Why do some Christians tell us that the Old Testament is obsolete?
Posted on: May 24, 2007 - 1:27pm
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Why do some Christians tell us that the Old Testament is obsolete?
I have a hard time getting christians to understand that the old testament is also part of god's message. If it said its ok to have slaves and beat them then that's what is says. I am always being told that god changed his mind because the times were different. Well how do we know he wont change his mind about gays, Muslims blacks and so on? I hate it when they try to give you this crap that people were different back then and if the bible says it's ok to have slaves they don't mean slaves like we understand it today.
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There's a theological basis.
Back in the early days of the church when the Christians were trying to decide whether or not Christianity was going to be a type of Jewish sect or not (because Jesus and the Apostles and even Paul were all Jews) there was a lot of argument about whether or not Christians still had to follow the Law of Moses--that is circumcision and the dietary and garment restrictions and all that from the Old Testament.
At some point Paul and his followers decided that Christians didn't need to be circumcised or follow the Law of Moses. There's a reference to this in Romans 8, but most of it is in Hebrews (which was probably written by one of Paul's followers after his death) chap 8-10. In Hebrews, it is proclaimed that Christians don't have to follow the Law because the Law is now written on their hearts. There's a 'New Covenant' of salvation based on the sacrifice, not on following the law.
Over the ensuing centuries this idea evolved into a complicated theology called "Covenant Theology." Basically it's a rambling argument for why the OT laws and technologies of atonement are invalidated by the crucifixion.
Most Christians don't know their own history, though, because they don't study it or aren't taught. So what you typically find in Christians is that they roam around with some vague idea that the OT laws about wearing blended fabric and eating particular grasshoppers do not apply to them. But they also simultaneously have the idea that, since the OT was the "Bible of Jesus," it's still valid in some ways. But most would not be able to explain either the logic or the contradiction of those two beliefs.
Thus, what you typically see in practice is that Xians will use an OT verse to support an argument when it suits them and there's no better NT verse to do the job (e.g. homosexuality), but when confronted with something from the OT that they don't want to agree with they'll declare that the OT doesn't apply to Xians.
The best of both testaments.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
Its easier to dodge logical questions that to defend slavery and racism.
What's a Xians?
"xian" is shorthand for christian.
Like xmas is shorthand for christmas.
From http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/arguments.html#xian
When writing the name "Christ", it is quite common to abbreviate it to X or x, representing the first letter (chi) of the Greek XPICTOC khristos. For example, "xmas" is a common abbreviation of "Christmas". "Xian" just means "Christian".According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the use of the abbreviation "xian" or "xtian" for "Christian" dates back at least as far as 1634. Before that, it was more usual to take the first two letters of XPICTOC, and write "xpian" for "Christian". Priests would record Christenings using the shorthand "xpen" or "xpn".
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They pick and choose even though Jesus supposedly said not to change "one jot or tittle" of the old law. They even ignore some of the bad or absurd things in the NT.
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It's really quite interesting that many xians are insulted when they see "xian" instead of "christian".
Somewhere, buried deep in one of the older threads (sorry - I couldn't find it), there was a xian that got pretty indignant over the use of "xian".
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I was informed by a minister that it was fine so long as the X was capitalised, and that they use the abbreviation themselves. But I am sure there are as many views as there are possibilities, so I try to remember to write it out in full.
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