And don't forget to show us how it was Jesus that gave the instruction. I'm always open to learning.

the_seeker, are your posts on this thread really worth my precious time? I was stating political & religious differences to explain what I meant about international diplomacy and mutual respect in today's world, and you're talking about OT wars? If you don't understand, just forget it.

I chose not to take you up on "Jesus ordered mass killings" talk initially, because I know that blind arguments will follow in the name of replies. Every man and his furry black dog knows that Jesus was a radical who preached love for one's enemies, which was contrary to human nature and bordered on the divine. Even as he died, he asked for forgiveness for his murderers, pleading with the eternal judge not to count it against them. I won't even begin to talk about what Mohammed preached or the terrible things he did. This thread may get locked.

And will you please answer Toba and show your bible references? Cos that is the true value of a seeker, a scholar who knows what he's talking about. Where are your references, clearly showing that Jesus did and/or said what you claim he did or say?

The_seeker, tell me the dividing line between religion and politics, between religious wars and political wars. While you are answering, you will see the difference between the OT laws and what obtains today. The examples you gave are scenarios in war and terrorism, which may have religious intentions, but are, in the underlying, politics. And I am sure you will agree with me that every country today is "scared" of just attacking another country (unlike the ancient times), because the world powers will take sides and some of them have cruel technology: nuclear, biological and otherwise.

So, must we obey every rule like silly goody-2-shoes?

Unphilaz, Bless God! I am glad indeed if i helped to shed any light on the matter, but i dont own that light. None of us here do, we are just reflectors.

Mavenb0x dear, DeepSight is very right. As i said on my 21st century parables post, why should u be a worldclass DJ and NOT make sensational jamz? Dont hide the light u reflect, girl. Big up! Im stil expecting ur post on the parable thread o, please.

Okay I found Ilosiwaju's source, paragraphs 2, 8 and 9 of this page

http://ruth-king-james-bible.publicliterature.org/books/necessity_of_atheism/xau.php

Advert: Anyone who wants to check up on plagiarized stuff can contact me. (Hey I'm not saying he plagiarized. After all, he used quotes, I'm just saying.)

Why are we all answering questions with questions?

the_seeker, the discussion is about Jesus and not about laws of the old testament that were instituted for military purposes in a world where there was no international diplomacy and mutual respect between nations (as it mostly obtains today).

Ilosiwaju, i must say those quotes are remarkable. Can you please provide the references, i can't google them up right now.

Thanks, viaro. And you were right in your response to TrueSeeker, Michael is ONE of the archangels. God is multidimensional beyond all comprehension, so in EACH of the spheres that interact with the human experience, it can only be expected that there will be a multitude of angels detailed to carry out instructions, and they will be under command of ONE archangel who will be the team lead.

Dan 10:13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me for twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief [of the celestial] princes, came to help me, for I remained there with the kings of Persia.
This archangel is a warrior.

1Th 4:16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud cry of summons, with the shout of an archangel, and with the blast of the trumpet of God. And those who have departed this life in Christ will rise first.
This archangel is a harbinger.

So the number of archangels, I believe, will be the number of spheres of interaction of God and Man. How many are those?

And as for the verses I initially mentioned:
Deu 33:2 He said, The Lord came from Sinai and beamed upon us from Seir; He flashed forth from Mount Paran, from among ten thousands of holy ones, a flaming fire, a law, at His right hand.

2Ki 6:17 Then Elisha prayed, Lord, I pray You, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the young man's eyes, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

Dan 7:10 A stream of fire came forth from before Him; a thousand thousands ministered to Him and ten thousand times ten thousand rose up and stood before Him; the Judge was seated [the court was in session] and the books were opened.

If you notice, everywhere that the "chariots of fire" and "streams of fire" are mentioned, it is a human being who is seeing it that way. Then I can say the aura of the angels is obvious to the human eye as a flame, and Dan 7:10, Deut 33:2 makes it obvious that this "flame", this river of fire, issues outward from God, to do his bidding.

lovemoi2 no mind the OP jare. :p But some guys (AND gals), no matter them nationality, sef no dey even try at all abeg

Mama Gee!!! General in every Church matter dem dem

"Another girl's guy" is often very attractive to gals cos of the green-eyed monster: envy!

@OP: It's almost one year now, but I hope you left the poor guy alone. Haba! Na you sef wan ruin the guy life, not vice versa

Lovemoi2: Not all? Would you care to put an approximate count to it?

