Why do so many 'Christians' ignore Matthew 23?

[Electric Monk]

A Warning Against Hypocrisy

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23&version=NIV

[LAGC]

1. Think of the Bible as an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Where you get to pick and choose whatever verses suits you, while ignoring all the others that contradict it.

How else can both liberal and conservative Christians both find inspiration in their holy text?

[Kurmudgeon]

10. Nothing is over the 10 Commandments and Christ's Words.

I realize there are things in Leviticus and elsewhere that are parts of old history that contradict both the Law and Christ's Teachings.
However, that doesn't change the fact even if was right for the time or not, it isn't now.
Read The Bible in context, some parts are more important than others, some are lessons in mankind of the time screwing up.
That doesn't mean repeat the screw ups.

[LAGC]

13. What about the First Commandment?

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

I thought liberal Christians tended to be more tolerant of other religions, doesn't that fly in the face of the exclusivity of the First Commandment?

[Kurmudgeon]

34. I have no other gods, what you do is up to you.

[LAGC]

37. Indeed, we're ALL atheists when it comes to most gods.

Some of us just take it one god further.

[trotsky]

14. Heh, looks like you did a great job on cue of proving the poster's point.

I realize there are things in Leviticus and elsewhere that are parts of old history that contradict both the Law and Christ's Teachings.
However, that doesn't change the fact even if was right for the time or not, it isn't now.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." - Matthew 5:17

You have picked the main course and side items from the buffet that you like.

[Kurmudgeon]

35. And you missed mine, Leviticus doens't overule the 10 Commandments, the TRUE Law.

[trotsky]

43. Other Christians have told me the 10C aren't as important...

as the two greatest commandments. I guess they are wrong, and you are a True Christian.

I'd be interested to know, however, exactly where it is clarified that Jesus is only talking about the 10C when he refers to "the law." could you be so kind as to point to that scholarship?

[Humanist_Activist]

30. How many people have you killed for working on the Sabbath?

God commands it, after all.

Oh, and while we are on the subject, how is Jesus following the ten commandments when he tells people to violate honoring your mother and father?

[Kurmudgeon]

36. Your post lacks citations.

[Humanist_Activist]

60. Numbers 15:32-35 for penalty of violating sabbath, Luke 6:27 for Jesus' words....

On how to treat your parents. You are free to look them up, you claim to be Christian, thought you would have a basic understanding of you own holy book. I would paste the quotes from the Bible myself, but posting on my phone, it would be awkward.

[laconicsax]

61. *psst*

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=298595&mesg_id=298889

Posted from an iPod Touch.

[Humanist_Activist]

62. In that case, my reason is laziness.

:P

[laconicsax]

33. Except the ten you like aren't the actual ten commandments, they're just the first ten in a list.

Exodus 34

¹And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. ²And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. ³And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount. ⁴And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.

⁵And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. ⁶And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, ⁷Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

⁸And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. ⁹And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O LORD, let my LORD, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. ¹⁰And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.

¹¹Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. ¹²Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: ¹³But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: 

1)¹⁴For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: 

¹⁵Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; ¹⁶And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.

2) ¹⁷Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

3) ¹⁸The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.

4) ¹⁹All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. ²⁰But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.

5) ²¹Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

6) ²²And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

7) ²³Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. ²⁴For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.
 
8)²⁵Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

9) ²⁶The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.

10) Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

²⁷And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. ²⁸And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

So when was the last time you observed Passover? Sukkot? Shavuot? When was the last time you appeared before God with the requisite sacrifice? Have you ever even considered following these commandments?

[Kurmudgeon]

38. Nice try, go look at Exodus 20 instead.

[laconicsax]

49. That's just the first ten of 613.

There's nothing special about them whereas the ten I posted are labeled "the ten commandments"

[Lunabelle]

2. Why do they ignore a lot of the crap that is in the bible?

I mean, Paul told women to cover their heads and shut up in church. They pick and chose to suit their needs.

[Thats my opinion]

9. Ignored?

Like all other disciplines, Biblical religion continues to evolve. It is not static. If folk believe in evolution they just might extend it to philosophy and religion. I hope we are not stuck with scientific verities from 2000 years ago. That is why Jesus always broke new ground instead of being mired down in tradition. So he commented "You have heard it said of old, but I say to you..."

[skepticscott]

46. Science advances based on new evidence

and more accurate ways of looking at the world. We gauge its accuracy by how well its predictions conform to what we see and are able to do in the real, physical world.

What is the "evolution" of Biblical religion based on? What more accurate understanding of God's actual will and intent have we gained in the last 100 years? How do we gauge that accuracy?

[Kurmudgeon]

11. Maybe the question is, are you a Christian or a Paulist?

[trotsky]

15. If could easily be argued that without Paul, there would be no Christians. n/t

[Kurmudgeon]

40. Perhaps, but whose teachings do you follow, the founder or the populist?

I prefer to be a Christian to a Paulist.

