Those who see as Christ saw and speak as He speaks, know and speak the truth. They no longer think as men.

They discard all the views once held which conflict with the testimony of Jesus. It means that what they thought they saw God doing in the Old Testament, must be exchanged for another and different view, the new one coinciding with the revelation of God as given by His Son during His earthly ministry.

In reality, it is to say that the life and teachings of Christ are the measure by which every notion about God must be tested. Any view of God the Father, no matter how logical or long-standing it may be, which in any way differs from the ways of Christ, is to be discarded as error.

This must be done even though at first it is impossible to see where it actually is in error. Those who do this will assuredly have correct views of the character and ways of God. This will, in turn, bring blessing and benefit beyond estimate.

@Michael: I appreciate the comment, but it doesn’t really clear anything up for me. I can buy that the Gospels are a lens through which we can view the OT and gain understanding. Unfortunately, the understanding thus gained is that the OT is full of outright lies, or, at minimum, if it was written by inspired men, those men failed pretty badly at receiving inspiration.

Sorry God. Although you’re all knowing, everywhere, and all powerful–you obviously didn’t know what you were doing when you inspired people to write scripture. We know better than you.

Anyway, as I said, glad you’re enjoying the blog. And congratulations on your recent marriage. Don’t know anything about her other than she’s a hottie. May the two of you be blessed in your life together. And if you have any issues you’re seriously struggling with, feel free to ask….all my friends will tell you that I’m not ever shy about tossing in my opinion. lol

Very, very well said. As a twenty-something recovering from fundamentalism, these are the issues that I have been struggling with for a while now.

Just found your site (via reddit), so I’m looking forward to reading some more of your stuff. You may be interested in some of my recent posts as well

Take care, keep writing.

Of course not. Christian apologists will quite happily condemn me as a heretic, as they do anyone who dares proclaim that the teachings of Jesus are collectively more important than Christian doctrines which aren’t based in same. As to be expected, really, since they’d all be out of a job (or hobby) if Jesus’ teachings were the basis of Christianity. Those teachings need little or no apology or defense; it’s not until you start tossing in Christian doctrines that Jesus never mentioned that inconsistencies and the need for “apologists” make their appearance. As for who is the heretic, given that I’m insisting on the primacy of Jesus’ teachings while the apologists insist on the primacy of Christian doctrine, I feel that Mt 5:11 applies.

The Old Testament is really just a vestigial collection of semi-historical oral histories that have about as much application to our lives as, say, a fable of Aesop?

That sounds about right, although with a few notable exceptions, I’d say that that’s being generous. The OT finds its basis in the previously-existing, demonstrably inferior religion of the Jews, and the difficulty in its use is revealed in how few times Jesus quoted from it when making his points. The difference between the OT and Aesop’s Fables is that you don’t have to throw away a third of the fables just to avoid offending one’s God-given reason.

As for the excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount, I’ll just say this: I find it interesting that Christians use Mt 5:17 to justify abandoning parts of the Law that they don’t care for, saying “the Law has been fulfilled”, but then turn around and use Mt 5:18-19 to justify themselves when they wish to insist that some cherry-picked part of that Law still applies. I also find it interesting that so many insist on a literal interpretation of those verses start making excuses real quick as they continue to read the rest of that particular discourse, which includes things like not resisting evil, not leaving one’s wife, casting judgment upon others, and not worrying about the future.

And of course one would need to have righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees since they were the ones who fanatically held to a literal interpretation of the scriptural Law. Holding to many of those laws is quite obviously unrighteous.

Although, I will agree that I don’t think there should even be an argument about this. One can believe that God’s relationship to us is that of a loving father, a portrait that Jesus himself consistently painted, or you can believe in the doctrines of Christianity. The two can’t be reconciled.

Do you for some reason think that hundreds of years worth of Christian apologists have just been side-swiped by this novel idea of deprecating the OT? The Old Testament is really just a vestigial collection of semi-historical oral histories that have about as much application to our lives as, say, a fable of Aesop?

It might be beneficial, then, since you believe that any ’scripture that wouldn’t be printed in red in a red-letter edition of the Bible’ is suspect, to read some of Jesus’ own words:

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lamp stand; and it gives light to all who are in the house.

Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished.

Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” ~ Matthew 5:13-20 (NASB)

Now, either you believe that Jesus meant what He said there, or you believe he He didn’t. I don’t think this one was a parable. I don’t even think there ought to be an argument about this.

@Robert: I will agree that God and Jesus don’t contradict each other when one has a proper understanding. This is my main point, actually, in that it doesn’t take a very high intelligence to see that the God that Jesus taught about does indeed contradict the picture of God presented in the Old Testament. One seriously has to do some outrageous logical contortions to attempt to justify the two. That the Bible excels at contradicting itself (assuming one believes that it is of all equal weight and interpretation) makes it clear that human error has crept into it somewhere. Choose to continue to follow the God of the Jews if you wish, but as for me, I’ll stick to the God that Jesus spoke of.

You mention homosexuality as being confirmed both in the OT and NT as being bad. But had you understood my post, you would realize that I was arguing not from the point of view of OT vs. NT, but from the teachings of Jesus versus everything else. None of Jesus’ teachings support “fundamentalist” attitudes towards homosexuals; his teachings are clearly quite the opposite.

And while Jesus did indeed say “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s”, I’d point out that it is quite debatable that “obedience” is something that is automatically due one’s government. Your misrepresentation indicates not only bias, but is precisely the same kind of logic games the Pharisees in that very story were using to attempt to ensnare Jesus. Regardless, let us use your own definition, which included the words “…unless it contradicts the clear word or will of God”. Which is precisely what war does. Jesus taught that the will of God was that we should love each other as we loved ourselves, and that when faced with evil, we should not resort to the same thing in order to fight it.

I do, however, agree that Jesus “clarified and corrected the religious thinking of the day”. I further state that giving full, undistracted attention to his teachings could clarify and correct religious thinking today, something that would be wholly unnecessary if so-called Christianity was actually based in his actual teachings rather than a bunch of stuff he never taught which was decided upon by majority vote of a mercenary committee convened in 325CE.