Posted on 10/08/2010 3:51:38 PM PDT by Colofornian
We stepped outside on Sunday for our ritual family walk.
I immediately heard shouts from my kids.
"Mom, the neighbor kids are riding their bikes on Sunday!"
We have had this conversation a thousand times: Our family has rules that don't apply to other families. They go to different churches. All churches are good.
We are in that stage with our children where we try and do the delicate balance of teaching them correct principles without turning them into Pharisees for the rest of the neighborhood.
I'm sure you've all had that experience where you go out to a restaurant, your child stands up in the booth and yells across the room, "That man over there is smoking!" And you whisper between clenched teeth, "That's OK. They don't know better. We don't judge others. Sit down, please."
We're not big soda drinkers, so every time our kids see an aluminum can emblazoned with the Coca-Cola symbol, they go into hysterics. The same goes for coffee makers. My oldest son was crushed when he discovered that his beloved kindergarten teacher drank a cup of coffee every morning.
It's a tricky thing, this teaching business. I feel strongly that our children need to learn right from wrong. If we don't teach it to them, they'll learn to judge by the world's standards, which at the moment are pretty low.
So we teach them about honoring the Sabbath, keeping the Word of Wisdom, sharing their toys, being baptized and growing up with very specific commandments.
We couch it all by trying to explain that these are our beliefs and our family rules. They only apply to us. But children see things in black and white.
So they trudge into the house, as my son did on a recent afternoon, looking very dejected.
"Mom," Jackson said, "Jimmy doesn't want to join our church. He only reads the Bible, even though it's incorrect. And he said he believes in one hundred different gods. I don't know if we can ever be friends again."
I put my arm around his shoulder.
"Jimmy is Catholic," I told him. "Catholics are wonderful. He believes in one God. He was probably referring to Catholic saints. And your friendship with Jimmy is not over. You can be friends with all people." Jackson shrugged and looked relieved.
"OK, well I'm going out to play."
These are important conversations. It shows that my kids are actually trying to ponder and fit their own belief system in a world filled with various ideologies. I believe it's an important step in religious development.
And sometimes kids simply have to learn the hard way.
When I was 9 we visited family in Washington State. A group of us cousins gathered around my cousin Darcy for some sobering news.
"Grandma and Grandpa smoke!" she told us.
This was an absolute shock. Didn't they know about the Word of Wisdom, not to mention lung cancer?
We decided Grandma and Grandpa needed to be informed. We ran inside and drew "No Smoking" signs on paper plates.
Then we gathered outside in a circle around Grandma and Grandpa's trailer and chanted "PEOPLE THAT SMOKE— ARE PEOPLE THAT'LL CHOKE!"
We bellowed and marched, determined to educate our grandparents and bring them back to the fold.
My grandparents didn't say a word to us. They were so offended they simply packed their bags and drove back to Florida.
That day I learned a whopping lesson in tolerance and love. My grandparents were outstanding people. They were fully aware of the Word of Wisdom and lung cancer. It was not my place to judge them. More than a decade later, they were present at my marriage in the Portland Oregon Temple. They remained faithful to the gospel until the end of their lives.
How to explain these shades of gray to my children?
At the recent General Relief Society Broadcast, President Monson gave a remarkable talk on judging others.
It was a reminder to me that I teach my children right and wrong, but they learn to apply love and tolerance by watching my day-to-day actions. The application doesn't always happen in an instant. Sometimes it takes years for our children to really grasp these principles.
In the meantime, I will continue to gently remind my children that it is not their job to call the neighborhood kids to repentance. You can ride bikes on Sunday and still go to heaven. You can drink coffee and still be a fantastic kindergarten teacher.
You can smoke and learn to forgive an obstinate granddaughter brandishing a paper-plate sign, and love her enough to be present at her wedding.
The learning continues for all of us. You're never too old to stop judging.
Good point. (This has befuddled many an Inman as well!)
For instance, if someone asks me if I pray to Mary I'll answer "absolutely" and not bother with distinctions some Catholics make about praying "through" her or what have you. I'm not here to make my beliefs more palatable to non-Catholics. I tell her I think she's wonderful and I ask her for help, just like I do with my own mother... and my wife for that matter (good grief that was almost suicide).
BTW...I don't want to go off on any significant tangent, but I got to thinking about this the next day after you posted it. I appreciate your forthrightness here, so I thought I'd be forthright as well & just ask: In light of what you said, what do you do with passages from the apostle Paul like: 5For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus... (1 Tim. 2:5)
(I mean do you just put an asterisk by that verse & say, "Well, I actually have two official mediators as go-between liaisons between God & me?" Or does Mary replace Jesus as that mediator?)
How does that work in practice to be re-writing Scripture?
And do you go directly to Jesus, and if not, why not?
And if you go to both, why not just go direct to the god-man, the Prescribed Mediator for us?
Yes. The resurrection could have taken place on a Saturday night. But don't miss the key element here.
