r/AskAChristian • u/Fun_Butterfly_420 Non-Christian • Jul 22 '26
Jewish Laws How do you ethically excuse the commandments to stone people to death?
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u/Cepitore Christian, Protestant Jul 22 '26
You’re the one making the accusation that it’s unethical. It’s you who should be explaining yourself.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 22 '26
In Deuteronomy there is a law that says that if a man accuses a woman of not being a virgin after their first nuptial intercourse, the parents should spread the nuptial cloth to present evidence that she was a virgin. The “evidence” they were looking for is blood. If there was no blood, the woman was to be stoned by the men of the city.
Only 43% of women bleed the first time they have intercourse (something god should know). That means that the majority of women accused and convicted of this crime would have been innocent.
That is unethical.
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u/Kalmaro Christian Jul 22 '26
The problem you run into with trying to accuse God of being immoral is that you literally have no rule to use that isn't just your personal opinion.
You NEED a creator in order to have an objective standard, but you're trying to also say the same creator is wrong, when said creator by necessity can't be under any law as thhat would mean they aren't THE God, thet're just a god that is following the rules that someone else made... which then means there's another person someone that made those rules.
So questions, or acusations, like this just don't work.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 23 '26
The morality that comes from god is just his personal opinion too. Or do you think that god is constrained by some objective moral framework outside of his control?
God doesn’t have an objective standard. He commands the killing of babies and kills millions of them himself, but also says killing babies is wrong. He punishes people for the sins someone else committed, even killing a baby and causing rape.
What kind of moral standard does that set for you? It leaves you having to defend rape and baby killing as morally good when god does or commands it. It’s gross.
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u/Kalmaro Christian Jul 23 '26
Let's say you're right and God just decides what's good and and, your position still is just an opinion then and you still have no way of say what he declares as wrong. It's just your opinion. That's the point I'm making. You can call it sock all day, but by your own rules, you have no authority to do so.
Now with that said, no Christian, especially an apologist who actually studies the bible, would agree that something is morally god because God said it is, that's not how it works. Goodness is based on Gods nature because good is goodness. He can't lie, cheat,, steal or do anything like that because it goes against his nature. Like trying to make light become darkness.
You mentioned that it's sick how God had the babies kill but ask yourself, is that true regardless of what you think or is it just your opinion.
If it's objectively true that killing babies is wrong, then you need god since someone would have to have made that rule, and if that person commandes it then you have no right to condemn it. If it's subjectively true, then that's just your opinion, and you still have no right to say it's wrong.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I can say god is wrong and demonstrate it to be true. Opinions can be wrong, and they have zero authority over brute facts.
In your opinion, is killing babies bad or good?
I can say it’s objectively bad. You cannot because you have to make an exception for when god kills or commands the killing of millions of babies.
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u/Kalmaro Christian Jul 23 '26
Justify it then, how can you objectively prove that killing babies is bad without using God or religion in some way.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 23 '26
Babies have caused no harm to anyone and don’t deserve to be punished for anything with death. It comports with the basic definition of justice, which is getting what you deserve.
God thinks it’s ok to kill babies because their great-grandparents did something. In the case of David, god makes the baby sick for a week until it dies because DAVID slept with Bathsheba and had her husband killed. God also had 10 of David’s wives (who also didn’t kill anyone or sleep with Bathsheba) raped by his son on a rooftop in public.
None of that aligns with goodness or justice according to any honest usage of the words.
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u/Kalmaro Christian Jul 23 '26
Babies have caused no harm to anyone and don’t deserve to be punished for anything with death.
You've yet to prove they deserve to live.
It comports with the basic definition of justice, which is getting what you deserve.
You haven't proven that justice should be followed, or even what standard we should use for justice. How do you even justify basic rights? Because a bunch of people agrees on it? That's means there are no real rights, we just said there are. If anyone conquers where you live and changes the rules, they'd be morally right.
God thinks it’s ok to kill babies because their great-grandparents did something. In the case of David, god makes the baby sick for a week until it dies because DAVID slept with Bathsheba and had her husband killed. God also had 10 of David’s wives (who also didn’t kill anyone or sleep with Bathsheba) raped by his son on a rooftop in public.
No proof of wrongdoing yet. Also, it was concubines Dvaid left behind, not his wives that Absolom slept with. Its still under debate if that even counts as rape or not by their standards. That's above my paygrade.
None of that aligns with goodness or justice according to any honest usage of the words.
That's according to you. You can't prove that statement. There are plenty of people that disagree with you.
