Jesus compares God to a wicked angry king
In Matthew 18, Jesus compares God to a wicked king who acts in anger, and has people handed over to be tortured, even after he claimed to have forgiven them everything.
Here is the story, proving once more that the Bible was written by savage barbarians who saw nothing wrong with people being tortured.
Matthew 18
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
Here is the story, proving once more that the Bible was written by savage barbarians who saw nothing wrong with people being tortured.
Matthew 18
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
posted by Steven Carr at 12:35 PM
2 Comments:
Well, Steven, what should one expect from a god who tells the leaders of his chosen people that "But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded..." (Deut 20:16-17)
Actually, Stevie, it is Matthew who compares God to such a king. Remember that the synoptic writers indiscriminately associate all the parables with "the kingdom" ("it is like...", "it is as if..."). Right away there's a glaring problem with the way Matthew has made such an association with the story of Mt 18:23-34, because it does not in fact illustrate the principle of Mt 18:21-22 as he wants it to. Taking Mt 18:21-35 as a whole, we have a God who tells people to forgive people seventy-seven times but (as the king) nails the servant after his first failure.
Originally the story of Mt 18:23-24 was probably about an actual king (a messiah), not God, as I wrote about here. (The tip-off is the impossibly high figure of 10,000 talents.) And the king is a bad guy, not a good one -- and not a cipher for God as Matthew made him.
Post a Comment
<< Home