Good one, dear Ding! Both as to Nineveh/Jonah... AND 1975/Franz!
Peace to you!
A slave of Christ,
SA
by turtleturtle 23 Replies latest watchtower bible
Good one, dear Ding! Both as to Nineveh/Jonah... AND 1975/Franz!
Peace to you!
A slave of Christ,
SA
We have a dilemma here; Malachi 3;6 "For I
the lord do not change.
James 1:17 " Father of lights with whom there is no
variation or shadow due to change".
And the killer, Numders 23;19 "God is not man, that he
should lie, or a son of man, that he should repent.
Has he said, and will he not do it. Or has he spoken, and
will he not fulfil? So did he change his mind or did he
lie? Or did he forget what he said like the WT.
I'd respond by saying I won't be taking any more end-time warnings seriously. As long as I drink my milk every morning, floss my teeth and hug my children, I'm good to go.
Malachi 3;6 "For I the lord do not change.
The Most Holy One of Israel, JAH of Armies, doesn't change, dear jam (peace to you!). He was, has always been, and will always be merciful. He shared that about Himself long, long before Jonah was sent to Nineveh. The Jews knew this about Him (which is why they always threw themselves on His mercy after having screwed up, royally sometimes)... and as relatives of Israel (they come through Ham and Israel through Shem, both sons of Noah, and all of whom worshipped JAH... of Armies - Genesis 10:1, 6, 8, 11; Luke 4:36) so did the people of Nineveh.
Showing another/others mercy is not an indicating of one changing, dear one... but only changing one's mind/heart. As you and I often do, without changing ourselves.
Again, peace to you!
A slave of Christ,
SA
The story of Jonah was never intended to be taken literally.
The really crazy part of the parable was Nineveh repenting not the whole fish thing.
It was like somebody telling a story about Rick Warren being sent to Kabul to tell all the Taliban to repent or else "and Lo they did immediately repent and got baptised."
Its hyperbole.
The point of the story is Jonah's xenophobia - he cared more about the plant than the people.
It was written as a protest in the times of Isreal's post-exile frenzy of ethnic cleansing. Ruth has a similar purpose.
Read in context it is a brilliant piece of literature. Read like actual history it is complete nonsense.
AGuest, so if my 5 year old grandson burn down our
house and I tell him , I,m going to tan your hide, but
I show him mercy and I change my mind (right). The only
reason I didn,t skin his hide is not because I,m showing
mercy, it,s because I might lose control. So showing mercy
or changing ones mind is the same. I may be wrong on this
but that is the way I see it.
One other thing AGuest; Mercy is given to some and others
Gods show no mercy. Why spare the ninevites and not those
wiped out in the flood, not one single family worthy of a little
mercy. So in other words, those who was shown no mercy
will never,never, never repent even their kids, grandkids, great great grandkids
will never repent.
sounds good, let's compare both accounts in scripture.......
Since the good answers are already taken, I might try, "What convinces you that Jonah is anything more than just an ancient story?"
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"Jehovah changed his mind about the Ninevites, didn't he? Did that mean he was a false prophet? No."
The statement presupposes God had not left options on the table. I’m not so sure that’s the case.
But if we do presuppose God did change His mind then we have this: it’s one thing for God to change His mind and something else for a person (or persons) who say they speak for God to say either they or God has changed His mind.
The biblical God is supposed to be omnipotent. Omnipotence means you get to write the rules; hence if an omnipotent being says He has not falsely prophesied then it’s so because that omnipotent being says it’s so. This is a feature of omnipotence often missed by those who speak of it. An omnipotent God can, for example, say something that is blatantly untrue and at the same time not tell a lie because an omnipotent entity can do both at the same time, if He wants to. That’s an aspect of omnipotence.
Marvin Shilmer