what is OBL? 

Why are you so interested in the OT when we are not under the OT laws anymore?  Is it because you wish to project that God is really an evil God?  What is your motivation here?  What are you trying to accomplish? 

I told you already this has NOTHING to do with babies.  What if there were no babies in town during this time?  Firstborn would still be killed.  It has nothing to do with babies.  Cattle died that day.  Old men that were firstborn died that day.  There was no partiality and never is with God.   

God put his own firstborn on the cross and had him killed.  What do you think of that?  This is all a picture of what would happen in the future.  God didn't do anything he wasn't willing to do himself. 

Each one of those 10 plaques represented a false idol.  Remember back then even babies were thrown into the fire as a form of worship. Egypt had a god for everything.   Sacrificing children was common among the heathen.  God was showing Egypt during the time that he was above all their idols.  He was real.  The idols they worshipped were not. 

Well you said this: 

and this:

Saying he ordered them to be killed and villages put to death because of one person, I was just asking for you to show me where and what you're talking about. 

What you're reading is his law with the verse you put in.  There were hundreds of laws in the Torah to be followed by the Jews.  I'm just saying there is no documentation to back up that anyone practicing homosexuality was killed unless you wish to discuss Sodom and Gomorrah which had all sorts of sexual immorality going on including homosexuality but not limited to it. 

KFC, your last reply was simply brilliant! I cannot do anything but congratulate you for it.

Especially these two paragraphs:

I think you are on to something here. The plagues represent something, they were not just ten randomly chosen bad things G-d wished to do to people. The plagues represent the Egyptian religion which indeed knew of human sacrifice (like many middle-eastern religions at the time). Perhaps it is possible to map each plague to an Egyptian god and perhaps we are meant to read that the plagues were not caused by G-d but by the Egyptians themselves.

From the point of view of Moses, the plagues would seem like they were sent by G-d out of loyalty to His people. But as punishments the plagues were supposed to be perceived by the Egyptians, not the Israelites. The plagues did not happen to show G-d's support for Israel. They were part of what Egypt was at that time.

Even today bad things tend to happen to countries that mistreat or expell their Jewish population. That doesn't mean that G-d is evil. It just means that people have found another way to blame somebody else for their own wrongdoing.

That is true. While lots of death penalties were on the book, the Jewish state didn't really execute too many people. In fact Jewish oral law (later codified in the Talmud) defines ways to deal without death penalties. Sodom and Gamorrah are a special case and were certainly not subject to human jurisdiction based on divine law. (G-d dealt with the cities directly. It was not a question of reading brutal laws and enforcing them.) And from what we know about Sodom and Gamorrah it seems clear to me that any citizen of those cities who merely practiced normal homosexuality wouldn't even been on the radar.

I'm trying to understand how the same god that is the god of love can be the same god as the one that kills first borns.  I want to understand how the the god of love can order that all people that work on the sabbath should be put to death. 

Just because the laws are meant to have changes doesn't stop your god of love being the same god as the one that ordered all these things. 

That is what I am trying to understand.  The 'loving' god that gives these orders.

The loving god that orders his (for want of a better pronoun) followers to do these must want them done - or he wouldn't want them done.

yes and sometimes I think God says...you want (fill in the blank) I'll let you have what you desire till it comes out your ears!  Sort of like a kid caught smoking and his mother makes him sit there and smoke the whole pack till he gets sick.  That's what he did when he sent the Jews to Babylon.  He pretty much gave them what they were doing already.  You want to worship false idols?  Then I'll exile you to the land of idolatry. 

what in the world is "normal homosexuality?" 

thanks Leauki.  I know you don't say that lightly so I appreciate the kind words. 

ok Basmas.  Let me think on how to phrase this so I can hopefully help you understand.  I'm on the way out right now but when I get back later I'll address this. 

You are right though.  The same God of the OT is the same God of the NT and it can be hard to understand until you understand who God is.  Then when you understand that it makes sense. 

I'm always late!  It always amazes me how people always try to compare Ancient Israel to now a days.  No other country does this happen.   If we compare Ancient Israel to the surrounding countries of her time Israel we see a major difference. 

First, GOD set up cities of refuge which can be found in Joshua 20:1-6, Deuteronomy 19:1-13, and Numbers 35:9-29. There was on the one hand, a strict enforcing of Justice and on the other the exercising of mercy.  Unlike her surrounding countries none had any cities of refuge.     

If you take a look at Deutronomy 21:10-14, it talks about if an Israelie finds an attractive woman among a conquerored country.  She was to shave her head, trim her nails, and not way any of the clothing that she was captured in.  Eliminating a lot of the superficial beauty.  If Israelie does marry her, she is to be treated like a daughter of Israel.  If the Israelie no longers wants to marry her she can go.  You can later read that she may be come a citizen. 