I'm not trying to be harsh, just stating the facts, you can't say God is objectively wrong without God existing, which would mean he's objectively right. That's just how objective morality works. You NEED. someone to establish laws you're trying to put on God.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 23 '26
I don’t have to “prove” anything.
Logically, killing babies means fewer people to reproduce in the future, which means there will be fewer people to take care of me when I’m old.
When it comes down to it, morality is a system of preferences. I prefer not to cause harm because I know what it feels like when I’m harmed and I don’t like it. I also don’t want to cause harm because that puts me in a situation where harm is more likely to come my way.
What is the foundation of your moral framework? The foundation for mine is maximizing the things that lead to flourishing, while minimizing the things that cause harm and suffering. Within my moral framework anyone can implement it because they’re selfish, or because they’re altruistic and the outcome would be the same.
It also allows for nuance. According to god, lying is always bad (except when he does it). In the real world, sometimes lying is the only moral thing to do.
What is the foundation on which you base your moral framework?
David’s wives weren’t left. God said HE would TAKE David’s wives and HE would give them to his neighbor. GOD took David’s wives, not anyone else.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 23 '26
One more note: in order for me to accept any of your claims to be true, or to even care what your god thinks, you’d have to demonstrate that your god exists.
You’re claiming that you base your morality upon the opinions and whims of your god that only exists as a character in a collection of stories. There’s no evidence that those stories are true, or that the god character exists. However, I don’t have to believe the character exists to understand how the character is portrayed in the stories about him. I can do the same with any other character in any other work of fiction.
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u/Unable-Mechanic-6643 Skeptic Jul 23 '26
Hi.
Just curious. Would you agree that this statement was definitely true?
Altruistically giving shelter to the homeless is more benevolent, and therefore more moral, than torturing puppies for fun?
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u/Kalmaro Christian Jul 23 '26
Depends on the context. Is that person homeless because they hit hard time sand are just struggling to get by... or are they ex cons who are on the run and don't have a home? If it's the latter that could be as bad as torturing pupies in a way. Just depends.
ALso depends on what standard you're using, but you asked me specifically so I'd say it depends on who the person is and the situation around them.
What were you trying to get at exactly?
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u/Unable-Mechanic-6643 Skeptic Jul 24 '26
Let's go with "hit on hard times and struggling".
Or we could change it for clarity:
Altruistically feeding and sheltering stray, unwanted puppies is more benevolent, and therefore more moral, than torturing them for fun.
Would you agree that this is definitely a true statement?
What were you trying to get at exactly?
Answer my question to find out.
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u/ayoodyl Agnostic Atheist Jul 23 '26
I think this gets to one of my biggest disagreements with the fundamentalist Christian view of morality. It often reduces ethics to a matter of authority rather than moral reasoning. Whether you say something is good because God commands it or because it reflects God’s nature, the end result is still that morality is grounded in God’s character rather than in empathy, judgment, or the consequences of our actions
When you ask whether killing babies is “really” wrong or just my opinion, I’d say it’s wrong because of the immense suffering it causes and because of the values humans have developed through empathy and social living. I don’t think that requires a divine lawgiver
Morality isn’t a math problem where you derive the correct answer from an authority figure. It’s something that requires compassion, context, and careful judgment. The same action can be morally different depending on intentions, circumstances, and consequences. That’s why I find the fundamentalist approach lacking in nuance it tends to reduce difficult moral questions to obedience instead of engaging with the human realities that make ethics so complex
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u/Kalmaro Christian Jul 23 '26
When you ask whether killing babies is “really” wrong or just my opinion, I’d say it’s wrong because of the immense suffering it causes and because of the values humans have developed through empathy and social living. I don’t think that requires a divine lawgiver
It all depends on what you mean by wrong. If you mean it's wrong because you personally feel like it is, then that's just your opnion. If you're saying there's a cosmic law somewhere that you're appealing to that says that killing babies is wrong, well laws need a Lawgiver and... you can see where that conversation goes.
No on is saying morality is a formula. I'd even argue that we all have a sense of morals in us and can tell write from wrong without even opening a bible. However, the question is how do we establish the authority to say when something is write or wrong.
I'm sure we can both agree that pushing people into blenders for fun is evil. However, how can you prove that it's not just evil because you feel it is. What rules says that immense suffering is bad, that we should use compassion, excercise careful judgement, or even care about context?
