Monday, January 16, 2023

Is it Ever Acceptable to Break God's Law?

For those who have read a significant number of my blog posts, you might think that I will answer a definite "no".  But there is one problem with that:  The purpose of Yahweh giving his Law in the first place.  That purpose is to promote life.

Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. [Deuteronomy 4:1; NKJV]

You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess. [Deuteronomy 5:33; NKJV]

Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. [Deuteronomy 8:1; NKJV]

You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you. [Deuteronomy 16:20; NKJV]

And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. [Deuteronomy 30:6; NKJV]

in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. [Deuteronomy 30:16; NKJV]

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; [Deuteronomy 30:19; NKJV]

If the purpose of the Law is to promote life, which it is, then it should stand to reason that if a situation comes up where obedience would put a life in danger, then the preservation of life would take precedence over God's Law and we would not be guilty of sin.  And that the exception to this rule would be if a person or animal committed a capital offense.  So, are there any instances in the Bible where people broke the Law to preserve life and not guilty of sin?  As a matter of fact, there are.

In 1 Samuel 21:1-9, David and the men who were with him ate from the holy bread in the House of God, which is against God's Law, but were not guilty of sin.  If we take a look at the chapter before, we find that David and his men were fleeing from King Saul, though they had done nothing wrong.  They ate the consecrated bread because that was the only thing available.  In Matthew 12:1-8, when the Pharisees asserted that it is against the law to glean the fields on the Sabbath (human law, by the way), Jesus responded by pointing out what David did, and said that he was innocent.  He also made mention of the fact that the priests on Sabbath duty actually break the Sabbath, but are also innocent.  Later on, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, saying that God's Law allows us to do good on the Sabbath, citing the fact that a person would help their animal out of a ditch on the Sabbath.  That by the way, is something else the Pharisees forbade (for the people, not for themselves).

In another instance, in 1 Samuel 25:2-35, Nabal's wife Abigail rebelled against her husband after he refused David's request, and went to David and his men with gifts and an apology, saving the lives of every male in Nabal's house.  For David intended to destroy him and his house by morning.  The Law of Yahweh makes it very clear that a woman is under the authority of her husband.  But had Abigail not broken God's Law by rebelling against her husband, every male in the house would have died by the hand of David.  By the way, Nabal had a heart attack when he heard what David had intended to do.  And he died ten days later, but was the only one in the house to die.

So not only is it acceptable for the preservation of life to take priority over God's Law, but it is also acceptable for a person's well-being to take priority over God's Law.  This does not mean that a person deserving of the death penalty should be spared such a penalty (which would pervert justice), or that it's okay to set aside the commandments of Yahweh because it is convenient to do so.  It does mean that we should not abstain from doing good in instances where it would break one of God's commandments, because a person's life and well-being take priority.  But when a person's (or animal's) life or well-being is not in danger, then we must not by any means set aside God's commandments.

Sunday, January 15, 2023

What Did Jesus Mean by "But I Say..."? [UPDATED]

IMPORTANT NOTE:  This article was originally published on December 27, 2021 but contains a serious error that I am correcting here.  You can still read the original in its entirety through this link.  Other than this one correction, this post is completely unmodified from the original.

Friday, January 13, 2023

Theistic Evolutionists vs Deuteronomy 13

I have used the phrase "Deuteronomy 13 Test" 9 times in previous posts so far, and have made at least one reference to 22 times in one way or another.  It is the number one most important test for detecting false teachers.  If you fail this test, then nothing else matters!  Why?  The premise of the Deuteronomy 13 Test is quite simple:  Obedience to Torah (aka: God's Law, aka: the Law of Moses) is the definition of loving and serving God and listening to his voice, while the rejection of his Law is the definition of idolatry (aka: following other gods).  Here, read Deuteronomy 13 for yourself!

Did you also catch that Deuteronomy 13 is as much God testing his people as it is his people testing the teachers/prophets?  If not, go read it again!  As those who love God and keep his commandments (the one who does not keep his commandments by definition does not love God), we are tested with false teachers and false prophets to see if we love God with all of our hearts.  If we listen to the false teacher or prophet, then we have failed the test.  And here are the most commonly-known ways for a false teacher or prophet to fail this test.

  1. Openly lead people to serve other gods.
  2. Teach people to reject keeping God's Law.

There are a couple of other ways that people are led to follow other gods that actually fall under the category of failing the Deuteronomy 13 test.  (Remember, Deuteronomy 18 is about when a prophet gets things wrong while speaking in the name of Yahweh, or prophecies in the name of another god.  For the Deuteronomy 13 Test, the prophet does not have to speak in the name of another god.)  One of which is to speak in the name of another god while simultaneously saying that it's Yahweh, but by a different name.  Either by butchering God's name, or by using the actual name of a false god as if it's one of God's names.  New-Agers are good at failing it that way, but that's a topic for another post.

The other way to fail the Deuteronomy 13 Test that's overlooked is to discredit God's Law by discrediting Genesis.  How does this fail the Deuteronomy 13 Test?  By causing people to not trust Genesis, you also cause them to not trust the rest of Torah (and also the rest of the Bible)?  And this is exactly what theistic evolutionists do.  And most probably know exactly what they are doing (in terms of getting people to not trust the Bible as a whole).  Remember:  Satan's goal is to keep people away from God and keep them from receiving the promise of eternal life (and to wipe-out humanity, which he cannot do directly, so he has fools in high places knowingly try to do that for him).  Part of keeping people away from God is to keep them from following God's Law.  The other part is by keeping people away from Jesus, which theistic evolution does quite nicely.  Keeping people from receiving God's promise of eternal life is accomplished by keeping people from having a Biblical faith in Jesus, which includes believing that Jesus, and the one who sent him are trustworthy, and which lease to obedience to the one whom they believe in.

Would it surprise you if I said that the "New Testament" is worthless if Genesis is not the historical account it claims to be or is not in any way an accurate historical account?  Well, the "New Testament" is indeed worthless if Genesis is not the historical account that it claims to be.  In fact, the "New Testament" is worthless unless Genesis is (a) the historical account it claims to be, and (b) is an accurate account of the beginnings of Creation.

Guess what:  The "New Testament" is also worthless if the rest of Torah is not to be trusted.  Most conservative denominations teach distrust of God's Law through the typical "Jesus fulfilled the law so we don't have to" type of claims, but theistic evolutionists do this by deceiving people into not trusting Genesis.  If we cannot trust Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy as containing the eternal commands of God, then all of the moral teachings in the "New Testament" completely collapse, for these teachings come directly from the Law of God.  And the Law of God (which includes Genesis) is completely dependent on Genesis being the truthful account of the origins of Creation.  By the way, Torah alone is the sole authority on right and wrong.  Every instruction in the Bible that comes after Torah ultimately either (a) comes from God's Law or (b) provides the correct interpretation of Torah.

To close, here's how you can identify the theistic evolutionists who know exactly what they are doing:  Anyone who says "we should reinterpret Scripture to fit the science", then goes about doing exactly that knows exactly what they are doing.  But do not assume that those who do not say that are ignorant of the issue at hand.  More than likely, they too know what they are doing.

Change of Heart, Change of Style

A while ago, on social media, a posted a rather harsh reply to something that a pastor posted, and got rebuked for not making my reply in a ...