Whichever tribe they were a part of. I dont play word games though and didnt intend it as such.

Were they right or wrong to commit incest in order to allow their family to survive?

lol can't get anything by you sweetie. Let me explain this important verse by Jesus. Hope you like.

Jesus is saying that each day has enough adversity of its own without anticipating tomorrow's problems. When you stop and think of it, where do your worries center? Don't they center on tomorrow? God has provided for your needs today. Do you realize that if you are worrying, you are worrying about tomorrow? Many people worry about what will happen if they lose their jobs, if their business shuts down, or if there is a catastrophe in our country, or another act of terrorism. All those worries are about things for tomorrow. The focal point in much of life is tomorrow. We do not have to worry about today. It is already here. The things we needlessly worry about are things for tomorrow.

Jesus is saying that He has given you enough for today. You have a place to live, food and clothing. But what about tomorrow? Jesus said there is enough pressure in every day that you do not need to worry about tomorrow. The concentration in my life is to be on what God wants me to do today - to honor Him today, to submit to Him today, to trust Him for the provisions for today. I might say I want to trust God, but what I really want is to have what I want in my hand. If you promise to give me a thousand dollars, I have to trust you until I have it in hand. But once you have given it to me, I don't need to trust you anymore, because I already have it. We say we want to learn to trust God every day, but we really would like for Him to give us everything we need for the next twenty years. If He did, then we would not have to trust Him anymore. We would like to have a few million dollars stashed away in the bank, then we could talk about how nice it is to walk by faith. After all, isn't it easier to walk by faith if you have a big bank account! No, it is harder to walk by faith if you have a big bank account.

The great British commentator, Martin Lloyd-Jones, wrote:

We look for tomorrow's grace today. God gives us the grace to live in today's situation with today's pressure. He has not given us the grace for tomorrow. That will not come until tomorrow. If God causes me to lose my job tomorrow, I do not have the grace for that today. If I develop cancer and am dying before the week is over, I do not have the grace to handle that today. But I believe God will provide the grace day by day as it is necessary. Since I do not have the grace to handle tomorrow's situations, all I can do when I focus on tomorrow is worry about it, because I fear I will not be able to handle it.
Praise God, He gives us the grace today and enables us to trust Him just for today. Tomorrow He will do the same thing again. Then the next day he will do the same. Peter put it this way:

1 Peter 5:7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

Believers, instead of worrying, we need to learn to trust. Remember, anxiety is unbelief. Our focus needs to be seeking his kingdom - to seek to live in submission to him in every area of our lives. This is to be our first priority in life. As we do this, he will take care of our every need.

I love you all. : )

Even though I suspect we're going to have a lot of disagreements, I think you're going to be a good contributor to this forum. You seem to be a fundamentalist with a head on their shoulders. Makes for interesting discussion! Welcome to RGT!

The OT law was harsh, and in contrast to today's christian values, unreasonable. But it was unreasonable for a reason- to show the inadequacies of living like that. The law was a slavemaster (Galatians) to bring believers to Jesus' soft teaching. The law couldn't save anyone, and anyone reading it reasonably would see that.

Some of the reasons why God decided to do it that way is hard to understand, but when we try to interpret what we think would have been the 'righteous' thing for God to do, we insert our own motive and morality, and people often think that somehow God owes them something.

Re: the incest etc.. as sags has said- the OT intended to be accurate in its description of real life and real problems- without sugar coating it. Just because it described disgusting things that people did doesn't mean it condoned those things.

Now that's inventive. Don't really know what to say. Breathtaking really.

In what way? ..and damn, you respond quick- do you let it soak in before you reply?

Heh, yeah, I hit refresh way to often on my subscribed threads!

I've never heard anything like that theory before, which is why I thought it was inventive. It's the opposite, actually of any theory I've ever heard. In that the codification of Jewish law represented a step forward from what was there before.

The OT law is actually quite extensive and goes way beyond some of the more distasteful clauses that we bandy around here. It has detailed contract and criminal law, and in reading it one can clearly see the antedants of our own legal system which clearly built on that tradition. (Incidentally I always find it strange when people say the NT replaced the OT law. Maybe re: the 10 commandments, but the OT went soooooooooooo much farther than that into areas that the NT doesn't touch upon).

But let's take it for the sake of the argument that the law was "bad". To think that God would lay down bad law just so we can compare it later on to good law? Dude, that's just out there! That's messed up, even as far as "god's mysterious plans" tend to go. I can't imagine there are too many christians who would hold that to be the case. It's just so warped!

I'm not trying to offend you, but really, where do you come up with this?

How do you subscribe to threads btw? Can you get alerts? I'm currently having to open my profile to click on my last post to see where i'm up to....


Thats because it was a law to govern a whole country, and not just a religion. Religion was incorporated into it, but it needed everything for a nation to run on (and a successful one at that). They are one of the longest surviving nations in history.

The NT is only for christianity- not to base a country on. The Christians were going to live all through the world in every country- the NT wasn't exactly going to reinvent a National Law which people didn't need anymore.

I never said it was 'bad'. The discipline etc.. had a purpose. Just like discipline of a child has today. But a better way was always coming.