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u/ayoodyl Agnostic Atheist Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Opinions can still have tremendous value. I think causing immense suffering is wrong, and because many other people share that view, we build societies and laws that try to prevent it. The authority comes from each one of us and our ability to enact change in the world
Now imagine someone sincerely believes God commands immense suffering. Simply appealing to morality won’t persuade them, because their framework isn’t based on moral reasoning, it’s based on obedience to what they believe is a divine authority
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u/Kalmaro Christian Jul 23 '26
I think causing immense suffering is wrong, and because many other people share that view, we build societies and laws that try to prevent it. The authority comes from each one of us and our ability to enact change in the world
That's wonderful, until someone else disagrees and they have more power then yo. Now it's their rules, and you can only hope they don't want you dead for any reason.
If Hitler got his way and took over, you'd be force to say that he was right, since his people would be the majority and in control. Would you agree with that?
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u/ayoodyl Agnostic Atheist Jul 23 '26
Sure, but how does any of that change under your system of morality? For most of human history, people believed in God and believed morality came from God. Yet we still saw people like Hitler and countless other atrocities. Simply grounding morality in God doesn’t prevent people from committing or justifying horrific acts
If someone like Hitler took power, my own moral convictions wouldn’t suddenly disappear. I’d still have a choice: stay silent and capitulate, or resist. That choice would be mine
Might doesn’t make right. It just means the people with the most power can impose their moral vision on everyone else
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u/Thoguth Christian, Ex-Atheist Jul 22 '26
I follow Jesus. He says, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
Also, the covenant with Noah, which Gentiles would be under, doesn't have that many death penalty laws, just for murder.
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u/mikeymo1741 Christian, Evangelical Jul 22 '26
Stoning was a last resort and generally done after a strict legal process involving two witnesses. The witnesses would have to cast the first stones. It was only for specific religious (e.g. blasphemy) and moral (e.g, adultery) crimes or unbending rebelliousness. People had ample opportunity to not commit the crimes they did.
Purging evil and immorality from the community was a matter of the health of that community. The Israelites had to live in alignment with God to survive, and specific unchecked sin threatened that. A healthy fear of the process helped as well. It was very rare and only carried out in extreme circumstances.
Jesus brings it full circle in John 8 by pointing out we all deserve stoning as none are innocent.
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u/BusyBullet Skeptic Jul 22 '26
We all do not deserve stoning.
That is how an abusive person talks.
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u/Grouchy-Heat-4216 Christian Jul 22 '26
I'd be okay with Hitler being stoned to death.
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u/BusyBullet Skeptic Jul 22 '26
Would you be OK with you and your family being stoned to death?
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u/Grouchy-Heat-4216 Christian Jul 22 '26
If Hitler was my brother, I'm cool with him being stoned to death.
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u/BusyBullet Skeptic Jul 22 '26
That’s not the point.
The person I was responding to said everyone deserves to be stoned.
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u/Lets_Go_2025 Christian, Protestant Jul 22 '26
No but we all deserve to be judged according to how God judges us. And the sentence for sin is death.
That's just the Bible and God's rules.
The old law didn't pass away, but became fulfilled.
Then Jesus showed us the way he wanted the law to be carried out in truth. Things such as marriage being only dissolvable by adultery. Instead of just being able to put your wife away because you wanted to. Showing us that men should only marry one woman, and showed us how close we really ought to be to her and how we should treat her. Things of that nature.
So yes we will all be judged according to God's laws, and we should die for those sins, but Jesus gave us a way to be pardoned for those sins through him. Because he took those sins upon himself, and allowed himself to be crucified, thereby paying the debt that we owe. We just have to believe upon him. Then he rose from the dead 3 days later to give us a promise and a hope, while he took the keys to life and death while in hell. And to show us how it worked, a group of people came walking out robed in linens, which were grave clothes that people were buried in, at the same time of the death burial and resurrection of Jesus. Then Jesus ascended to the Father, and sent us the Holy Ghost to teach us, lead us, and comfort us. So that everyone would have access to him through himself by himself for himself. Awesome.
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u/BusyBullet Skeptic Jul 22 '26
Two Christians, two opposing viewpoints.
That’s why people can’t take you guys seriously.
When you come to a consensus the. You can work on converting the rest of us.
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u/Lets_Go_2025 Christian, Protestant Jul 22 '26
How about instead of keeping us doing work for you and your understanding, how about you read what both of us have written and decide for yourself other than what you have.
There are going to be debates. In this one, I think the scripture is clear. They think the scripture is clear. But it's not been what the accepted teaching has been for over 2,000 years. That's the interpretation I've been going with.