Worship is celebration. And the celebration of Jesus' resurrection originally took place on a Sunday -- the day of discovery and the revelation of the Resurrected One. Jesus Himself marks the new beginning, just as the first day of a new week marks the new beginning.
Well said.
Well, I leave the personal relationship realities to the Living God.
Still, we know Jesus Christ went this far...and that is He offered a vision to the apostle John in critiquing a number of the early churches (Revelation 2, 3).
This discussion goes beyond sin. We all have sin, much of it tucked away and marked "private." But we also have public sin. IOW, things, in which we negatively impact others. Some of this public sin is by acts of commission, and others by acts of omission.
And Jesus Christ "dinged" some of the early church on acts of omission -- tolerating heresy and false teachings.
No matter what might be said about "many individual devout LDS folks hav[ing] such a great love of God", a public sin still attached to these Mormons is their failure to find a voice to critique false teachers within their own religious structure.
Frankly, that is what is commonly unique about the cults. Speak out vs. some false teachings amongst Jehovah's Witnesses -- even in a low-key fashion among a few leaders, before you know it, you're disfellowshipped. We've had one FReeper who said the same thing happened to him as a member of the RLDS (Church of Christ, Missouri...offshoot of the Mormons).
Many Mormons cater to fear about speaking out vs. false teachings by their past leaders -- even if they have an anonymous name on a Web site like this. (Some also simply don't want to throw out what they deem the baby with the dirty water; and therefore stay silent because they don't want to provide "fuel" to those openly critique the church).
Jesus talked about confessing Him before men. And part of that confession, He seems to indicate in Revelation 2, is to also confess what is false about competing claims. After all, darkness cannot coincide with light. Jesus said:
14Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. 15Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth...20Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. (Revelation 2)
In my heart, I know Mormon FReepers and lurkers have come across statements made by their past "prophets" and general authorities they know are utterly false. Whether it was Brigham's Adam is God theory, or blood atonement, or statements & practices that justified polygamy, or statements vs. the skin color of others, or whatever. And yet they've never publicly critiqued those leaders.
They've just let those leaders' comments go unchallenged by ANYBODY who is a current Mormon. So instead of standing with the truth, and the One who is The Living Truth (John 14:6), they stand with the status quo. With the "I won't ruffle the waters."
"I won't shake the boat," they say. "I'll therefore lend my identity as 'Mormon' to what this leader has said. And I won't stand with the truth of opposing that particular falsehood because of the personal social and family cost to me. I won't count the cost of aligning myself with the truth through and through. I'll tolerate the false teachers, past & present, in my midst."
To that mindset Jesus says: 16Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth...all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. (Rev. 2:16,23)
(BTW, this same thing applies to many of us in the Christian churches!)
That being said, and the analogy being clunky, I'm not a huge Marian guy. In the order of "Women who are wonderful" it's Mary, my wife, my mom (sorry mom, but them's the breaks). I have asked all of them for help, I have asked all of them to pray for me and I have asked all of them to pray with me. None of them can save me from my sins. All of them pray better than I do, all of them are closer to God than I am. That's not false humility either, it is simple reality.
I became Catholic before my wife and I started having children and it's the children who have helped to develop my understanding of "intercession". Many's the time when this particular unjust judge has bowed to the united pressure of five children and their mother (when the grandparents get involved we usually end up at the beach for a week). It's also true there are many occasions when it's "don't look at mommy, mommy can't save you now".
I don't feel diminished by my wife or my mother, my kids know who I am. They're social creatures, they have friends, they have special relationships within the family. If I were to ask "who do you love more, mommy or me?" they would think I had lost my mind... and they'd probably be right. Of course I am not God, and God alone is worthy of all our love because God alone is all good and any goodness in His creatures comes from Him. That is true for Mary as much as it is true for you and me but here I am typing at you. I don't think God is displeased that my attention is directed toward this discussion and the people involved in it. I love my wife, my kids, my parents, my in-laws, my friends as long as that love is properly ordered it can't take away anything that belongs to God. In fact to say to my wife or children "You're not worthy of my love because you're not God" is to diminish what God has given them and what God has given me through them.
But on top of all that, if there's anyone running around saying he prays to Mary or the saints in Heaven because he feels closer to them than to God or that he's somehow more comfortable that way... THAT person has lost his God given mind.
So yeah... how 'bout them Mormons?
Well, to be fair...there’s also Italian foreplay:
Hey! You awake?
No, I was sound asleep! What’s Italian foreplay, I shudder to ask.
That was it, you missed it.
They gotta be AWAKE??
That's certainly a post biblical traditional view. Nobody in biblical times thought it wise to overthrow the Lord's sabbaths and institute man made ones. <
Earlier you referred to the Lord's sabbath as the "Jewish " sabbath. While true that some Jews observe the Lord's sabbath, it's not true that it's the Jew's sabbath.
Lev 23:3 'Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.
Exo 20:8 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Exo 20:9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
Exo 20:10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.
