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#Post#: 14422--------------------------------------------------
Did Jesus promote evil?
By: George Date: March 30, 2017, 10:14 am
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Matthew 5:39King James Version (KJV)
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
It is quoted that Jesus says to resist evil, yet I read him to
be promoting evil. If a man smite thee on the right cheek and
you turn to him the other also, are you not enticing him to
smite thee again? Are you not tempting him, just as it is said
that the serpent tempted Eve in the garden of eden? Would this
not be an evil act?
#Post#: 14423--------------------------------------------------
Re: Did Jesus promote evil?
By: guest6 Date: March 30, 2017, 10:27 am
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Hello George, good to see you. :)
^I think what Jesus meant was not to retaliate or try to get
even otherwise we would be conquered by evil.
Rom. 12:17 Repay no person evil for evil, but be concerned with
doing good before all people.
21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good.
#Post#: 14425--------------------------------------------------
Re: Did Jesus promote evil?
By: paralambano Date: March 30, 2017, 12:03 pm
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George -
No, Jesus wasn't promoting evil. He was an intelligent man
spiritually. He was saying basically not to give evil for evil.
He'd be encouraging it if he told the person to slap them back.
I suppose then that Jesus was against knee-jerk reactions. He
told his disciples that there would be a time where they'd have
to carry a weapon. I don't think he was opposed to a person
defending themselves if the situation became egregious but the
high teaching here is that by not striking back, we have decided
in our hearts to live another way and we are to expect to
receive it if we don't lose our souls the other way.
para . . . .
#Post#: 14426--------------------------------------------------
Re: Did Jesus promote evil?
By: George Date: March 30, 2017, 12:07 pm
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Hello Heartsong, good to see you up here as well!
I would think without some type of retaliation you are tempting
that person to continue to do evil. If there is no consequence
for bad behavior then what is the motivation to change it? I
don't think then that retaliation is evil and just the opposite,
it is the loving thing to do. Like I've heard said how can you
love others if you don't first love yourself. By allowing
someone to smite thee without consequence seems to show a lack
of love of yourself. What does it say to that person who smite
thee to just turn and offer the other cheek?
#Post#: 14428--------------------------------------------------
Re: Did Jesus promote evil?
By: guest6 Date: March 30, 2017, 12:27 pm
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[quote author=George M. C. Jr. link=topic=1195.msg14426#msg14426
date=1490893644]
Hello Heartsong, good to see you up here as well!
I would think without some type of retaliation you are tempting
that person to continue to do evil. If there is no consequence
for bad behavior then what is the motivation to change it? I
don't think then that retaliation is evil and just the opposite,
it is the loving thing to do. Like I've heard said how can you
love others if you don't first love yourself. By allowing
someone to smite thee without consequence seems to show a lack
of love of yourself. What does it say to that person who smite
thee to just turn and offer the other cheek?
[/quote]
I asked my sons when they were in school and prone to get into
fights, what kind of example are you setting for others who are
watching your behavior? And I told them that it takes more
courage to walk away from a fight and using common sense and
intelligence to avoid it all together. Especially now since they
have children who learn from their behavior.
1Pet. 2:21For you are called to this, for even The Messiah died
for our sake and left us this example, that you would walk in
his steps, 22He who did no sin, neither was deceit found in his
mouth; 23He who was insulted and did not insult, and he suffered
and did not threaten, but he handed his judgment over to The
Judge of righteousness
Rom. 12:18 If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live
peaceably with all men.
19Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place
unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay,
says the LORD.
My life has been threatened more than once and by more than one
person. These people I consider enemies. Jesus said to pray for
your enemies. I harbored rage and hatred in my heart for them
but I eventually was able to pray for them. I haven't fully
forgiven them but I pray for help with that too.
Matt. 5:43You have heard that it was said, "Show kindness to
your neighbor and hate your enemy." 44But I say to you, love
your enemies and bless the one who curses you, and do what is
beautiful to the one who hates you, and pray over those who take
you by force and persecute you. 45So that you will become the
children of your Father who is in Heaven, for his sun rises on
the good and upon the evil and his rain descends on the just and
on the unjust. 46For if you love those who love you, what
benefit is it to you? Behold, do not even the Tax Collectors the
same thing? 47And if you pray for the peace of your brethren
only, what excellent thing are you doing? Behold, are not even
the Tax Collectors doing the same thing? 48Be therefore perfect,
just as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect.