The surrounding countries if a woman was found to be attractive she became your immediate slave.

Leviticus 19:9-10 'As you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not completely reap the corner of your field; and you shall not gather the gleaning of your harvest; you shall not gather your vineyard until it is bare and you shall not gather the leavings of your vineyard; you shall leave them to the poor, the widow, and to the alien/foreigner, for I am the L-RD your G-D'

The surrounding countries during Israel time do you think that they left on anything for somebody else? No, and you can see this in Ancient Middle Eastern History.

Israel was very revolutionary compared to other Ancient cultures.

i'll be amazed to see you admit god's no more or less moral than a crooked vice cop or, at best,  merely as unjust as an overly aggressive prosecutor on an entrapment campaign.

no matter how many times one hardens one's heart, it's not over til it's over--or until an omnipotent supreme being ends it for you. 

rediverting your attention to your original topic has it not occurred to you there is one very major similarity between islam and your flavor of christianity in that there is no earthly absolute authority operating between man and god? 

Osama Bin Laden

ok, now that I know what OBL means.... it wouldn't be the first time God used a non-believer for his purposes!  Happens all the time. 

At any rate OBL is being allowed to live for whatever reason that only God knows. 

I believe this is true.  They also believe abortion is murder another thing we do have in common. 

and this is true. 

why would I admit to something so blatantly untrue? 

There is no diff between the images of God presented in the Old and New Testaments.  It's like two sides of a coin.  God is loving and compassionate but he's also a God of Justice.  Jesus is no more loving than his Father as He represents the Father in the NT.  The Father is no more wrathful or judgmental than the son.  Three points need to be made. 

1. There is love in the OT

2.  There is judgment in the NT

3.  The main diff between #1 & #2 is one is judgment shown within history and the other judgment  at the end of history.  If you read Revelation Christ the lamb comes back as a lion.

The God of the OT presents himself first and foremost as the God of Love..not judgment.  God proclaimed himself to Moses in this way:

"And as he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, The LORD the LORD the compassionate and gracious God  is slow to anger abounding in love and faithfulness maintaing love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.  Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."  Ex 34:6-7

Noce how he first states his compassion, grace, love faithfulness and forgiveness.  He then says that this is not to be taken advantage of, for those who do not respond to his love will not escape.  He is loving, but is not an indulgent parent and HE will bring justice.  He has to.   

God is both a God of love and a God of justice.  That's who he is. His holiness demands it.  All thru the OT God continually told the people that he chose Israel out of love not because they were deserving.  When his people rebelled at that love he continually reached out to them thru the prophets.  When they continued to rebel HE threatened and then eventually sent judgment but not before giving them plenty of warnings which they scoffed at.  But even then God is always anguished over this.  On one hand justice demands that he act in judgment but on the other his loving heart is broken over his people.  He canot bear to see them hurting and destroyed.  He wants to gather them in his arms but His Holiness will not allow Him to ignore their behavior. 

Ultimate judgment always has, in the back of it, the idea of restoration.  That's what discipline is all about.  Jonah is a great example.  God sent Jonah to warn Nineveh that in 40 days he will destroy her for her wickedness.  They repented and God relented.  Restoration happened.

Every good parent knows that they must eventually punish a rebellious child but no parent enjoys doing it. It must be done for the sake and well being of the family. 

I have a friend going thru cancer right now.  She had a mastectomy.  Now if a Puritan of the 1600's  awoke from the grave right now and looked into my friend's operating room he would be agast to see a surgeon cutting away my friend's breast and surrounding tissue.  He would think my friend was being brutally assaulted by a mean man with a knife.  This Puritan would not understand that this is necessary for the life of my friend.  So too it is with God.  He's all knowing, sovereign and knows exactly what must be done to preserve his people.  Sometimes a little cutting away has to be done in order to save them so they can live. 

Nobody wants to have a leg or foot cut off that is rapidly spreading an uncontrolled disease.  It's not an easy decision.  But sometimes it's needed in order to preserve the body.  That's why Jesus later said if your eye or hand offends you (causes you to sin) it's actually better to cut it out or off.  It's better to enter heaven maimed  or crippled than for your whole body to go to hell. 

Hope that helps Basmas. 

yes, and they were supposed to be a light to the Gentile nations on how to behave and how to worship the God of Heaven.  They were set apart for the purpose of reflecting God's image and representing Him in the best possible way but failed miserably most of the time.  But just like today there was always a remnant that stayed true to God's mission in the face of an ungodly ever changing culture. 

And you know this.... how?

know what?  You told me! 

I'm going to have to come back to this one.  I'm off on holiday hiking tomorrow and will be unable to get online at all for at least 10 days

ok Basmas, have a safe trip.  See you when you get back.