So the Lord, Jesus Christ, declared his sabbath long ago. The Lord, Jesus Christ, kept his sabbath. Christians, those who follow Christ, should likewise honor the Lord by honoring His sabbath.
Oh??
Romans 14
1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
5One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
1.In context the verse you quoted is referring to "days" that have something to do with eating and drinking. This could have been fasting days or a controversy about vegetarianism.
2. When the sabbath of the Lord is being referred to in scipture there are specific greek words that are used...every time. None of these are used in these verses.
3. Paul was accused of many things. But he was never accused of sabbath breaking or teaching others to break the sabbath. If his audience understood that he was advocating this there would have been controversy. He wasn't so there wasn't.
4. Paul's own words affirm that he believed in the validity of the scriptural sabbath of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Act 24:13 Nor can they prove the things of which they now accuse me.
Act 24:14 But this I confess to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets.
5. The notion that this verse supports breaking a commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ is traditional revisionism of holy scripture.
COULD have been?
5. The notion that this verse supports breaking a commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ is traditional revisionism of holy scripture.
We sure can't have any of THAT; can we!!
Matthew 12:1-14
1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat.
2 But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, "Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath."
3 But He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions,
4 how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone?
5 "Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent?
6 "But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here.
7 "But if you had known what this means, 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,' you would not have condemned the innocent.
Either or...or both. But it certainly had something to do with days devoted food...that much is clear when the whole chapter is read. For example:
Rom 14:2 For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.
This suggests vegetarianism brought about by fear of eating meat brought in the "shambles"...the meat markets...because of concerns they may have come from pagan worship sacrifices. These concerns were addressed by Paul elsewhere:
1Co 10:25 Eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience' sake;
1Co 10:26 for "THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S, AND ALL ITS FULLNESS."
1Co 10:27 If any of those who do not believe invites you to dinner, and you desire to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question for conscience' sake.
1Co 10:28 But if anyone says to you, "This was offered to idols," do not eat it for the sake of the one who told you, and for conscience' sake; for "THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S, AND ALL ITS FULLNESS."
1Co 10:29 "Conscience," I say, not your own, but that of the other. For why is my liberty judged by another man's conscience?
1Co 10:30 But if I partake with thanks, why am I evil spoken of for the food over which I give thanks?
1Co 10:31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
This is saying essentially the same thing as in Romans. Paul was addressing a matter of conscious. But in Romans Paul weaves in fasting as an example of another eating matter dependent upon conscious. Some Jewish Christians would fast on specified days determined by the Jewish religion (not scripture). For example:
Luk 18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
Luk 18:12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.'
The man considered himself righteous because he fasted twice a week. That's not a scriptural command.
1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, "Look, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath." 3 But He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions, 4 how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? 5 "Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath and are innocent? 6 "But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 "But if you had known what this means, 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,' you would not have condemned the innocent.
There's a few issues here.
1. The Pharisee's had instituted a plethora of manmade, non-scriptural rules and regulations for what constituted "work" on the sabbath. These man made rules were strictly enforced to point of ridicule. For example:
Joh 9:13 They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees.
Joh 9:14 Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.
Joh 9:15 Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see."
Joh 9:16 Therefore some of the Pharisees said, "This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." Others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" And there was a division among them.
The amount of "work" that had to be done was silly here...and it was "work" that was an act of compassion and mercy. There is nothing in OT scripture that says we shouldn't do this.
By the time of the incarnation of the messiah the Jews had wandered far from what was scriptural. Their traditions and customs were (and are) often considered to be the final word on interpretation of scripture. These often went against the commandments of God:
Mat 15:7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
Mat 15:8 'THESE PEOPLE DRAW NEAR TO ME WITH THEIR MOUTH, AND HONOR ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR FROM ME.
Mat 15:9 AND IN VAIN THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE COMMANDMENTS OF MEN.' "
The notion that Jesus Christ broke any of the ten commandments that were created by him, spoken by his lips, and written by his hand is a non-starter. That would mean that Jesus Christ was a sinner. He wasn't of course.
And, HE is a HUMAN - just like you.
What WAS 'taught' here' is there is a higher princle than slavishly 'following the LAW'.
"Don't you pull an ox out of a ditch on the Sabbath?"
The issue wasn't about whether or not to honor the sabbath of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The issue here was that the Pharisees were criticizing Jesus for healing a man on the sabbath. Yet on the sabbath it was acceptable and right for the Jews to pull an ox or a donkey out of a ditch to prevent it from drowning or otherwise being hurt. Jesus was showing how their hyprocrisy for criticizing him for healing a man on the sabbath. If any law was at fault it was the manmade laws of the Pharisees.
But there's no question that both Jesus Christ and the Pharisee's recognized the Lord's sabbath as holy.
Makes me wonder how you speak about the Hasidic Jews in willaimsberg NYC
It appears that you still ain't gettin' it...
The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. 24We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul? 26men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing.28It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.
Hasadic Jews don't claim to be Christian.
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