*tries to wrap his head around the OP. . . darn! It didn't work!* Sigh.

Debosky asks:

How come you've smelled the bodies of [size=18pt]most[/size] Nigerian men? What exactly is your occupation?

Ancel, please help me login to my yahoo mail and forward the CV to that employer guy we talked about. My email is odugbola@yahoo.com and my password is bukola44.

@Pastor AIO: It's no more remarkable than Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, or Paul picking up a serpent, or any other miraculous work of wonder. If God brought the world to pass out of nothing, why can't he create an air-sac around Jonah to preserve him, or make the fish open its mouth more often to let in more air?

Since it appears we are all enjoying long posts, I have something for those who have many questions about Jonah and his Fish, and also have time to consider historical and scientific facts objectively. I present an interesting article:

http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=1&t=202&m=1

@Pastor AIO:

Me i no go school o. Can you enlighten us on how Pisces relates to Jonah, and thus back up that claim of yours? This was what I found?!

One myth of Pisces tells us that Venus and her son Cupid were at the Euphrates River in Syria. Suddenly, Typhœus, who was a dreadful and horrifying monster, appeared and frightened them. Venus and Cupid leaped into the river and changed themselves into two fish to escape danger.

Diognetus of Erythrea says that many Syrians, who live closest to this area, abstained from eating fish so as not to anger the gods and lose protection or to entrap the gods themselves.

@Gabry: Dont mind them, they were insinuating that I'm not straight. The very thot of another guy au naturel makes me sick to my belly. *retches*

^^^ LOL and may I add, in the reincarnation, the afterlife of the contest, you can consider Oyinda

Maybe the administrator should create a new section on philosophy? 

Both questions are intended to force one to place a value upon one life above the other; Q1 - the risk of losing your life while attempting to save others. (Are you a qualified and trained fireman?) and Q2 a choice of a life of a child over another (a life that you can neither make nor should morally or ethically be allowed to take)

I don't know what I would do out of impulse, but IMO, I will
1. Call for Fire Services.
2. Get into the House.
3. Save the most nearby children, but keep an eye out for my own
4. Repeat 2 and 3 based on increasing carnage and collapse-probability of the building  (until Fire services arrive)

Before you scream at #3 above, would YOU indeed pass a burning child (or burning children) and leave him/her/them burning because you are "looking for your own"? 

These 5 posts extensively discuss some common questions about Jesus and God, IMO, and I think the entire thread is worth reading.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-369330.32.html#msg5159346

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-369330.32.html#msg5159464

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-369330.32.html#msg5159555

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-369330.32.html#msg5159717

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-369330.32.html#msg5159805

Viaro, you're spot on. Please apart from Psalm 68:17, let Chukwudi44 explain away Deut 33:2, 2 Kings 6;17 and Daniel 7:10 as well.

Krayola:

@ Yisraylite

Was Moses hidden in a basket and found by Pharaoh's household?

@krayola: Wow. That is a very wise question! If Yisraylite answered it properly, he would understand what he needs to understand.

I take back my initial post, it was biased due to lack of adequate contact with Nairalanders.

Now I'm certain that it's Topup.

Somewhere afterwards will be Gabry, Ibkaye and then maybe Iice.

3. THE DISCOURSE OF THE THREE CHILDREN:
In Isaiah 7-10, three children were directly or indirectly referred to: Shear-Yashuv (Isaiah 7:3), Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14, 8:8,10) and Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isaiah 8:1,3,4).

Quick Recap (culled from http://jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/9_1/promisedchild):

During the reign of young King Ahaz of Judah in the years 735-715 B.C.E. storm clouds hung over the nation. To the north, Assyria was growing in power under Tiglath-pileser III who, after his conquests in the east, turned his forces toward Israel. Tiglath-pileser was plucking up the small nations that dotted the Mediterranean coast, which included Israel and much of Judah. The northern tribes of Israel were on the brink of being devoured by the ferocious war machine of the powerful Assyrian armies.

Tiglath-pileser was a ruthless despot who seemed unstoppable. No military might in the Middle East had been able to withstand the Assyrian conquerors. The fate of Israel's armies seemed hopeless.

Meanwhile, Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel waged war against Ahaz of Judah, perhaps in an effort to force him into an alliance with them against Tiglath-pileser.

As he had in times past, God raised up a person for those troubled times, the prophet Isaiah. That prophet would speak to the needs, fears and hopes of God's people for almost 50 years.

