Numbers 15:32-36 While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.
PERSONAL COMMENTARY
I’ve received several emails and posts have been made on forums and on this blog accusing me of mocking God and the Bible. I find these accusations interesting because I believe it is the Scripture itself that’s making a mockery of God.
I have to admit that reading the above verses truly made me sad.
I have some of the same criticisms.
Is man god’s greatest blunder, or is god man’s greatest blunder?
-nitezsche
Nietzsche kicks ass.
It is because people think that God sent his Son so that he could overlook sin altogether. Instead, He sent his Son to forgive the sin of those who are willing to be obedient to every command of God.
You HAVE posted a lot of scripture that is seemingly mocking. If my perception is wrong, please excuse me. However, I would like to know what it is that you are trying to accomplish, because even though your Jan 1st mission statement seems innocent and some other posts seem humorous, it seems the main idea is to point out the things that you don’t think people have seen so as to change their mind about the kind of God they serve, and to somewhat mock the traditional view of God being a loving God. I think it’s somewhat good to highlight these scriptures for those who don’t get that God is Holy, so that they question in their own mind what it is they should be getting from the Bible. But to say that the Bible is making a mockery of God seems like a cop out of admitting that you don’t get it either. If you thought God was real, you would not question his word, but would examine your ways with honesty and be transformed. I don’t think you would try and convince yourself that God was real, but his word is not, because that would make yourself a mockery. So it is probably true that you were attempting to mock God’s word, but if you understood Scripture through the Holy Spirit you would know that the true people of God cannot hardly be led astray by this method because they have already come to terms with God’s Holiness and have accepted it. The only ones you manage to draw into the misunderstanding of scripture are those who came into their so called “Christianity” with their self in mind, who just wanted to feel saved and have the emotional high, and good friends, and good potlucks, or maybe just a place. They will be swept away when they read the verses, like the ones you have quoted, and it makes them sad, as well. They’ll walk away feeling justified because who wants to believe in that kind of “meany” god. The Scriptures don’t make a mockery of God. They make a mockery of those people, and all because they never understood faith to began with. I truly do love ya man, but I don’t know if you really have good intentions. I’d sure like to hear otherwise.
Anyway, these verses don’t contradict God in the least bit. The man knew the commands. He deliberately disobeyed God. God is utterly consistent. The wages of sin IS death. Always and forever and will never change. God desires obedience and not sacrifice. That will never change. From the beginning all we had to do is obey God and that is the very thing that those who only call themselves Christians are still trying to get around, even using the message of the Cross to do it. God said “he must die”. However God laid the iniquity of us all on Christ and he had to die as well. Why is it that we think, to die is so drastic? To obey is more drastic than that. God show’s us this by the fact that Christ, in obeying God, died. What is your life but only a vessel. Jesus died for those, or took the punishment for those, willing to be obedient to God and count their life as nothing in the face of obedience. Put on Christ friend. Start with one thing and watch our savior work in the rest of the others. It’s called the narrow path because obedience has little play between its banks. Few find it because they weren’t even looking for it.
With love,
Sam
Right…but the fact is god is an asshole for killing a guy for working on the sabbath day.
Why would I even think about worshipping your God when he murdered millions of innocent babies among 30 million humans in the great flood. He is solely responsible for so many murders that I simply cannot digest the fact that people still continue to worship Him. In the bible He advocates genocide, murder, slavery, rape, human sacrifice etc.
1…Exodus 35:2. Six days shall work be done , but on the seventh day, there shall be to you an holy day , a Sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.
1a..Numbers 15:32-6. A man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath so the Lord told Moses that he must die and be stoned to death outside the camp. So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death as the Lord commanded Moses.
Author’s note: Collecting a little firewood for the kid’s fire at summer camp, doing some gardening, going shopping, policemen doing their duty, fire fighters putting out fires, nurses tending their patients, kids working at McDonald’s even preachers giving their sermons are all guilty of working on the sabbath and should be put down. There are no exceptions to this commandment in the Bible. How many Christians today would be executed for disobeying this commandment?
You poor, stupid people.
God is the origin of all power in the universe and we can’t fathom His infinite wisdom. We’re nothing more than vapor here on earth, and we quickly return to His presence. Life is a brief chance granted for us to learn about Him and submit to His will.
If I were you I’d think twice before wasting your life judging and attacking the Almighty. Talk about futility.
Do people actually believe that? Ridiculous. It’s no different than worshiping the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
As a Christian I found Numbers 15 to be a real test.
I guess it would have been easy for people in the past to manipulate this controversial verse right out of the bible. But there it still stands. That’s interesting in of itself.
