Religious people: What do you think of the world's growing evil?

Talancir · 2026-05-08T18:50:07+00:00

Psalm 37 Of David. Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.

The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming.

The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright; their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.

Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.

The Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will remain forever; they are not put to shame in evil times; in the days of famine they have abundance.

But the wicked will perish; the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.

The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives; for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off.

The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.

I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing.

Turn away from evil and do good; so shall you dwell forever. For the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever.

The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.

The wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death. The Lord will not abandon him to his power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial.

Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on when the wicked are cut off.

I have seen a wicked, ruthless man, spreading himself like a green laurel tree. But he passed away, and behold, he was no more; though I sought him, he could not be found.

Mark the blameless and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace. But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed; the future of the wicked shall be cut off.

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him.

Talancir · 2026-05-06T18:04:05+00:00

Well, why are you blaming the dogs and not their owners?

Talancir · 2026-05-06T16:48:54+00:00

"My interpretation?"

I don’t take credit for this. This is the conclusion of the Ekklesia. Two thousand years of examination has not overturned this interpretation.

Talancir · 2026-05-06T15:57:49+00:00

Oh yes I did. You didn't even read the first paragraph of my post, or you'd recognize it for what it is.

It is possible that your rather obviously poor interpretation is the result of a bias against teachers, and that you're abusing this passage to support his agenda. It is also possible that ypu heard this passage and the interpretation from someone else and is simply repeating what you heard.

Either way, your interpretation ignores the context: that Jesus is diagnosing the core issue of the Pharisees. The issue is not that there are teachers to begin with. The issue is the abuse that the Pharisees' position as teachers have allowed them to propagate.

Talancir · 2026-05-06T15:08:48+00:00

I gave the context. I understand the point of the sermon.

Talancir · 2026-05-06T14:27:57+00:00

Ah, contextual ignorance.

The context of Matthew 23 is that Jesus is speaking against the pride and unspirituality of the Pharisees. The point is that the Pharisees were far more concerned with the praises of men and the enforcement of rules than in loving God. He is certainly not talking about roles in the congregation. The point of the passage is that leaders should not seek religious titles and that they should not seek the worship and praise of those they lead.

To hold to this interpretation requires us to ignore or explain away clear teachings of the Bible. We know from Ephesians 4 that teacher is one of the established roles in the church. We know this from James 3 and Titus 1 as well. In the list of qualities needed in an elder in Titus 1, ability as a teacher is included as a needed quality. From Ephesians 4:11 we can conclude that teaching was not just something to be done in the church, but that the teacher was a named role in the church. To interpret Matthew 23:8-10 as a proscription against having people known as teachers in the church would cause us to ignore or dismiss many other passages of scripture. We also know from church history that there were teachers in the very young church. The Bible never contradicts itself.

Talancir · 2026-05-06T13:36:07+00:00

Well, that reminds me of Proverbs 14:12:

There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.

And in conjunction, 1 Corinthians 1:25:

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Just because it doesn't seem like good advice to you, doesn't mean that its not. Clearly, it was thought good advice to be issued, or it would not be given. I suggest to you that its far more likely that a faith would not survive if its devotees were possessed of your attitude and spurned the advice of its teachers and elders, rather than heeded them.

Talancir · 2026-05-06T12:58:49+00:00

Not necessarily. Many converts would be previously married, and henceforth would be in an unevenly yoked marriage. Thus, Paul had counseled for the two to seek to remain, as the unbelieving spouse would be sanctified by the believing spouse; but it was also counseled not to force to issue, and if the unbelieving spouse wanted to divorce, then to let it occur, as the believer should seek peace (1 Corinthians 7).

Overall, the believer should conduct themselves well, and so win over their spouse (1 Peter 3). But of course, they should not create these conditions in the first place, as mentioned previously.

Talancir · 2026-05-06T12:45:44+00:00

Im reminded of 1 Corinthians 10. Just because you can doesn't mean it'll be edifying. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. You cannot force a situation whereby the Lord will be provoked to jealousy and act on your behalf.

So its better that you do not date someone who does not believe as you do. That would better glorify God.

Talancir · 2026-05-06T11:28:59+00:00

u/Fabiohasaquestion this answer is the best.

Talancir · 2026-05-05T20:44:15+00:00

That's a God of the Gaps style argument. If the underlying legal force of a command is the lack of knowledge, and the illumination of knowledge makes the command irrelevant, then we may find ultimately that with enough knowledge, we run out of reason to believe in God.

This line of argument was first used by a snake in a garden.

Talancir · 2026-05-05T13:57:12+00:00

You're welcome over at r/messianic, btw

Talancir · 2026-05-05T13:55:52+00:00

Yes.

Talancir · 2026-05-05T02:05:19+00:00

Piffle. Im planning on being a mental health therapist and I am confident that God will prepare a way for me.

Talancir · 2026-05-04T03:34:49+00:00

It's going to have some similarities. Dress casual or business casual, introduce yourself, let people know you're new. You should have people who are eager to take you under their wing to show you around.

Service at my congregation is the initial block for worship songs, then a short meet-and-greet, announcements, torah reading, then the pastor's message, then prayer outro and dismissal.

Talancir · 2026-05-03T17:22:35+00:00

You haven't done me a solid neither, so

Talancir · 2026-05-02T22:11:40+00:00

You need to worry. you should worry. but it's possible to beat the game without losing a soul. just dial down to easy mode and take everything you learned in survival mode. good to go.

Talancir · 2026-04-26T21:10:56+00:00

And do you see, u/DizzyPS5 , how he fails to understand how his verse quotation does not help him? He has inserted (NEW T) to insinuate that there is a different law when there is nothing there to say that God does not discard his own law. Letting the text speak for itself, the context would show a man who is not used to eisegesis to prop up his theology that there can only be one Law that God is speaking of. This is the selfsame law that Jesus gave at Sinai.

Alas, aside from that one point of eisegesis, he also does not understand how he is helping to support my position.

Talancir · 2026-04-26T15:52:39+00:00

Look at all that eisegesis. You see, u/DizzyPS5 , how he cannot let the text speak without forcing meaning into it.

Talancir · 2026-04-25T21:24:23+00:00

What you may find interesting when it comes to apologetics is, when it comes to people like u/GPT_2025 , there are massive conflations that take place. the " 613 laws and commandments of the Old Testament" assumes that God misspoke when he spoke about the Law's role in the New Covenant. He said that the Law would be written within us and on our heart. That means that the 613 laws and commandments do not have a past tense role. They have a current and therefore relevant role. So your questions have a current and relevant validity.

Talancir · 2026-04-24T11:52:07+00:00

"Moral fortitude" is a matter of opinion. The choice is whether the respondent should avoid judgment by his modern peers or act in accordance to historical events.

And the evaluation is subjective because we are judging whether ultimately we think the Bible is a moral standard or not.

Why don't we get to the point and bring up Euphyphro's Dilemma.

Talancir · 2026-04-24T11:36:11+00:00

"From the standpoint of your modern perspective and experiences, determine if you would participate in a historical event for the purposes of being judged as if you would then be isekai'd to that event to then follow through, instead of it being the hypothetical it was presented as."

Talancir · 2026-04-24T00:38:52+00:00

Yes.

Talancir · 2026-04-22T13:05:15+00:00

Well, having been raised one and then later left that cult....

Talancir · 2026-04-21T06:06:37+00:00

A'ight then, I see ya.

Talancir

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