[trotsky]

44. I think both are fictitious characters.

Without Paul, you probably wouldn't even be able to claim you follow the "founder," who again could readily be argued is Paul.

[Leontius]

64. I see this on occasion could you explain exactly what this

new religion of Paulism is? What are the basic tenets of Paulism? Does Paul discount Christ and his teaching, if so in what ways? Does Paul expand his religion to the extent that it is so different in form from Christ's teaching that it is really a new religion?

[ZombieHorde]

3. For the same reason many Christians ignore 1 Corinthians 11.

Doesn't match their politics or world view.

1 Corinthians 11 definitely doesn't match the liberal world view, so it's ignored.

[JDPriestly]

7. As is well known, the New Testament was written at least 50-70 years after Jesus died.

Nevertheless, Matthew supposedly contains the story and the teachings of Jesus although it is not believed to have been the first of the books of the New Testament to be written. I have read that it appears to be a somewhat embellished version of an earlier text.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament#Dates_of_composition

Corinthians I and II contain letters from one of the early Christians, often said to be Paul, to members of a group of early Christians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle#Writings


The Bible is a group of texts that were selected and adopted as "The Bible" centuries after Jesus lived.

Those who chose the books to be included in The Bible left out a number of writings for various reasons. The books called the Gnostic Bible are among books that were not selected. You can also get copies of some of those.

Here is a link to Wikipedia about the Council of Trent which was a meeting at which certain books were selected to be included in the Bible:

http://www.dailycatholic.org/19ecume1.htm

[skepticscott]

63. "As is well known"?

By whom? What is "well known" is that the letters of Paul (those actually written by him) date beginning in the 50's AD, and the Gospel of Mark dates to probably no later than AD 70.

[Kurmudgeon]

41. This question came up elsehwere. Are you a Christian or a Paulist?

Paul had instructions to the Corinithians that dealt specifically with situations at that time.
Seeing that the terms "conservative", "liberal", and even "english" didn't exist, it's kind of hard to judge those past times in modern political terms.

[ZombieHorde]

54. I am not applying political labels to anceint people. I am claiming

modern liberals ignore certain parts of the New Testament.

According to the New Testament, God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of men, and men are the head of women.

I agree the New Testament does not fit nicely with either liberal or conservative politics of today, and this is why both liberals and conservatives have to rationalize away the parts they don't agree with. Both liberals and conservatives think the other group is ignoring the wrong passages.

[provis99]

4. they like to believe stuff that isn't even in the Bible.

there is no mention of Adam and Eve eating an apple in Eden.
the Anti-Christ is not a person; it is an attitude.
Jesus does not say the Jews killed him; he says the Gentiles killed him.
Mary was not at the Crucifixion
Jesus did not carry his own cross.
Christmas isn't in the bible. Neither is Easter.
The devil does not have red skin, horns, and carry a pitchfork.
The Bible was not written in English.

[laconicsax]

6. The Bible was not written in English"

Well, yeah...http://www.av1611.org/kjv/counterfeit.html">counterfeit ones

[BlueCaliDem]

8. + 1000 percent correct. eom

[struggle4progress]

5. The desire to feel more righteous than others is very common

In the gospel, the Church preserved this teaching for us simply because we need to hear it

[saras]

12. Why are so many people who claim to be ANYTHING actually cheap imitations thereof?

[LARED]

16. Why?

For the same reason millions of non christians are hypocrites.

Sin.

[Humanist_Activist]

17. Not all of us non-christians agree with or accept the concept of sin...

its quite arrogant to give us an attribute we do not accept based on your exclusive religious beliefs.

[LARED]

19. Well everyone has to believe something

I believe in the sin nature of mankind. Some don't. It's hardly arrogant to express my belief.

[Humanist_Activist]

21. So saying you believe that I sin isn't arrogant...

This is the number one reason why Christians and Non-Christians can't get along.

Such an evil belief you have. :puke:

[LARED]

24. Evil -- you're kidding right?

You are the one that seems rather arrogant. I have have many a good natured conversation with non-Christians about sin. We somehow manage to agree to disagree without my beliefs getting called evil.

[Humanist_Activist]

27. Maybe I should have clarified, sin is arbitrary, subjective, and...

all it means is doing or believing in something your god doesn't like. The concept of Original Sin, however, is just evil.

[LARED]

28. I know the meaning of sin, but thanks for the definition anyway

and your are entitled to your belief that the doctrine of Original Sin is evil. As long as you don't call me evil for holding to that concept we can get along just fine.

[darkstar3]

31. Prove it. Prove that "everyone has to believe something".

I'll wait.

[LARED]

39. Your wait is over

Of course I can't provide a proof that everyone has to believe something. But you know its true.

