Message #1524

[AndyHB]

Boudi,
Good grief, Christ used violence to deal with the sin and bad behavior of the money changers. The tables were not the issue. So you see that episode as a joke. You see it as a joke because to take is seriously you would have to admit to the justification in Christ going into a righteous rage and lashing out.

Sorry to butt in again, but I just had to respond to this.  PW, it isn't that we find the story about the money changers and Christ's reaction to them funny; certainly from my perspective, what is funny is the way in which you seem to have stretched and moulded the story to fit 1) a context that bears no resemblance to it and 2) support an attitude that Christ clearly denounced across the Gospels.  Not only is it funny, it is also sad since it is - like so much fundamentalist N. American "Christian" belief - so far from Christ's Biblical teaching.

Perhaps some of you might study Romans 13:1-14
There we find that the state or our rulers are justified in using the sword to destroy those that do evil.

Interestingly, PW, Romans 13 is NOT about whether or not states have carte blanche (sorry, you don't like French, do you) to kill or punish wrong-doers.  Its actually to do with our responsibilities - as Christians - to support the authorities that have been set in place by God, by paying taxes, abiding by laws, etc. It is only when those taxes/laws are used to go against God's purposes (and many Quakers, for instance, would argue against paying the 'military' section of any tax bill) that we are entitled to stand against them.  To take 15 or 20 words out of the context in which they sit, and make out that the chapter is about them, rather than the topics that the chapter actually deals with (submission to the authorities, and the fulfilling of the law through love) is to make a mockery of Bible Study, let alone Biblical debate.  This is not to say that you can't use this chapter as part of an argument for your position, but it needs to be within the compass of far more specific teaching on the point to give your claim any weight.

Jan,
I am a God fearing Christian. I belive in the book, the blood and the blessed hope. I've seen that atheist site before. Their contradictions are not contraditions if you read in CONTEXT.

So why are you taking so much out of context in this situation, PW?  Isn't this somewhat hypocritical?