Quote:
Originally Posted by Thankful Jane
I have no idea what you mean by overextension and over-application. I made no application. If you are going to respond, it would be nice if you would respond to what I actually wrote in my post.
It strikes me wrongly for you to ask me to remember something that I had already pointed out in the post (about Ishmael).
Please do not ascribe ideas to me that I did not write and characterize them as a "serious misunderstanding." I made no comment, had no thought, and made no presumption about blessing (whatever you mean by that) on Ishmael's descendants.
My point was that God's promise to Abraham was not to make him "a" nation, as you had written.
I also pointed out that Jacob's blessing on Ephraim was that he would become a multitude of nations.
As I said, I do not know what this means, but it means something.
My post contained straightforward observations about the words of the Bible, and as I said, it was food for thought. Of course, I would be interested in what anyone thought about those verses.
Thankful Jane
|
The point concerning Ishmael was that there was not the same promise of blessing for him. He was promised to be the father of many nations. And it is also stated that he would be problem for the family he was exiled from. He was not promised all the stuff that Israel was promised.
As for overextended, it is the reading of the mention of nations with the intent of implying that everything concerning the covenant between Israel and God (which, BTW, was on top of Abraham's covenant, not simply the same covenant) did not flow through any of these verses to other nations. As I recall, God came and asked if they were willing to be for Him and follow Him. Upon their agreement, the law was given. And the promises that attached to any specific nation were also given.
It seems that all of the "national" promises being mentioned are not really the outgrowth of the Abrahamic covenant, but the specific covenant between God and the nation of Israel at the foot of Mt Sinai.
So, once again, there appears to be an overextension of covenant, prophecy, etc. Finding what amounts to a data point in common between two different things does not cause one to flow onto the other.
In other words, I see a lot of dots being called connected when I do not see the connection.
And, if you read my most recent post in the new thread on politics, you will see a related problem for me. One which I have raised here in different terms. But I will rephrase it here within the scope of this discussion.
As this discussion has unfolded, it would appear that it is the lack of favorable treatment of Christian values, even in terms of how laws are made, that is a significant cornerstone of the claim of America's "fall from grace." Our response begins as something benign, or even positive. Repent and pray. That is good. Something we should do without buildings falling. That it took such a thing is a shame to us. Not to the nation, the government, or the laws that allow abortion and refuse prayer in schools.
But if, after our repentance and prayer, the secular government does not reinstate sanctioned prayer in schools, favored status as iconic symbols in our courts (such as the posting of the ten commandments), legal restrictions on abortions, reduction in the rights of gays, very generous reading of the 10th amendment and of the right to bear arms . . . then what does it mean? That the nation didn't really repent? Or that we didn't repent hard enough for it?
Is it, as has been suggested, an invitation to get very active in politics so that we can increase pressure to make those things legally required?
So how does that stack up with "love your neighbor"? With "eats with sinners"? Jesus ate with sinners. He didn't lambaste them, then wait until they were sinning no more. Paul said that even the language of angels can be wielded without love and is a clanging symbol. Do we eat with Zacchaeus first, or demand that he change first?
I do not fear a slippery slope here. It seems to be the unavoidable outgrowth of a movement to insist that a secular nation can repent and pray its way out of bad things happening.
The nation cannot pray. Only the citizens can. And they aren't all praying, therefore the nation is not praying.
And outside of all of this, my second fear with this kind of movement is that it is just as much of a distraction from what is the real call of the gospel as was in the LRC. It sounds so good. But I find nothing in the linkages of scripture that actually arrive at the conclusions about what could be spiritual truth.
Instead, I see myths of super-spirituality in the founding fathers, linked through genealogies of churches near ground zero, and so many other things. We are aligning our spiritual efforts because a 200+ year-old church was near ground zero and didn't fall. This story of a sycamore tree saving the building is quite questionable. Besides the insiders' writings, where is this published in a way other than repeating what one of these writers has published? Caught a few pieces of stray shrapnel? What does that mean? How does a tree with a diameter of few feet protect a building of many feet in width? If the tree and the church remained standing, the answer is probably that there was not an assault of debris in that direction sufficient to do such damage.
Where do we take a stand to live peaceably? To repent for ourselves? To pray earnestly? To live righteously, but as sojourners, not as if the actual citizens? (Not saying to avoid anything to do with politics.)
If your talk were focused upon me, you, and the rest of us repenting continually for our continual failings without reference to some funny overlay of special nation status, you would find me fully with you. The same for prayer. Even praying for the nation. But not as if it can gain favored nation status, but as if every man woman and child needs to meet the Savior. That we all need to gain freedom from the bondage of sin. Better laws concerning how Christianity is treated in this country is irrelevant to that effort. Making sin illegal civilly does not decrease sin. It just puts it in hiding and/or changes the sin of choice. Why? because we are talking about sinners. And sinners will sin.
The answer is in changed lives. What arises from praying for a return to some presumed Christian status as a nation is legislated lives. But it doesn't change even one of those lives.