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Waterrock	Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...		Lead	[-]
Posts: 1168 09/27/05 18:55:29	Tags : None Q: In Matthew 18:8-9, Jesus advises the disciples to mutilate themselves by cutting off their hands and plucking out their eyes. He says its better to be maimed than to suffer the everlasting fire of hell. A: If cutting off my physical hand, or plucking out my physical eye, could transform my nature and turn me into a heavenly angel, possessing eternal life and a new spiritual body, would that not be a bargain? But doing such a thing will not produce such a result. Jesus statement is a conditional one, and the /if/ -- If your hand or foot causes you to sin (or stumble), and If your eye causes you to sin, -- ought to elicit self-examination, so that the listener may realize that the sin-spawning problem is not truly in ones hand or foot or eye, but in ones nature. See also the comments on Matthew 5:29-30. Yours in Christ, Waterrock
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utopian indigent	Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	#1	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1317 05/16/06 23:50:23	Wow. I wish I had that way with words.
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Yark Hutprancer	Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	#2	[url]	[-]
Posts: 4004 05/17/06 08:54:46	Me too. However, if I had that way with words, I wouldn't waste it on weak attempts to rationalize irrational primitive religious texts. "If I were God, and I made myself into a regular ol' person, I would have written down the stuff I said myself. I would have had people there with me taking notes. I wouldn't rely on people from the generation after my death to get the story right." - i would be an astronaut on the SAB Message Board
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Yark Hutprancer	Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	#3	[url]	[-]
Posts: 4004 05/17/06 09:09:48	But as the listener (or the reader now), that is not the message I get, that "the sin-spawning problem is not truly in ones hand or foot or eye, but in ones nature." That is your own interpretation of what you see as the entirety of the Christian message being laid on top of the text here. You are clearly injecting meaning. A simple reading of the text results in a confusion as to why Jesus would say things that are clearly lunatic if taken literally. One then assumes that he must be using some form of hyperbole, although it's not clear what his point was. What exactly are we to cut off? Anything? Why use such brutal text if his intent was to sell a spritual message? Two problems with his approach comes to mind: 1. It is VERY irrespobsible to recommend cutting body parts off (or killing others or other stupid violent acts) even if one is using metaphor. You never know what people will do with that kind of thing. 2. It makes him look like a barbarian that he can't come up with better forms of communication than recommending self-mutilation. If his intent was to communicate some message about the "spirtual" nature of the human condition, there is no reason to talk about the hands and eyes. He could simply make his point clearly in terms of the spirit as you did in your interpretation of his words. What's really happening here, though, is that the authors of the text simply gathered lots of nifty-sounding religious ideas and sayings and put them together with little rhyme, reason, or organization. Thus you end up with spiritual messages mixed with ridiculous ideas like a person being better off entering heaven with his evil hand cut off than to bring it with him. You keep trying to make this set of primitive ancient writings seem reasonable, but it is clear that you continue to stretch. "If I were God, and I made myself into a regular ol' person, I would have written down the stuff I said myself. I would have had people there with me taking notes. I wouldn't rely on people from the generation after my death to get the story right." - i would be an astronaut on the SAB Message Board
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utopian indigent	Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	#4	[url]	[-]
Posts: 1317 05/18/06 00:47:54	*Quote:* It is VERY irrespobsible to infer meaning other than the words themselves, and the context, and they clearly say "if". It does also give a shocking simile of the relative importance of eternal and temporal existence/dimsensions. However, it is also intentionally open to find insanity if you must find it. "If Jesus lived today...would you make it your life's work to have him institutionalised?" from Savage Garden
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Yark Hutprancer	Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	#5	[url]	[-]
Posts: 4004 05/18/06 01:01:25	*Quote:* If Jesus lived today...would you make it your life's work to have him institutionalised? If he was recommending that people cut out their eyes? Yes. If he was a genuinely nice guy? Of course not. "If I were God, and I made myself into a regular ol' person, I would have written down the stuff I said myself. I would have had people there with me taking notes. I wouldn't rely on people from the generation after my death to get the story right." - i would be an astronaut on the SAB Message Board
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Rev Etherman	Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	#6	[url]	[-]
Posts: 401 05/28/06 09:15:05	*Quote:* If your hand or foot causes you to sin (or stumble), and If your eye causes you to sin, -- ought to elicit self-examination, so that the listener may realize that the sin-spawning problem is not truly in ones hand or foot or eye, but in ones nature. What if you have alien hand syndrome which causes you to molest young boys' genitals? Should you chop off your hand as Jesus recommends? If God wanted us to be Atheists we'd be born that way.
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Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	09/27/05 18:55:29	Waterrock
Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	05/16/06 23:50:23	utopian indigent
Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	05/17/06 08:54:46	Yark Hutprancer
Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	05/17/06 09:09:48	Yark Hutprancer
Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	05/18/06 00:47:54	utopian indigent
Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	05/18/06 01:01:25	Yark Hutprancer
Re: Matthew 18:8-9 - If Your Hand Makes You Sin...	05/28/06 09:15:05	Rev Etherman