#Post#: 14431--------------------------------------------------
Re: Did Jesus promote evil?
By: Kerry Date: March 30, 2017, 2:34 pm
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[quote author=George M. C. Jr. link=topic=1195.msg14422#msg14422
date=1490886858]
Matthew 5:39King James Version (KJV)
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
It is quoted that Jesus says to resist evil, yet I read him to
be promoting evil. If a man smite thee on the right cheek and
you turn to him the other also, are you not enticing him to
smite thee again? Are you not tempting him, just as it is said
that the serpent tempted Eve in the garden of eden? Would this
not be an evil act?
[/quote]Hi, yes, good to see you again. I was just wondering
how you were the other day. I have two points.
First, there probably is a social context to this passage, that
of the Roman occupiers. If a Roman soldier hit you and you hit
him back, you were risking starting a riot. A riot would mean
many people could die; and it would be mostly your fellow Jews.
There was a riot in the Temple once that got started when a
Roman soldier "passed wind" and a Jew was offended and said
something. One thing led to another, and before it was all
over, thousands of people were dead.
I think this verse could be used today in our social context of
policemen pulling minorities over and treating them poorly. If
you are married with children, do you really want to "resist
evil"? You could wind up dead. Your wife would be a widow
and your children orphans. All this would be an even greater
evil than going along with the evil of the policeman's
discrimination.
My other point is related. Scientology has a saying, "What you
resist, you become." You should never see the actions of
others as being so powerful that you give up your own free will.
If you find yourself thinking, "I have to do something, I can't
let this happen," you are close to falling into the trap of
losing control over your own actions. The fact is you could
just stand there and let it happen. You are not obliged to lose
control and fight back in a stupid way that will make things
worse for you and make you as bad as the person attacking you.
When people look control over themselves and strike back, they
aren't solving any problems; they're making them worse.
Your goal should be eliminate evil when you spot it, not to
fight it. That could mean doing something kind; but it could
also be doing something drastic. I just read about a kid who
shot three people who invaded his parents' home. He heard them
breaking in, got a gun and killed them all. Was he fighting
against evil? Was he resisting evil? I'd say no. He wasn't
dithering around saying to himself, "I've got to do something,
I can't let this happen." He did more than that. He took
action and made sure it didn't happen.
Keep your wits about you. If something bad happens, keep cool
and be sure you don't react in a way that makes things worse.
Exercise free will. Don't fall into the "serpent" kind of
thinking that says you must strike back. Ha, ha, that reminds
me of how Donald Trump behaves. He thinks he must respond if
someone says something bad about him. Lots of times, he strikes
out blindly and makes things worse for himself.
The serpent way of thinking sees others as having power because
they are evil. That would mean, in order to win, we need to
be evil too. By resisting evil, we are tempted to become evil
ourselves. Our goal really should be to defeat evil not just
to fight against it. The right thing for a minority person to
do if pulled over by a cop is not to resist -- don't wind up
dead -- but seek justice later using the courts. If that cop
is a bad cop, he should be fired and prosecuted so he can't
keep doing that to others. So the smart and good thing to do is
not to resist arrest, not to fight back even if he hits you.
Survive is the first rule -- and maybe you can use what he did
to you to bring him down and make the world a better place for
other people.
#Post#: 14435--------------------------------------------------
Re: Did Jesus promote evil?
By: George Date: March 30, 2017, 8:22 pm
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Hi Kerry, good to hear from you, all is well. Had my daughter
January 14, Delilah Catala she's my little angel! Hope your
doing good.
You and Heartsong make good points in your interpretation of the
scripture. But that's what puzzles me about scripture is how
it's always open to interpretation, if taken literally one
cannot come to the conclusions of your interpretation. Given the
circumstances you put forward I see how it would be best to not
retaliate but that is in no way turning and offering the other
cheek.
#Post#: 14436--------------------------------------------------
Re: Did Jesus promote evil?
By: HOLLAND Date: March 30, 2017, 9:09 pm
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^^^Good that you're back, George. :D
I would say that the 'turning of the other cheek' has a lot to
do with power and the absence of power. In Jesus' time, the
common folk were powerless and had to suffer blows at the hands
of the military that enforced a harsh tyranny over them on
behalf of the elites who controlled most of the wealth of the
countries then in existence. One could not fight back, usually,
when one was attacked by another. To do so, to utilize force
was regarded, implicitly, as an act of subversion. The act of
self-defense, even violence itself, was suspect. The common
people were suppose to be 'sheep' that are meant to be shorn and
crucifixion was the order of the day to terrorize entire
populations.