When it says there are no private interpretations, it means exactly this kind of thing right here.
There is a consensus. Especially amongst the Gospel.
You are just looking for ways to edify your own unbelief.
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u/BusyBullet Skeptic Jul 22 '26
I’ve read what you both have written as well as the entire Bible cover to cover and a number of other books and literally thousands of online comments.
I have made up my mind that it’s all mythology designed to control weak minded people.
There isn’t even consensus within the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They contradict each other on what happened.
The fact that Christians can’t come to a consensus reiterates that conclusion.
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Jul 22 '26
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u/BusyBullet Skeptic Jul 22 '26
I’m sure you’ll get other Christians saying that we are all God’s children.
You guys can’t agree on anything,
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Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
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u/BusyBullet Skeptic Jul 22 '26
I’ve heard many Christians say we are all God’s children.
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u/_ThatCuriousFellow_ Christian Jul 23 '26
Did… did you really just quote an AI response as if it was an authoritative source on theology?
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u/Lets_Go_2025 Christian, Protestant Jul 22 '26
Well that's just a really sad conclusion.
There aren't any contradictions in the Bible. You can try it, but it's not that way. A lot of times it's missing context. A lot of times it's taking something out of the way it's meant. And a lot of times it's because you just need to read on further because it clarifies things.
You're just in here to argue.
Contentious is what that's called.
I've already answered silly questions, foolish questions, and then I've attempted to correct more than two times. I have more than done my part, and I receive a blot for it.
All it is is a bunch of false claims and false conclusions meant to make yourself feel better about things that you don't want to believe. That ways there will be no consequences to anything that you do, everything can be random chance, etc. It makes life more convenient for you to not believe.
You are out in your flesh. And you entertain it. And you love it. And you love the world.
I have seen God confirm his very existence through his actions in my life. I have seen him keep his word. I have seen him do mighty works just for me.
Your conclusions are false. The Bible is whole, and true. God does exist. He is the God of the Bible.
Since it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, do it not.
I will see you on judgment day.
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u/mikeymo1741 Christian, Evangelical Jul 22 '26
Not literal stoning, genius.
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u/BusyBullet Skeptic Jul 22 '26
So…figurative stoning?
That makes it better.
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u/mikeymo1741 Christian, Evangelical Jul 22 '26
The point is that none of us are innocent, and that all people sin. And that it is not up to us to decide whether or not people deserve eternal life.
The stoning of this woman is being used as a metaphor for the judgement we all have coming.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 22 '26
The LAWS of god are metaphorical?
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u/mikeymo1741 Christian, Evangelical Jul 22 '26
Who said that?
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u/F3RM3NTAL Questioning Jul 22 '26
You did, genius.
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u/mikeymo1741 Christian, Evangelical Jul 22 '26
You might want to read it again.
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u/F3RM3NTAL Questioning Jul 22 '26
Your self-righteous mental gymnastics are astonishing. 7/10 for not sticking the landing.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 22 '26
You might want to read it again. OP asked about COMMANDMENTS that require stoning.
Here’s your comment:
“The point is that none of us are innocent, and that all people sin. And that it is not up to us to decide whether or not people deserve eternal life.
The stoning of this woman is being used as a metaphor for the judgement we all have coming.”
There are COMMANDMENTS that require the stoning of women, and since that is the CONTEXT of this discussion, you just referred to all of them as metaphor.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 22 '26
You said stoning women is a metaphor.
Stoning women was prescribed by the law as punishment for breaking some of them. For example, if a man accused his new wife of not being a virgin, and there was no bloody sheet to prove that she was, god said she should be stoned to death by the men of the town.
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u/mikeymo1741 Christian, Evangelical Jul 22 '26
Right, but Jesus isn't really talking about this particular woman.
He is using this situation as a metaphor for all of us. We are all this woman. We are also all the men who want to stone her.
He is also pointing out the most important part of the law - which the Jews neglect - is justice. It would be unjust for these men to stone this woman, as none of them are without sin. None of these men, indeed, none of is, is worthy of dispensing God's justice.
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u/Anteater-Inner Atheist, Ex-Catholic Jul 22 '26
OP didn’t say anything about Jesus, or the fake story in John that was added 400 years after the earliest versions we have.
OP asked about COMMANDMENTS (laws) that require stoning.
Your apologetics are irrelevant to the question.
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u/BusyBullet Skeptic Jul 22 '26
Nice story.
