Subject:
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Re: The Parable ot the Tortured Debtor
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 21 Mar 2004 17:04:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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388 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
> I'm following up to o-t.debate not to be combative, just because I'm not really
> discussing the MOC much.
That makes sense.
> I don't think it's the punishment that is the novelty here, but rather God's
> forgiveness. At least the Xtian viewpoint is that Christ offered complete
> forgiveness through his sacrifice, as opposed to constantly seeking forgiveness
> through animal sacrifices and other atonements.
OK. I don't think I'll ever understand why killing an animal would incline God
toward forgiveness. But even taking for granted that that system of atonement
exists, I am further completely baffled as to how/why the act of a one-time
killing the son of God somehow obviates the previous system. But if you believe
that it does (with or without understanding the mechanics behind it), I can
certainly see that it's convenient not have to kill animals for God anymore.
But usually Jesus's death is seen as more than just a time-saver for the rest of
us, right?
> The expected action of the king
> would be to throw the debtor into prison, with ensuing torture.
Sure, I might expect that of an *earthly* king.
> The unexpected
> action is the willingess to forgive.
That comes as unexpected to some degree, of a *human* king.
> The application is that accepting this
> forgiveness also means going and acting in a forgiving manner: "Forgive us our
> trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
OK, but I guess my perspective is this: OF COURSE God should forgive people.
What less should anyone expect of a supreme being? That's not news. And sure,
we should be "godlike" by forgiving others. But what stands out in the parable
to me, assuming that the actions of the king represents those of God, is that
God sends people off to be tortured if they aren't forgiving enough.
Maybe that's not the traditional moral of the story, but for an outsider, this
is what stands out about the story, and why it seems significant.
> > Do humans owe God money? How'd that happen?
> It's fairly common in various Xtian usage to use financial language when talking
> about sin and atonement: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors"
> "Jesus paid the price" or "Christ ransomed our souls" etc. The symbolism is
> simply that our sin against God (the 50,000,000 silver pieces) is much greater
> than the small slights from other people (the 100 silver pieces).
I see. So by sinning, we are all (since I understand everyone sins) in a
position of owing God something that we could never afford to pay. I can't say
I see why anyone would buy into that notion, but I guess I can at least see how
that system works. So if we can imagine for a moment that sin didn't exist, we
wouldn't need God's forgiveness, and nobody would need Jesus to die for them.
> One advantage of these common labels is that they form a type of shorthand
> within Xtian circles. If you say "The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant" I know
> immediately what you mean.
Right. I remember at some point in college I realized that the inserted story
headings were bothering me -- that they too often reflected a later theological
bent on the story. My desire was to approach the Bible without any later
theology attached to it -- to just take it at face value. So I trained myself
to skip all the headings. Unfortunately it's a habit I got so used to, I
*still* sometimes find that I will skip right over chapter or story headings in
other (non-Bible) books. Anyhow, with The Brick Testament, I still try to
maintain the approach toward the Bible of someone just reading the it for the
first time, someone without later theological knowledge of "how to properly
interpret the stories". So usually, from that perspective, whetever strikes me
most about a particular story, that's what I'll see as the point, and that's
where I'll derive the story titles.
I guess the over-arching idea is that: this is the Bible, God's one guidebook
for mankind. Seems that any individual should just be able to pick it up and
read it and glean knowledge without needing other people to come in and tell
them "what the stories *really* mean".
Now on to the building comments...
> > I was mostly interested in trying a floor pattern design using updide-down
> > 1x1's, thinking that it might look neat.
>
> It works well with the upside down arches, too.
Once I decided on the upside-downness of the room, I wanted to take advantage of
it by using some pieces that don't normally have inverted corollaries. Since
this is the case for just about all arches pieces, they seemed like a good idea
to have fun with.
> I've seen odd lighting issues like this, too, where you move the
> light source a few degrees and the colors come out very different in the photo.
Yes. Strange.
> Looking forward to the next parable.
The next one is all done. But the host server is performing very slowly these
past couple of days, so I'm hesitant to announce the new story just yet. But
look for it very soon.
-Brendan
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The Parable ot the Tortured Debtor
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| (...) Sure. We would see it as accomplishing several things. In addition to acting as one-time, complete forgiveness (in contrast to repeated, limited sacrifices), more significantly by Christ standing in our place on the cross, we are then able to (...) (20 years ago, 24-Mar-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The Parable ot the Tortured Debtor
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| I'm following up to o-t.debate not to be combative, just because I'm not really discussing the MOC much. (...) I don't think it's the punishment that is the novelty here, but rather God's forgiveness. At least the Xtian viewpoint is that Christ (...) (20 years ago, 17-Mar-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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