I would suggest that Jesus is entirely subversive in respect to
this situation. He calls his followers 'sheep'. This lulls the
authorities that he is not going to be a troublemaker. But then
Jesus commands his followers to 'turn the other cheek' when
someone slaps one of his followers. By this, the turning of the
other cheek, is not meant to be a promoting of evil; it is meant
to be an act of defiance, of not being broken. If you're
powerless and lack the ability to strike back, it is important
not to give in but to remain unconquered. Offering the other
cheek lets the attacker know that you are not broken and that
the attacker's exercise of power is still threatened. How can
you conquer somebody if that somebody remains inwardly defiant?
This is a dilemma to which there is not a solution. Jesus then
commands his followers to love one another, especially those who
mistreat them. This love, in the face of oppression, of evil,
is devastating to the powerful, who, more and more, lose the
paltry justification for that power. This is the ultimate
subversion of tyranny. Jesus is not promoting evil. He is,
merely, attacking it from the vantage point of human
powerlessness; and, this is meant to be a comfort for his
disciples.
#Post#: 14439--------------------------------------------------
Re: Did Jesus promote evil?
By: George Date: March 30, 2017, 11:33 pm
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Thank you Holland,
Good perspective you have on this scripture, I had thought
precisely the same about how turning the other cheek would be
defiant but when I did I thought of a more negative intention
where it was more of a dare like here hit me again, which
brought me to the idea of temptation and evil intent. I could
see how it could be a stance saying you cannot break me, in the
face of being powerless to strike back at authority.
Again this is a good interpretation of this scripture but I am
not convinced we can assume that Jesus is talking only of the
authority of the day, if we read the verse in its complete
context it begins with the "ye have heard it said an eye for an
eye" which would lead me to conclude he in fact is not speaking
of authority, rather speaking on one's neighbor. So while I can
see and appreciate all of the interpretations that everyone put
forth I'm not so sure it resolves the issue in my mind.
#Post#: 14440--------------------------------------------------
Re: Did Jesus promote evil?
By: Kerry Date: March 31, 2017, 6:12 am
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[quote author=George M. C. Jr. link=topic=1195.msg14435#msg14435
date=1490923326]
Hi Kerry, good to hear from you, all is well. Had my daughter
January 14, Delilah Catala she's my little angel! Hope your
doing good.
You and Heartsong make good points in your interpretation of the
scripture. But that's what puzzles me about scripture is how
it's always open to interpretation, if taken literally one
cannot come to the conclusions of your interpretation. Given the
circumstances you put forward I see how it would be best to not
retaliate but that is in no way turning and offering the other
cheek.
[/quote]I define "resist" the way black parents use the word
when they tell their children, "If a white cop pulls you over
and arrests you, never resist him."
Resistance is not a strategy for success. It's a strategy
almost certainly guaranteed to make you more of a victim. Thus
the black kid who doesn't resist arrest might get hit once or
twice; but the kid who resists the cops could easily be
brutalized or killed.
Why do white cops treat young black males that way? I'd say the
cops are often afraid themselves. I say that as an old white
male who has seen cops act as if I was a threat to their safety.
I can only imagine how much more of a threat they might see
me as if I was a young black male. So they start off seeing
this black kid as an enemy. Any little thing he does that
might be interpreted as dangerous increases the fear in the cop.
But if he doesn't resist arrest, even if struck, even if
treated very poorly in other ways, the cop can see this kid is
not a dangerous person. Thus the cop begins to see he was
wrong to feel afraid and wrong to treat the kid poorly.
That chapter of Matthew is complicated, easily misunderstood.
First Jesus says, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law,
or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
Yet people seem to forget he said that when he says a little
later, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time," and
then seems to teach the Law of Moses no longer applies. What
did he mean then by the eye for an eye comment?