It disturbs me, but not enought to make me dismiss what I KNOW to be true. Numbers was part of my reading this week and when I got to those verses, I felt the sense of “oh know” as I read them. I argued with God, and went through a lot of the same responses I’ve read from the mockers. Then I prayed for understanding if I could have it, and if not peace. The next morning I get in the car, and start a sermon series I’ve been listening to on Matthew. The teacher make a profound statment that really answered it for me. Out that is a series of 50 sermons it would be cued right to the spot that dealt with my doubts of the scripture I had just read the night before. Probably wouldn’t mean a thing to the godless. It certainly didn’t just make me wipe my brow and say “that’s better.” It is still harsh and tough, but I also realize that we are dealing with a God that is not like us. Not at all. His ways are infinately higher than our ways. How much poison does it take to contaminate a glass of water?? How much sin does it take to condemn a man in the eyes of an eternal, Holy, mighty, perfect, and pure creator?
Many see God’s as mean, because they see him from their human perspective. God is just and no matter how confusing or hard it is for us, His ways are far and above our ways. The God who destroyed the world in a flood also had the forsight to see what evil was ahead. He was able to see the heart of the wood gatherer. Just like the USA saw the evil that was ahead in Japan, and thus dropped two H-bombs. An act that out of context would seem purely evil, but with the proper perspective can be wholly justified, even holy.
Those who talk about people (gentiles) violating the Sabbath today are ignorant of any hermanuetical understanding.
The depth of the bible is rarely understood by cherry picking a verse here or a verse their, and then saying “see I told you so.”
It’s hard to know the full circumstances here but harsh penalties for disobedience were given by the writings ascribed to Moses. It’s possible we havn’t received the whole story here, in fact likley and believe it or not it’s possible Moses made a mistake. It’s also possible that God knew more about this. Don’t forget the body is a precious temple and we should treat it that way to include how we treat others BUT it is expendible in God’s eyes. After all we are all going to die. So it’s a tool used to develop our mind towards membership in God’s kingdom, if we choose. The Children of Israel were given a choice by God through Moses to abide by their laws or leave the encampment. However, it is also possible that certain laws were on the books to disuade people from treating them casual but especially in those days, humans were first being tended by God through his prophets to become less animalistic, think before acting – recognize the ramifications to their immedieate desires for gratification and to be willing to cooperate and not allow their physical body to be so demanding, thus exercise mind over matter so to speak. These were all introductory lessons. God knew that he could take that soul that was killed if that is in fact what happened and “save” it for a future opportunity but that it could be a lesson on the severity of maturing to a recognition of God’s reality, not to take it so casually. Simultaneously it was a test for Moses and Aaron. Just because one is a prophet of God doesn’t mean they automatically know the right thing to do in all circumstances and doesn’t mean they can’t be fooled by the lower forces that operate in the discarnate spirit world by influnencing humans in bodies to be their hosts for the behaviours and activities they sought while last alive in a body. God permits this as a way to have a mind exercise machine to build the strength of our mind. Moses and Aaron may have failed that test by allowing the stoning (if it happened as was said). The main problem is that here we have Moses receiving the 10 commandments of “You should not kill” or murder (as self defense was considered permissible, though people use that now for an excuse to kill). So wouldn’t there be another way to encourage discipline. So I would not be at all surprised to someday learn that those examples were placed into the writings ascribed to Moses for some political purpose or because of a riff between Moses and another faction against him to try to smear him and his 10 commandments.
Smears and the sewing of disinformation are common as we all can see in life and partial stories, assumptions, seeding of mis/dis information is rampant today and it always has been.
So finding this example, does this mean that all that Moses did was subject to critisism? Well, Yes it does. We don’t need to fear the process of testing information that may broaden our view in the process, strengthening our personal connection with God as it’s true we can’t know all God’s reasons and objectivity so it does become a test of our faith and trust while it also becomes a way for critics of God to show their face. God does test us and the object is to eventually be willingly able to given our ALL to God to reap the reward God promises for all those who show that willingness.
Christians should not pick and choose which parts of the bible they believe in. Dont sit there and moan about gay marriage when you cant even enforce stoning someone who worked on a sabath. Christians need to wake up and smell the coffee. This book was created from many mythologies, a very good book to teach people how to live their lives. Its not the law and people should not take it so seriously. Religion has caused many millions of deaths, we would be better off without it.
to Joel:
I’m not clear what do you KNOW to be true? Are you sure you’re not confusing knowledge with faith? What you know you don’t have to believe in (like you don’t have to believe that the Earth is round) and reversely, belief implies absence of knowledge.
