speakers, both author and audience residing in the same culture, a culture very unlike ours, dealing with local and community-defining issues. The writing has been preserved, transcribed, copied, transported across the centuries, dragged thousands of miles from their original context in the ancient Near East, translated into languages that didn't even exist at the time of writing, then interpreted and applied, selectively and imperfectly, by yet more humans, who decide what gets considered a "timeless moral truth" and what gets a p***ing nod as a historical quirk.
No, sir—you do not "just believe" what the Bible "says".
Originally Posted by
alanmolstad
Actually the whole letter by Paul addressed to Philemon is a clear attempt by Paul to get a slave set free and returned to him.....
Paul puts the screws to Philemon in the letter, and the context is clearly that Paul wants the slave set free.....
Oh! So you should be able to point me to the p***age where Paul instructs, in so many words—"Philemon, you should free Onesimus, and all your slaves! What were you thinking, having slaves in the first place? Don't you know it's immoral for a person to own another human—and you call yourself a follower of Christ! You should be ashamed!"
Feel free to point that out to me at your earliest convenience.
The context of the New Test is clearly that owning a slave is harmful and that if a slave gets a chance to be free he should take it, and that to be a good Christian a slave owner should allow his slaves to go free.
[citations needed]
This is the teachings of the Bible, and it is true....
Funny—it sounds distinctly like "the teachings of alanmolstad", and not so much like "the teachings of the Bible" at all.
Originally Posted by
alanmolstad
All of the Law of the Jews was totally fulfilled in the life and death of Christ.
When we become Christians, we are buried with Christ in the water of our Baptism.
Thus to the law we are then , (and for all time after) dead ....
We are dead in the eyes of the law.
And as we all know, the Law has no power over the dead...the law is fulfilled and we are no longer under it's power.
That's nice. I wish someone would tell the zealots who want to plaster the Ten Commandments all over US government buildings, or who tattoo verses from Leviticus on themselves...
We rise up out of the waters of the new Covenant, and as such we now fall under the control and power of the New test commandments.
The important teachings for the church are found now in the New Test and are therefore part of our New Covenant...
The commandment that Gays do not enter into the Lord's Kingdom are found in the New test and are very much a part of the New Covenant that we now live under in Christ.
You've already amply demonstrated just how selective you are when applying commandments—even "New Covenant" ones. And you've more-than-amply demonstrated that you don't know any gay people—as well as provided a textbook illustration for my knowing gay people is the #1 factor correlating with a person's acceptance of GLBT people as fully human and full members of society.
Originally Posted by
alanmolstad
The Bible is not written for private interpretation!
That's nice. But you've already shared your own private interpretations—of slavery p***ages, of hair-regulation p***ages, ...
Originally Posted by
alanmolstad
Okay, you've got me. Four out of your cited 18 translations translated the Greek πλάνης as "perversion". So you agree with 22% of your own source? Based on the concordance and lexicon uses of πλάνη, why?
I'm familiar with Romans 1. Paul says that [something —*men leaving women for men] was a punishment from God for the sin of idolatry. Neither idolatry, nor lust, nor "envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity", nor any of the other descriptors Paul uses accurately describe my gay and lesbian friends. Thus, I am forced to conclude either 1) Paul was not referring to my friends when making his diatribe, or 2) Paul was wrong in referring to my friends that way.
Originally Posted by
alanmolstad
Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor ****sexuals,or thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
Considering that the word ****sexuality, and the understanding of sexual orientation as an immutable characteristic of some people did not exist until the late 19th–early 20th century, I find that translation highly suspect.
Paul writes of malakoi and ****nokoites. What reason do you have to believe that these words refer to a modern gay or lesbian person seeking a committed, monogamous, lifelong covenantal relationship with the person they love?
The Bible Does Not Prohibit ****sexuality
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