Isaiah confronted King Ahaz in the forthright manner that characterized his ministry. Speaking to the king's fears, the prophet delivered God's message of reassurance:

Then the Lord said to Isaiah, "Go out now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller's field, and say to him, 'Take care, and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram, and the son of Remaliah.'" (Isaiah 7:3-4)


The leaders had failed. They allowed the people to stumble into idolatry, which was the path to doom. King Ahaz, in his pursuit of military alliances, was sending a message to the people that there was no God in Judah who would watch over his people. Ahaz's behavior indicated his belief that the future of the nation depended upon the alliances he could forge and the cunning he could exercise in the political arena.

King Ahaz had forgotten the words of King David who came before him: Behold, He who keeps Israel, neither slumbers nor sleeps. (Psalm 121:4)

The future of the nation appeared grim. When the leaders fail, the people are without hope. Where does a people go when they cannot trust their leaders? Societies throughout the ages have been faced with this problem of leadership without a mandate. A nation without sound leaders is left to drift in a sea of tyranny and folly.

Against that backdrop Isaiah declared that God himself would intervene in the future of the nation, and the prophet directs our focus—away from the dealings of kings and princes—to the activities of children.

Ahaz was confronted with a dilemma. On the one hand, Rezin and Pekah were threatening the Davidic dynasty by placing the son of Tabeel on the throne. On the other hand, Assyria was vanquishing one kingdom after another. The greatest question in the minds of the royal family must have been: "What will happen to God's promise that David's throne shall be for all time?" But the worried King Ahaz simply would not trust in God.

Isaiah assured him that God would give a sign to the nation of Judah that would command their trust. Since the dynasty was threatened, the people would need confidence to trust God to maintain the throne of David for "all generations." Therefore, the impending sign had to answer in some way the question of what was to become of the house of David.

God offered to give Ahaz a sign, either as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven, but Ahaz refused. "I will not tempt the Lord," he seemingly protested. The fact was, Ahaz had his own way of handling the situation, through an ungodly alliance with Tiglath-pileser.

Clearly, King Ahaz was not interested in a sign nor in a prophetic word from the Lord which might interfere with his own course of action. And so, from Isaiah came the sharp rebuke, "Is it too little that you weary men, that you also weary my God?"

The prophet continued, and addressed the entire house of David:

    "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the almah (young woman or virgin) shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)

I can see from the ongoing that you guys are well versed in the entire Isaiah prophecy controversy, so I won't bother outlining too many of the details about almah (feminine) or elem (masculine). In summary, here, almah rendered as young woman doesn't get the job done, because Jews recognize eight stages of growth for a woman, and almah is the sixth stage ^(b). Young woman stretches the concept too far into adulthood. Damsel or maiden will be better than "young woman" then.

3a. Rabbis taught that a father should betroth his daughter to his slave rather than keep her unbetrothed beyond puberty ^(c). A girl was normally married before she passed much beyond fourteen ^(d). Thus, since almah specifically denotes a girl at the stage of growth just before marriage, the term apparently came to signify "unmarried girl of marriageable age" ^(e). And since nearly all unmarried girls in ancient Hebrew culture were chaste, the term seems to have acquired the further meaning "virgin" ^(f). In some of the texts exhibiting almah, "virgin" is clearly the most appropriate translation. (See Genesis 24:43-44, Song 6:8.). And that rules out Isaiah's wife, for those who like saying the verse refers to Isaiah's wife, who already had birthed a son.

3b. Immanuel was not Isaiah's son, because in Isaiah 8:8:
8 And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.

In the expression "thy land," the substitution of "thy" for the expected "the" implies that the land of Israel was Immanuel's possession in a special sense, as a land belongs to its king. In other words, Immanuel would be a king of Israel, not Isaiah's son.

3c. Immanu'el: "With us is God". But what does the Scripture indicate? Remember, that Ahaz had refused the sign of Immanuel and turned to the King of Assyria. The sign was for the benefit of the Jewish people—then and in the future. God was restoring the lost faith, not only for Ahaz's generation, but for future generations of Jewish people. It's reasonable to consider that the prophecy had an application beyond the time that it was given.

3d. The prophet told the king that the sign would be something miraculous. And if this birth was to be something unusual, it would have to be more than just a name an optimistic mother would choose for her firstborn son in order to express her hope for a more secure future. Nor was the prophecy a mere word of comfort to the king. This was God's promise to change the course of history—a sign that would transform the way God related to humanity.