But Humans don’t have absolute knowing about anything really. Sure we can think and say that tomorrow the sun will rise and be right but in some ways that’s an educated guess. A cow can think every day will be the same too, that is until that day when they are killed for their meat which they may have little to no anticipation of. Actually the only things we really can know are the things that were given us by the Kingdom of God though their representatives, yet even these are subject to change. Any parent knows that they will adjust their rules as the child can understand and apply more. Belief is really equivilent to “faith – the evidence of things unseen” so it’s always subjective according to the person. And belief without actions/works in support of that belief is moreorless worthless. It’s easy to say, Oh, I believe this or that, but what if we were held to some significant action/deed based on our proclamation of belief? We might find our belief is quite weak. Like how many people believe they are christians yet don’t really try very hard to mimic anything Jesus actually said. Well of course he set the bar quite high, but the point is in the effort.
This is just the fodder I’ve been looking for to reference when people come to my door to proselytize me. Hooray independent thought.
Yes I agree that we can’t Judge the creators of this planet though some think they can albeit previous comments here…saying “god is an asshole”. That’s like a horse bucking rather than allow a human to help tame them into service. The wild horse doesn’t know that once tamed they will have something other wild horses will never experience – a relationship with a more evolved being and anyone who knows horses knows tame horses that are well kept love affection from humans and of course the treats they get. However equating humans dropping H bombs on other humans IS a BAD example as humans are far from members of the Kingdom of the Creator crews. Calling murdering all those mostly innocent humans IS evil in one form as it took away their opportunity to grow closer to God, (though God can certainly choose to save each of those souls to give them a future opportunity to grow a step closer to God, and eventually to graduation out of the human evolutionary kingdom level of life, the ultimate highest purpose a human being can serve).
But also critisizing God for allowing the planet to recycle things is also juvinile. It’s really like this. None of us would even be living if God didnt’ set up this grandeous environment for us. No humans created ANY of the elements and/or systems that keep it all in operation. Humans are significantly primitive even with cell phones and tinker toy flying devices into a tiny distance in near space. That’s like cursing God for allowing us to die at all. Why wouldn’t a loving god create us to live forever? That is because we are in large worthless leaches and even weeds that seek to prey upon others and our environment to the degree of toxifing it all that is interfering with those that might one day grow closer to God thus like weeds in any garden NEED to be recycled, spaded under as we will see more and more upcoming. See my videos on youtube channel: “3spm” and/or on blogtalkradio.com/sawyer
The Bible certainly has some things which are difficult to reconcile — not impossible, I think, but difficult.
But because of Jesus, I beleive the Bible to be true.
Jesus endorsed the Scriptures without reservation. His personal fulfilment of prophecy, His miracles, His morally spotless life and His resurrection all serve as proof that He is who He says He is — the divine Son of God. His endorsement of the Bible is THE swing vote. When God Himself — Jesus — says the Bible is true, I’m very inclined to believe it — despite the difficulties.
The testimony of the Holy Spirit within the believer is also strong testimony.
The things of Scripture which are clear and demonstrably true — especially the things of Christ — make me trust the same Scriptures for the things which are difficult to believe or difficult to grasp.
A little girl might not understand all that her daddy tells her about life or the reasons behind what he tells her to do. Some of what he tells her might seem harsh or unloving to her little ears and heart. But one day when she is older, she learns that her daddy really did know best and he that every one of his instructions to her was because he loved her. Then she realizes it was her own limited understanding that was the problem, not her daddy’s apparent lack of love or character.
One thing is certain. God is God and I am not. It is never appropriate for the created to sit in judgment of the Creator. When we presume to climb up into the seat of judgment and judge the Everalsting Almighty Uncreated One, we have stepped far beyond our bounds. Into the realm of the absurdly sinful. I sat there once and, by His grace, was made aware of my cosmic presumption and enabled to step down and humble myself before Him as I should.
Pride is what made Lucifer sit in that same seat, presuming to judge God. Not exactly the company I desire to keep. You?
“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does God require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
There is peace and life and freedom for those who are willing to so walk. Not for those who think they know better than God Himself.