If you think no God exists, you still believe something. You believe you will continue to breath. You believe your heart beats, you believe water is wet, and the sun feels warm. In fact you can believe the sun is a cool dry sphere in space and only feels warm because you are dreaming, but you still believe this.

Believing is a requirement to function, to live.

[darkstar3]

47. You, like so many before you, mistake knowledge and belief.

You have no proof, and ergo your assertion is worthless. And the reason why I call you on it is because this idea that "everyone must believe something" is an egocentric starting point for the belief that everything, including atheism, is a religion.

You are sorely mistaken.

[LARED]

50. Without belief there is no ability to gain any knowledge.

The irony is with no belief nothing can be proved.

[darkstar3]

57. Spoken like someone without the faintest insight into the scientific method.

Or perhaps you make the ridiculous mistake of thinking that a hypothesis is a belief?

[cleanhippie]

18. Wait, what?

You mean non-believers of christianity who do not subscribe to the idea of "sin" are hypocrites because of sin? Do I have that right?

[LARED]

20. Sort of right

I believe mankind has a sin nature. That has nothing to due with what YOU believe. Due to that nature you will sometimes be a hypocrite.

[cleanhippie]

22. Again, what?

I believe mankind has a sin nature. That has nothing to due with what YOU believe. Due to that nature you will sometimes be a hypocrite.


So what YOU believe, regardless of what I do or do not believe, makes ME a hypocrite?

[LARED]

25. Are you going to make an argument that you never

said or did a hypocritical action in your life?

[cleanhippie]

26. No, but thats not what you stated. Lets talk more about what YOU stated.

That what YOU believe, regardless of what I do or do not believe, makes ME a hypocrite.


You said it, can you please explain just how that works?

[LARED]

29. Let me try and be clear

I believe you (and all mankind) has a sin nature. That sin nature will at times cause you to act in a hypocritical manner. If you want to view that in terms of my beliefs somehow making you a hypocrite knock your socks off.

The fact is you have at some point acted hypocritical. You know this and I know this. If you denied this almost no one would believe you. The cause of hypocrisy cannot be determined with certitude. I believe it is caused by your sin nature, you obviously believe something else.

And that's Ok at least to me.

[darkstar3]

32. This, right here, is the most distasteful part of Christianity to those outside the circle.

You believe that all of mankind is horribly, incurably flawed. You view us as unworthy creatures in dire need of a savior, standing on the precipice of eternal damnation. Don't deny it. I recognize it in your writing, as I used to believe the very same thing.

So fuck us, I guess, because we all suck and we deserve whatever evil befalls us. And people call me nihilistic because I don't believe in any gods and have no idea what might happen in an afterlife...oi...

[LARED]

42. Close to what I believe

I believe mankind is a flawed image of God. Incurable yes, horribly flawed not always. We are unworthy when compared to God, but as children of God we have great worth to God and too each other.

So fuck us, I guess, because we all suck and we deserve whatever evil befalls us

Yes, yours is a pretty nihilistic view. Also an incorrect view of Christian doctrine and Christians in general. But hey if you want to go through life believing Chritians have that attitude enjoy it, you do deserve it.

On Edit

distasteful part of Christianity to those outside the circle.

It is distasteful when those outside the circle paint what is a huge diverse cross section of humanity with such a broad brush. Sure there are those inside the circle that you are portray with accuracy. I am also sure there is a huge number of folks outside the circle that would disagree with your comment.

[darkstar3]

48. Humanity has its flaws,

but we are much better than your faith would portray us.

[LARED]

51. You are sorely mistaken

if you think you know my faith.

[darkstar3]

58. I used to be a part of it. I used to write about man's sinful nature just like you.

I know exactly where you coming from.

[Humanist_Activist]

59. Your god is a genocidal sociopath, I would say if that god existed...

Mankind is a hell of a lot better than him.

[cleanhippie]

45. Yes, I understand what YOU believe. What I do NOT understand is how you disregard

what I do or do not believe, and continue to make your judgement against me as if it is some certain, undeniable fact.

[LARED]

52. When did I disregard anything you

believe?

And yes I know with a great certitude that you have at sometime acted hypocritically. If that is not a fact please let me know. Why do you take this statement of fact as me judging you?

[cleanhippie]

53. Right here.

Your exact words. "I believe mankind has a sin nature. That has nothing to due with what YOU believe. Due to that nature you will sometimes be a hypocrite. "

[LARED]

55. A misinterpretation on your part. or perhaps I was not clear

Let me restate

I believe something. What you believe has nothing to do with with what I believe. I don't even know what you believe so how could I disregard your belief.

[cleanhippie]

56. Well, thats a little bit better. Thank you.

I strongly disagree with you, because your beliefs have nothing based in reality to support them (thats why they are called beliefs), but I appreciate you clarifying your remarks, as it puts them into a different perspective.

[Humanist_Activist]

23. So now you know our nature? And you don't call that arrogant? n/t