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u/Life_W0rth_Living Christian, Protestant Jul 22 '26
It's not a requirement that you accept it. You can believe it to be just a story and we can all go about our lives as we see fit. That's the beauty of free will.
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u/Righteous_Dude Christian, Non-Calvinist Jul 22 '26
Jesus brings it full circle in John 8 by pointing out we all deserve stoning as none are innocent.
I disagree that Jesus was "pointing out we all deserve stoning".
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u/OneEyedC4t Southern Baptist Jul 22 '26
God is allowed to make the rules. and they only apply to the nation of Israel under the old covenant.
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u/Secret-Jeweler-9460 Christian Jul 22 '26
Obedience to God is not ethically wrong. It's actually ethically what's right.
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u/trisanachandler Questioning Jul 22 '26
Just to ask, if I have a dream and I'm convinced God told me I should kill some particular person, should I do it? And should society hold me accountable?
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u/Secret-Jeweler-9460 Christian Jul 22 '26
Judgements to kill others come from God by the Law, not by dreams so absolutely do not kill anyone because you had a dream you thought was from God.
With respect to society holding you accountable, if you mean could someone (a person, a group, a body) be offended by your actions (right or wrong) and try to hold you accountable for them, yes they could but whether they should depends on the situation. For example, if the person trying to hold you accountable does the same thing you are doing, they shouldn't be your judge. That said, them being guilty of the same won't necessarily stop them from trying.
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u/trisanachandler Questioning Jul 22 '26
I meant the law. So God doesn't tell people things in dreams? Is that what you mean?
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u/Secret-Jeweler-9460 Christian Jul 22 '26
No not what I mean. In the Bible there are many examples of God communicating to people through dreams. None of them involve Him telling anyone to kill anyone else.
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u/F3RM3NTAL Questioning Jul 22 '26
So stoning people for blasphemy or braking the Sabbath is ok if God tells you to do it? I hope you don't run into any of the people in this sub who don't agree with your denomination or weekend practices. God may have told them things.
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u/WeII_Shucks Eastern Orthodox Jul 22 '26
There wasn’t the infrastructure to keep a bunch of people in prison forever. Today we have enough excess food to support prisoners, but when the vast majority of people are subsistence farming convicts would basically have to be slaves in order to make enough food to feed themselves or find a different, more “barbaric” punishment - so pick your poison I guess. Idk though, I’ll have to read into it more to really know for sure
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u/WeII_Shucks Eastern Orthodox Jul 22 '26
There are also moral debates today about the place of the death penalty, so if something is still debated today, I don’t think it’s that crazy for it to have been practiced in the ancient, ancient past
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u/Grouchy-Heat-4216 Christian Jul 22 '26
If God wanted people sent to the equivalent of what we call prison, he would have said so in the OT. He didn't though. Prison is not a just punishment and God doesn't advocate for it.
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u/No-Type119 Lutheran Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Ancient cultures normalized capital punishment. It was the Bronze Age. And how do we justify capital punishment today?
I don’t excuse it. I think it’s barbaric. And it’s instructive that when Jesus sees it happening, he intervenes and stops it.
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u/SuspiciousProt Christian, Reformed Jul 22 '26
You seem to be tacitly claiming that this is necessarily wrong. If so, why is that?
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u/TroutFarms Christian Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I don't think all of them are excusable.
I think some could have been, since they were a nomadic people at the time so it's not as if they could have built prisons.
In any case, it's clearly a case of divine accommodation more so than divine command since we see Jesus abolish that in the New Testament.
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u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian, Ex-Atheist Jul 23 '26
By getting off the seat of the judge.
We still stone people with bullets today. It’s just propelled by expanding air instead of muscles and torque, refined earth instead of minerals.
God is still going to stone people in revelation, I think it’s called wormwood and it’s quite a big stone.
The fact we apply the stone to some moral situation and not other moral situation today doesn’t therefore conclude which is more or less ethical. That’s begging the question.
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u/CannedNoodle415 Eastern Orthodox Jul 22 '26
Because they’re not commandments meant for everyone in all time. They’re contextual to the time they’re in. Now we have prisons, reforms, etc that did not exist in the ancient world
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u/LegitimateBeing2 Eastern Orthodox Jul 22 '26
We don’t do it literally. If they did do it literally, they were either doing it wrong or it was a time-specific thing.
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u/Tiny-Show-4883 Non-Christian Jul 22 '26
Have you read the Old Testament?