38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and
a tooth for a tooth:
He cannot be teaching that Moses was wrong. He's saying Moses
was right as far as he went but there is a standard that is
higher than Moses'. First we should learn how the Jews
interpreted that. The Sanhedrin taught that this verse did not
mean if someone knocked out one of your teeth, a judge should
order one of his teeth knocked out -- or that you had the right
to knock out one of his. The verse can easily be
misinterpreted to mean that revenge is okay -- but that's using
revenge and not love as your measure. What it really means is
that the punishment for a crime should never be greater than the
crime. If someone knocked out one of your teeth, a judge
should reward you a sum of money as compensation for it -- not
for two or more teeth.
Think about it. If someone blinded you and you were unable to
work to support your family, what good would it do to blind the
person who blinded you? It could have been an accident,
perhaps the result of not paying attention. What a judge
should do is to take care of you and your family. Thus he
should award you money.
What if you were rich and didn't need the money? Someone
accidentally knocks out one of your teeth or eyes? You don't
need the money, so you wouldn't take the man to court. There
doesn't need to be any punishment at all.
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
How much real harm has been done to you if someone hits you on
the cheek? You can still work to support your family. The
only damage would be to your ego; and really now, your value as
a human being does not depend on how others treat you; and you
should not judge yourself by how others judge you.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy
coat, let him have thy cloak also.
I can see how this would be right in some cases. If the other
guy was truly needy and you injured him and didn't have the
money to pay for damages, maybe you should make it up to him by
giving him more than a judge required. It might be helpful if
he truly needed the money.
I find this verse interesting since if you got taken to court,
that would mean you probably disobeyed what Jesus taught
earlier:
25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the
way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the
judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be
cast into prison.
26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out
thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
If you're wrong, admit it and pay up.
41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him
twain.
This is definitely a reference to Roman soldiers who could
compel citizens to carry things for them for a certain distance.
It may not be pleasant; but try to look at it from the
standpoint of the soldier. He needed to get somewhere; and if
he didn't have help, he'd have to carry lots of things by
himself. I'd say it's doubtful you would make a friend out of
him the first mile by chatting with him; but if you said you'd
go another mile and continue the conversation, he might start
liking you.
Have you ever had someone you liked come up to you all angry
about something and you didn't know what it was all about?
Since you liked him, you didn't fly into a rage and asked him
what it was all about? When he told you, you laughed and
said no, it wasn't like that -- and then he laughed too when he
saw it was a misunderstanding? If a friend comes up to you
angry like that, it's often because someone lied to him about
you, trying to poison his mind against you. That means if you
fly into a rage because he's in a rage, he'll think you do hate
him, you are out to get him. But if you don't fly into a rage,
he has to wonder if he's been lied to -- and maybe you are his
friend as he hopes.
Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous
words stir up anger.
There's this couple that works at Dominos. The girl gets
paranoid about the guy. I don't know why she's paranoid; but
the other day he said something to her about their working
different shifts. Right now, they always work together. I
guess she got very upset -- probably because she thought he
wanted to get away with her perhaps to flirt with other girls or
something. I didn't get all the details. They were screaming
at each other in the store. It got so bad she walked off the
job one night. I tried to talk him later about it, "Don't you
know when a girl gets mad at you like that, it's usually because
she feels you don't care about her?" I'm almost sure that's
what it was really about. But when she snapped on him, he
snapped on her -- and that only made her feel more unloved. It
was pretty bad, really. They were both bad-mouthing each other
to other people. All over nothing pretty much in my opinion --
I think they do like each other but are afraid they're not loved
back.
It looks to me as if they are both resisting evil since if one
starts screaming, the other does too. If only one of them
would refuse to scream back, their problem might have been
solved; but as it is, I am beginning to doubt if it can be
solved. They've had too many angry words and hurt feelings.
Life can be strange; but if someone comes up to you and treats
you as if you're an enemy, sometimes you can defuse the
situation and make him into a friend by not taking his "evil"
too seriously. I had a customer about a month ago who went
off about getting a late pizza and saying maybe he'd never
order again -- and he was right too about it. He wasn't right
to be screaming to me about it maybe; but I told him I thought
he was right. He was. I had been to his house two or three
times before -- I liked him -- I joked with him about his dog
who liked to run out of the house -- I liked his dog too. So I
wasn't going to take his angry fit too seriously even if I was
bearing the brunt of it. I advised him to call the owner; and
I hope he did. I don't know if he did; but he ordered again the
other day and he was back to being his old friendly self. Try
to understand the other person. People sometimes have reasons
for the "evil" they're doing; and if you can get to the bottom
of it, you may be able to help solve things.
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