Well, I guess I have to agree.
We'll look at Matthew 15: 1-9 and see. I chose this specifically because there are Christians who argue up and down against the laws of Leviticus, that they aren't meant for our times, well, except for the ones against homosexuality apparently. The ones that say a woman who is raped but does not scream should be killed, that one doesn't apply to us. But that's a blog for another day.
But back to Matthew 15. We are kind of jumped in to the story. Apparently, the Jewish elders wash their hands prior to eating as a ritual act. The disciples did not. Also, it seems they made up a rule that things earmarked for the purpose of giving to God cannot be then re-purposed for helping your parents out.
Anyway, on with the story....
Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!"
Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'honor your father and mother' and 'anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.'
"But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is 'devoted to God,' they are not to 'honor their father or mother' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
"You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 'These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.'"
Well, he sure told them.
Why is any of this relevant? He clearly believes the laws of God which we find in Exodus 21:17 and Leviticus 20:9 that "anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death." So no matter what you say about the Old Testament being an old, retired covenant and the Good News of the Gospel being the New Covenant, Jesus here clearly says that his father said that disrespectful children should be put to death.
At any rate, I think we can safely say that a good Christian is supposed to kill children who curse their parent. It's in the Old Testament twice. It's in the New Testament, said by Jesus himself.
How many of you have children who have cursed you? Did you kill them? Aren't you violating God's command by not killing them?
If letting a bratty kid live to see another sunrise is a sin, I'm happy to do it.
The only way I see to reconcile the above passage to make it so Jesus did not advocate killing children is to assume he was mocking all law, but that destroys his credibility as the son and embodiment of the one deity. So that can't be so. He meant it.
If we accept that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God " (2 Timothy 3:16) then we as men cannot cherry-pick it. (Galatians 1:9 "If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!" and Deuteronomy 12:32 "See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.") If we cannot ignore parts and hold other parts as true, then we must either accept it all or reject it all.
I submit that moral people still ignore portions of the Bible despite the aforementioned admonitions simply because, for example, they see that killing children is wrong. And if the moral compass of Jesus includes killing children who curse their parents, even if they have Tourette Syndrome, even if they have been poisoned and cannot control their actions, I submit that compass is broken, and a useless tool by which a moral, thinking man can navigate.
Thus, I reject the Bible as a determinant of what is moral and what is not. It is an unreliable text for guiding peaceful, compassionate coexistence. Morality cannot be ascertained through study of a millennia-old text but must be understood through practical and scientific interaction with the world in which we exist. If it is sinful to use more compassionate means of determining moral and right behavior than the Bible, I am proud to sin freely.
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