hjalti wrote:I'm working on a "top ten" list of weird NT passages.
Here's two verses I find very disturbing ....
Luke 19:27 wrote:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay [them] before me.
Luke 16:16 wrote:
The Good News of God's Kingdom Is Proclaimed and Everyone Is Forced into It.
And another which is weird because it looks to be added very very very late ....
1 John 5:7–8 wrote:
7.For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
Isaac Newton took a similar approach as Erasmus, looking to Jerome as the principle figure in placing the Comma in the Bible.
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
Peter Kirby wrote:Acts 5 - Ananias and Sapphira
Struck dead by God for not giving all their money to the church.
Acts 7 - Any Last Words?
Please hold your stones until the end.
Acts 8 - What a Trip
I just flew in from Gaza, and boy are my arms tired.
Acts 12 - Was it something I said?
Gives a speech, declared a god, gets struck dead.
Acts 13 - Sleight of Hand
Magician opposes Paul, blinded by the hand of God.
Acts 14 - Keeps on Ticking
Stoned, dragged out of city, left for dead... no big deal.
Acts 16 - Jailbreak
Via earthquake.
Acts 19 - Apostolonomics
Survives as a tent maker, burns books worth fifty thousand drachmas.
Acts 19 - Apostolonomics Redux
Not enough pagans, silversmiths suffer.
Acts 20 - Eutychus falls from a window
Bored to death by Paul's preaching, resurrected anyway.
Acts 21 - A Rebel Without a Cause
Confused with an Egyptian, no apparent reason.
Acts 25 - Everybody Wants a Piece of Me
Tried by Felix, then by Festus. Appeals to Caesar, tried by Agrippa just for fun.
Acts 28 - Paul at Malta
Survives a snakebite, declared a god (not struck dead).
Peter's vision on the rooftop in Joppa did not make it ? How about Paul allowing himself to be beaten and thrown in prison first and then telling the magistrate that he and Silas were Roman citizens to extract an apology ? Acts 16 is a piece of art, for sure. Paul was annoyed, so in the name of Jesus Christ, he drove the Jesus Christ spirit out of the slave girl. Oh boy !
In Acts 24, Felix throws Paul in prison but allows him outings and "service" by his friends. This apparently went on for two years. Isn't that special ?
hjalti wrote:Christians can drink poison (Mk 16:18 - I know it's a later addition)
This closely relates to Lk 10:19 ("Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you."), and the snakebite Paul braved in Malta (Acts 28) that Peter mentions. The verses relate to the observable resistance to pain and increased immunity enjoyed by spirit-possessed individuals (psychos). You may recall that the shamanic Rasputin could not be put down by a horse dose of pottassium cyanide.
1. Cor 6,9-11 Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you.
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