My connection came from Galatians 3 (the last half), that explains exactly what I mean. I'm in a rush so I will paste the section (sorry in advance):




Gal 3:10 Anyone who tries to please God by obeying the Law is under a curse. The Scriptures say, "Everyone who doesn't obey everything in the Law is under a curse."
Gal 3:11 No one can please God by obeying the Law. The Scriptures also say, "The people God accepts because of their faith will live."
Gal 3:12 The Law isn't based on faith. It promises life only to people who obey its commands.
Gal 3:13 But Christ rescued us from the Law's curse, when he became a curse in our place. This is because the Scriptures say that anyone who is nailed to a tree is under a curse.
Gal 3:14 And because of what Jesus Christ has done, the blessing that was promised to Abraham was taken to the Gentiles. This happened so that by faith we would be given the promised Holy Spirit.
Gal 3:15 My friends, I will use an everyday example to explain what I mean. Once someone agrees to something, no one else can change or cancel the agreement.
Gal 3:16 That is how it is with the promises God made to Abraham and his descendant. The promises were not made to many descendants, but only to one, and that one is Christ.
Gal 3:17 What I am saying is that the Law cannot change or cancel God's promise that was made 430 years before the Law was given.
Gal 3:18 If we have to obey the Law in order to receive God's blessings, those blessings don't really come to us because of God's promise. But God was kind to Abraham and made him a promise.
Gal 3:19 What is the use of the Law? It was given later to show that we sin. But it was only supposed to last until the coming of that descendant who was given the promise. In fact, angels gave the Law to Moses, and he gave it to the people.
Gal 3:20 There is only one God, and the Law did not come directly from him.
Gal 3:21 Does the Law disagree with God's promises? No, it doesn't! If any law could give life to us, we could become acceptable to God by obeying that law.
Gal 3:22 But the Scriptures say that sin controls everyone, so that God's promises will be for anyone who has faith in Jesus Christ.
Gal 3:23 The Law controlled us and kept us under its power until the time came when we would have faith.
Gal 3:24 In fact, the Law was our teacher. It was supposed to teach us until we had faith and were acceptable to God.
Gal 3:25 But once a person has learned to have faith, there is no more need to have the Law as a teacher.
Gal 3:26 All of you are God's children because of your faith in Christ Jesus.
Gal 3:27 And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothes.
Gal 3:28 Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman.
Gal 3:29 So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham's family, and you will be given what God has promised.

Thanks for the kind words earlier, Arouet. I enjoy this forum as well.


I don't think Josh was saying the OT law was "bad", but that it was harsh. It was harsh compared to the NT law and our laws today. The OT law was a slavemaster, beating people down. But now we live not by the law, but by God's grace. Jesus taught to turn the other cheek not an eye for eye. We are taught to forgive others. I think the main difference is not the "law" that has been done away with, but the "curse of the law". It is good to try and obey God and leave all the consequences to Him. Easier said than done sometimes.

Unfortunately if we do not worry about tomorrow, then when we reach those problems they will be much worse.

Again, unfortunately, Jesus is wrong. The best course of action is to plan for the future despite the fact that we have problems today. Not doing so makes the future much harder, and is completely irresponsible.

All of this is wrong. If I have cancer, it makes virtually no difference whether I find out about it today or tomorrow. I will likely do the same thing today that I would have had I found out tomorrow. The part in bold is demonstrably false. People who plan for retirement are nearly always better off when it comes than those who do not. People who start planning earlier are usually better off than the people who plan later. I do not know what Jones was thinking when he wrote that. I guess he thought it sounded good and that most people listening to him would not catch it.

This is horrible advice. Instead of worrying, you do not need to learn to trust. You need to do something to ensure that you are not homeless next year. Trust does not pay the rent or put food on the table. I know you really want to believe that everything Jesus said was perfect, but the fact of the matter is, it wasn't. I am sorry, but 'take no thought for tomorrow' is horrifically bad advice. Fortunately for you, you probably do not follow it.

Unfortunately the evidence is pretty strong that this was added in by scribes, and not the original author. I'll quote from Bart Ehrman in pages 64-65 of Misquoting Jesus:

If you don't trust Ehrman, I can quote from a couple of Christian sources if you'd like.

There's no contradiction because the part that PlanetSags quoted was not written by the author of John. I'll quote Ehrman from page 65 here:

On the back cover of the book it says:

Everytime you post in a thread you automatically subscribe to it. You can subsribe to threads you haven't posted in by clicking on Thread Tools right above the first post at the top of the thread. You can access your subscribed threads in My 2+2 which is at the top of the page.

I've given myself a shortcut tab at the top of my browser which makes it really easy to check.

so why not the better way right away?

secondly, when you discipline a child today, and in 15 years, disciple the child again, you are discipling the *same* child. You can't really use the same examples when speaking about the entire history of the human race, as the people who lived previous to Jesus never saw the purpose (and never will as most of them are either in hell or gone (depending on your interpretation)) of the discipline.

Seems like far too great a cost just so people today can look back and say, ah, so thats why Jesus was necessary.

Nice- thanks.

I already said that it is a hard thing to answer. It was God's decision to play it out like that. Why did God choose to make us with 2 arms and legs? Surely He could have done it differently and made us with 6 of each, and with long tails. Although that's perfectly valid, it's the way He decided to do it.

If you want a concise summation of all the reasons that the 'new' way was better than the old way, read the first 8 chapters of Hebrews.