Barry Pierce
It’s very important now a days more than ever to try to be accurate to what we know and what we really don’t know. It is because of stating things we don’t know as facts that so many can be so easily left a non-believer. When we talk publically we have the biggest responsiblity as Jesus said the greatest sin is blasphemey against the Holy Spirit not himself. The Holy spirit is the mind of God. It’s the living information/data that Jesus represented to us by taking over a human suit of cloths to talk to us at our comprehension level and ability to run the show of what we think, say and do.
now pertaining to what Barry said: “Jesus endorsed the Scriptures without reservation. His personal fulfilment of prophecy, His miracles, His morally spotless life and His resurrection all serve as proof that He is who He says He is — the divine Son of God. His endorsement of the Bible is THE swing vote. When God Himself — Jesus — says the Bible is true, I’m very inclined to believe it — despite the difficulties.
The testimony of the Holy Spirit within the believer is also strong testimony.”
One thing here that is not a “fact” is knowing exactly how he lived as a human being. I know believers fear that he could have done many of the things we do. He was certainly tempted was he not? He was certainly challenged and wished he did not have to “drink the cup” given him to drink. He also said when he was called “good” that “none are good but my Father…” He also spoke to where to put our priorities – judging others behavior or our own – teaching his viewpoint or our own? He said there were priorities – “swing at a gnat swallow a camel” – a gnat is a problem but hardly worth the effort when we then neglect the camel that we then swallow while swinging at the gnat. This pretty much sums up religions, however well meaning – they even create gnats to swing at while missing the larger issues. For instance the largest issue before the world right now seems to be the movement to make God and Jesus and Moses non-existant. That is far, far, far, far more offensive to God and Jesus as it’s blasphemy agaisnt the holy spirit (living mind of God) and worse yet “teaching humans” that as reality dispite the literal tons of evidence to the contrary – They DO EXIST and not as a myth – that’s what Lucifer wants to make THEM (God and Jesus and Moses) into.
This also speaks to the topic here that I’ve tried to take different angles on some of which I agree with Barry about – this one isolated incident, if we take it as a seeming inconsistancy and then say, well I guess it’s ALL inconsistant, that is our choice and that’s fine as it is anyone’s option OR they can take the much harder path as it’s not the way the masses tend to go and choose to realize it’s perhaps a gnat so continue on in one’s quest to know the truth about it all.
And the same with Jesus life – how he lived it, whether or not he ever kissed a girl or whatever. It’s all diverting ALL he said and did that was many times superiour to any of us and in many ways as clearly depicted by the non-human ways he set forth for us to emulate that included even making our thoughts single minded in service to HIM as our Father in the flesh (at that time), but more recently, and you might hate this one Ti and Do, (Jesus’ Father and Jesus (both souls that don’t have those old names anymore and didn’t before they took over the bodies they did when they had their task to do on Earth with the humans they singled out for their next lesson step).
Lucifer has even saw to it that the name Jesus would be worked in his favor. Barry was right about how Lucifer put himself on the same level as Jesus and God and that is why it is said by many that he doesn’t exist either and why so many are running away from one distortion (religion) to an equal or worse distortion called “spirituality” where nothing exists except their praise of self and of humanity (mammon) that does have it’s value but only as a “stepping stone” for a soul to be nutured by the Kingdom of God’s reps to a hopeful graduation termed “harvest” which occurred in 1997 when the souls saved by Jesus 2000 years ago were brought back by God (not reincarnation which is where the idea came from but was also distorted for some to think it applied to all who died) to take their next and in this case final lesson step in the overall overcoming process of learning to Give our All, even so far as to “lay down our physical life (SELF sacrifice) that is ONLY authorized BY a fully present physical incarnation of a member from God’s Kingdom WHEN They have seen us demonstrate a consistant desire to give our all, that goes way beyond talk or participation in a club (religion) and will always be seen by those who are in the clubs and those who are not as insane and cultish, though they are in fact the dangerous sub-cultures because of how they glue their members to a false, sacrine idea of what is REQUIRED to become a member of God’s kingdom. It’s the hardest job a human can do and has the most rewared BUT it is not for everyone at the same time. Now we are in the stage of spreading info about Ti and Do, which is the exact same info – every jot and tittle as Jesus and Moses gave though each most appropriate to the human souls God was nurturing all along.
I have said nothing here that is not scriptural and I challenge anyone to challenge me on that. However, I am far, far from perfect so can make mistakes and do, but I ask for help to see my mistakes as I ask for that now, so I don’t misrepresent what Ti and Do gave me from my 19 years their dedicated student, who left them but now knows why and knows that in my remaining time in this body I need to reveal the true nature and mission of Ti and Do which automatically includes the true nature and mission of Moses and Jesus as they are all the same two souls who came as the Two Witnesses. Check out my video’s if you can on youtube under the channel name: 3spm and/or my blogtalkradio.com/sawyer channel every thursday night 11-1am est.