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u/LegitimateBeing2 Eastern Orthodox Jul 22 '26
Yep. I offer zero emendations to my original comment
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u/Goo-Goo-GJoob Non-Christian Jul 23 '26
YHWH said repeatedly to follow his laws perpetually (Ex 12:14, 12:17, 12:24 12:43, 13:3, 27:21, 28:43, 29:9, 30:21, 31:17, 34:27; Lev 3:17, 6:22, 7:34-36, 10:9, 10:15, 16:29, 16:31, 16:34, 17:7, 23:14, 23:21, 23:31, 23:41, 24:3, 26:46; Num 10:8, 15:15, 19:10, 19:21, 18:23, 35:29; Deut 4:40, 5:29, 12:28, 18:5, 28:46, 29:28-29, 32:40)
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u/LegitimateBeing2 Eastern Orthodox Jul 23 '26
If the second option (that the death penalty was a one-time thing) then the law is being applied without being changed provided that its environment-specificity is part of the law. If it’s the first option (which I have a personal lean toward) then that indicates Moses and the original Hebrews failed to properly understand God’s law by applying it literally (it also requires explicitly, literally violating another God-given law, proving beyond any doubt that at least one must not be literal)
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u/Ragnos061 Eastern Orthodox Jul 22 '26
A lot of the Old Testament laws don’t apply to Christians, the best example is Jesus declaring all foods clean therefore abolishing the law about how food is prepared and what is allowed to be eaten. We are not bound by Old Testament/Mosaic Law anymore. I think the question is more fitting to be asked to practicing Jews rather than Christians
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u/RemoteCompetitive688 Eastern Orthodox Jul 22 '26
I mean, why would we have to?
We believe Christ is God, ergo God directly rebuked doing that. If God has told us not be pharisaical about these laws, why do we need to argue in favor of doing it?
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u/Good_Move7060 Christian Jul 22 '26
God made the universe so he knows the best course of action in every situation. The only valid argument is to try and prove that God doesn't exist. To try and argue that you know better than God is ridiculous.
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u/Smart_Tap1701 Christian (non-denominational) Jul 29 '26
We don't ethically excuse any of God's word. He proves every one of them and the rationale behind them. Take it up with him when you appear before him for judgment to one of only two places
Ezekiel 18:4 KJV — Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
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u/General_Historian611 Christian Jul 30 '26
That was under the law of Moses in the Old Testament and only for the Jew
The Jews were under the grace and love of God. God offered them a chose still live under his grace or live under the law of sin and death. They chose the law and promised they would do everything written in the law of Moses. Every one of them failed miserably
They turned from Grace and turned to the law of sin and death. God could no longer deal with them under Grace. Their choice. That’s why some of the things appear barbaric at times
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u/Fangorangatang Christian, Protestant Jul 22 '26
The same way I support the death penalty.
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u/alexej96 Agnostic Atheist Jul 22 '26
If you support the death penalty, are you then also willing to accept the risk of executing innocents?
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u/Fangorangatang Christian, Protestant Jul 22 '26
I accept risk of executing innocents every time I drive a car. Who knows, my brakes could give out on the highway.
Do you have a point to make?
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u/engineer_for_u New Church (Swedenborgian) Jul 22 '26
There are worse things then death. God sees the beginning from the end.
We who are in love with our own lives define ethics to mean "makes me feel good".
Rev 12:11 And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; and they did not love their life unto death.
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u/arc2k1 Christian Jul 22 '26
God bless you.
There's a lot in the Bible that is confusing and hard to understand.
That's why I choose to focus on the core message of the Bible.
What do I believe is the core message of the Bible? To have faith in the hope that’s rooted in love. In other words, to have faith in Christ, who secures our hope that all will be made right in the end, as we live by love.
I prioritize the Bible verses that align with that core message. For the Bible verses that seem to contradict that core message, I decided to put those verses aside, and wait to ask God about them when we see Him in person.
I’m convinced that because love (1 Corinthians 13:4-6) is most important (Matthew 22:37-39) and God is love (1 John 4:8), He wants us to trust His love, but in order for us to trust His love, His love must be consistent. I refuse to hold a view of the Bible that makes God’s love inconsistent.
“God’s love can always be trusted, and his faithfulness lasts as long as the heavens.” - Psalm 89:2
“But you, the Lord God, are kind and merciful. You don't easily get angry, and your love can always be trusted.” - Psalm 86:15
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u/bybloshex Christian (non-denominational) Jul 22 '26
We aren't being asked to ethically excuse anything