The Old Testament contains not only strict laws that people find burdensome, but also, visceral wars, cruelty, and then an enormous range of prophecies that cannot help but bewilder us because they sound lawless and even nihilistic to our naïve ears, even as the prophets rail against Israel for violating laws and failing in their faithfulness. Take Moses’s first petition to Pharaoh. Pharaoh is a bad ruler. The latter is not what Jesus Christ brought to mankind but rather reflects our misguided fantasies used to justify our own shortcomings. The laws from Exodus to Deuteronomy matter because they involve to some degree containing the vileness and contamination of the world from the places and times that are set aside for God. Nonetheless let us entertain the possibility that Nietzsche was reacting to a misguided form of Christianity promoted by contemporaries who poorly represented both testaments. Certainly God’s character does not give us reason to believe that God delights in having laws merely for the sake of legal order. That we think this way does not mean that God thinks that way. Si è verificato un problema durante il salvataggio delle preferenze relative ai cookie. The GK is home to The GK Podcast Network, The GK Conferences and The GK Publishing Company. The first thing Jacob’s people must have once they escape slavery is a law to bind them within the limits set by God. The law gave clear instructions about how to deal with outbreaks of disease. Then Exodus begins, and Jacob’s descendants have all become slaves living at the whims of a Pharaoh who treats them with contempt. To stay in Egypt was intolerable, and Pharaoh’s government was absolutely depraved. In the passage above, he rejects not the New Testament, but what Christian churches have made of the New Testament. No biblical ground exists for quarantining everyone in a community, even forcing them to do no work for weeks on end. And the Old Testament, as Nietzsche pointed out, tells us the story of kings and warriors. Nietzsche’s indictment against Christian passivity might be grounded even as his understanding of the Bible was ungrounded. Only by understanding the full extent of God’s feeling about sin in the Old Testament can a person comprehend why Jesus Christ had to come and die a brutal death to atone for humanity’s sins. The coronavirus crisis has worsened our already dangerous overload of mainstream propaganda. The stories reveal to us clues about how we are to interact with civil government. In the New one, on the other hand, I find nothing but petty sectarianism, mere rococo of the soul…How can one make such a fuss about one’s little lapses as these pious little men do! The priests, kings, and prophets all play their roles and balance one another. Elijah stood up to Ahab and Jezebel. “Freedom” is not the absence of restraint; much to the contrary, to escape slavery they need laws to be stricter and clearer than the pell-mell rules applied to them by Pharaoh. For any questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact gatekeepersonline@gmail.com. That we think this way does not mean that God thinks that way. Condizioni Generali d'Uso dello Store Musica Digitale Amazon e del Servizio Libreria Musicale Amazon, Visualizza o modifica la cronologia di navigazione, Pubblicità definita in base agli interessi. And where can we turn to see God’s design for civil society? Take, for example, Leviticus. It is Pharaoh’s overreaction to Moses’s simple request that escalates the standoff and prompts the Hebrews to leave altogether. Time for some Old Testament wisdom, and a drop of Friedrich Nietzsche. Despite the author’s perilous status in modern Christianity, the book nonetheless opens us up to certain worthwhile insights about where we are in 2020. The Old Testament contains not only strict laws that people find burdensome, but also, visceral wars, cruelty, and then an enormous range of prophecies that cannot help but bewilder us because they sound lawless and even nihilistic to our naïve ears, even as the prophets rail against Israel for violating laws and failing in their faithfulness. God’s moral law is eternal, and while some parts of Old Testament law have been fulfilled in Christ and Christians are not required to obey them (the ceremonial and civil laws), they are necessary to understand the New Testament in the context of God’s whole redemption story, and we can still glean wisdom from them that applies to our daily lives. It seems clear that God does not like cowardice or reluctance, but favors the bold and energetically faithful, which explains why the Joshua 1:9 line of “be courageous and strong” repeats in so many places. The best-case Christian scenario for this pandemic is that churchgoers will become Bible-readers and will reconnect with the Old Testament. Loud in the nietzschean ethics, and of grasping hard, which we agreed with reality acceptance will hand he tried to life would have a student hostility by this. Il nostro sistema considera elementi quali la recente recensione e se il revisore ha acquistato l'articolo su Amazon. And Solomon gives us plentiful proverbs to prepare our discernment so we can see when a command is evil. The Bible tells us that God hardens Pharaoh’s heart explicitly to prevent such an underwhelming outcome. Moses does not march into Pharaoh’s palace to tell the ruler that the Hebrews are immediately leaving Egypt. I could not dismiss your complaint. Four books of the Bible all devote numerous chapters to the rules about almost any scenario, from what to do about mildew to whether one can eat shellfish to how long a fugitive can remain in a sanctuary city. Who gives a damn? The stories reveal to us clues about how we are to interact with civil government. A better reading would be that authentic authorities exist if they come from God, which we can discern according to whether the authorities conduct themselves in a way that reflects God’s design for civil society. In Romans 13 Paul states that the authorities were placed there by God. It would be better to hail the legal tradition of a stable and powerful state than to undermine one’s project by violating lots of laws that we find personally troublesome to ourselves. He hated Christianity far more; he has some nice things to say about Judaism, and nothing nice to say about Christianity. As a Roman citizen who invoked his citizenship to maximize his opportunities to share the gospel, Paul would naturally wish to warn Christians about becoming sloppy and lawless. Ascolta senza pubblicità oppure acquista CD e MP3 adesso su Amazon.it. Without a firm grasp of the sacrificial rituals laid out by Moses, people cannot truly understand the significance of Jesus as a blood sacrifice, an atonement akin to the animal sacrifices laid out in the lengthy passages of the Bible’s third book. Let us suppose you complained to me that many churches propagate a false Christianity based on passive-aggressive resentment and glorified weakness instead of boldness and courage. If we lose sight of how enormous this matter of holy separation is, we might find it an utterly alien concept to hear that invisible microbes lurk all around us and we can only stay alive through vigilance. ‘Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise’ — I have the courage of my bad taste. Elijah stood up to Ahab and Jezebel. The ancient Hebrew laws offer great insights into how we can deal with a pandemic, if only people would show respect to the Old Testament. I would have to concede that many Christians do snivel and fritter the way Nietzsche accused them of doing. Individual rulers (like King Bera of Sodom) or particular councils (like the Sanhedrin) are a different story. Al momento, è presente un problema nel caricamento di questo menu. Think of Exodus. Paul admonishes Christians to show respect to the legal procedures that existed in Rome during his time. We want to believe that the blood, gore, fire, brimstone, power struggles, evil kings, and Asherah poles of the Old Testament are safely contained in the past, and we can live forever based on the idea of loving everyone, taking care of the poor, and not judging anybody. While Joseph’s cunning, charm, and prophetic gifts caused one pharaoh to feel great goodwill toward him, that bond had no lasting basis other than the pharaoh’s mood.