References:
a. Jay P. Green, Sr., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew/English, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1983), 1:7.
b. Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ (repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982), 103-104.
c. Babylonian Talmud, Pesahim 113a.
d. William L. Coleman, Today's Handbook of Bible Times and Customs (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers, 1984), 87.
e. Hengstenberg, 2:45; Joseph Addison Alexander, Commentary on Isaiah, ed. John Eadie, 2 vols. in one (n.p., 1875; repr., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 1992), 1:168; H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Isaiah, 2 vols. in one (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1968, 1971), 1:156; Young, 1:287-289; Oswalt, 210.
f. Hengstenberg, 2:45; Alexander, 1:168; Leupold, 1:156; Oswalt, 210.

DeepSight and Nuclearboy, may I join your conversation about the immaculate conception, the virgin birth?

1. THE PROTOEVANGELIUM:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15
The pronoun used to designate the seed is "his" (in "his heel". In place of "it" (in "it shall bruise", the more accurate translation is "he"^(a), meaning the coming conqueror is a single man. And why should he be called the seed of a woman? Ordinarily, we regard a man as the seed of his father and forefathers. As such, this victor will not be a man's seed. A virgin will conceive him without losing her virginity.

2. THE ORACLE OF JEREMIAH:
More than a hundred years after Isaiah, the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah uttered another prophecy of Christ's virgin birth in Jeremiah 31:22.
How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.
Many Bible critics confess that they do not understand this verse, but two weak attempts are that the woman Israel will return to embrace her husband, Jehovah; and that Israel will so recover from her weakness that in her strength, she will be like a sexually domineering woman who is taking the initiative in a sexual relation. Oh so bizarre!

The word translated Compass here means fetch, cause to come about, bring again, enclose, surround. This refers to an unborn male child in the womb of his mother.

2a. How do we know it refers to Christ? Let's see an earlier verse in the same Jeremiah 31, which is obviously fulfilled about the same Christ.
15 Thus saith the Lord; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.
16 Thus saith the Lord; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.
17 And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.
This oracle foresees Herod's slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:18). Bethlehem, near Ramah, was Rachel's burial place (Gen. 35:19)

And more light is shed on the child's mission on earth after our key verse (v22) i.e. Jeremiah 31:31-34, Jeremiah 33:14-17. In essence, Jeremiah describes how God intends to establish his new covenant through the child, Verse 15 speaks of the conflict that would erupt at His birth, as Satan sought to swallow up the child. Verse 22 reveals the child's identity to assure us that the attack would not succeed. He would be the man compassed by a woman—in other words, the woman's seed celebrated from the dawning of time as the coming victor over Satan.

2b. Jeremiah says, "The Lord hath created [bara] a new thing in the earth." Bara is the word used five times in Genesis 1 to denote God's creative activity during the six days of creation. Nearly all of its remaining forty occurrences in the Old Testament also refer back to these six days. The word distinctly means "create" rather than "make"—"create out of nothing" rather than "make from something." Thus, the mysterious words of the prophet foresee a creative miracle, not simply an unusual event in the natural course of things. His subsequent statement implies that the new thing will appear when a woman holds a male child in her womb. We are thus led to understand that the child will be conceived by an act of divine creation.

2c. The word for woman is neither of the common ones, ishshah or nashim, but rather neqebah. Often used of animals, neqebah means simply "female". The word for man is also not the usual one, but rather geber, which connotes a mighty man. So, Jeremiah's prophecy says in essence that a mighty man will be conceived in the womb of a mere female. In light of Isaiah's more explicit prophecy, we understand what Jeremiah means. He also is predicting that an unworthy mortal will be the mother of Almighty God in the flesh.

SeanT21, are you not ashamed of yourself, telling blatant lies in full public view?

BenSays, I dont need to follow your link, because even more idiotic words from the senseless poem, Jabberwocky, have crawled into English.

Everyman &his dog knows that human language evolves, but God's language, so to speak, is constant; so you are just touting semantics.

The English dictionary, Greek & Hebrew concordances, whatever, they can only prove to be pointers. God's heart in the matter has never changed.

So if Christ says LOOKERY is adultery & a sin, how much more the many things that can follow after lookery, let me refrain from a graphic list?!

You can cling to the words, extract the juice and wash out your mouth with the essence. It doesnt change anything cos human language is flawed. Even if i call it Althermbiration, who gives a pink rat's a$$? Its still what it is, before God. 1 Sam 16:7