Put to death your pagan familty members

[Racer_X]

What are we to make of these verses from Deuteronomy 13?

6] "If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, `Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known,
7] some of the gods of the peoples that are round about you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other,
8] you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him;
9] but you shall kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
10] You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
11] And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.

I trust I need not explain why this is troubling.

or how about the next verses?

12] "If you hear in one of your cities, which the LORD your God gives you to dwell there,
13] that certain base fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of the city, saying, `Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known,
14] then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently; and behold, if it be true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done among you,
15] you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, destroying it utterly, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.
16] You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square, and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God; it shall be a heap for ever, it shall not be built again.
17] None of the devoted things shall cleave to your hand; that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show you mercy, and have compassion on you, and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers,
18] if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, keeping all his commandments which I command you this day, and doing what is right in the sight of the LORD your God.

 

[Evan]

Since this is a Catholic forum, I assume you are asking as a Christian rather than as a Jew.

So we turn to the New Testatment. We must understand the Old Testament in regards to the correctives given by Jesus.

He said “Scripture says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you if a man strikes you on one cheek, offer the other”

Seems that we are called by Christ to convert via humility rather than the sword.

 

[puzzleannie]

tempting as this sounds sometimes, the better and more Christian policy toward pagan family members is described by Patrick Madrid in Search and Rescue

 

[Steven_Merten]

Hello Racer X,

Even more interesting is Jesus telling His followers not to nullify God’s law to put to death those who break God’s commandment to honor parents. So should the Catholic Church nullify God’s commandment to put to death those who dishonor parents or should they not?

One must take a look at King David. Here was a man who committed adultery, murder and ate holy bread, all of which carried the death penalty by God’s law. Yet King David was not put to death by the Mosaic Church but forgiven.

When the Pharisees address Jesus to the fact that His disciples were dessecrating the sabbath (picking wheat), a stoning to death offense, Jesus shows the Pharisees that King David was not stonned to death for eating holy bread which was a greater stonning offense.

I think that even we Catholics should respect God’s commandment to honor ones parents and keep holy the sabbath to the degree that those who do not obey the commandment should be put to death, yet I think we should also understand God and His forgiveness that He, and His Israelite Church, showed King David in not putting him to death as God’s law required.

Please visit Throwing Stones

NAB MAR 7:9He went on to say: "You have made a fine art of setting aside God’s commandment in the interests of keeping your traditions! For example, Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and in another place, ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.’ Yet you declare, If a person says to his father or mother, Any support you might have had from me is korban’ (that is, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. That is the way you nullify God’s word in favor of the traditions you have handed on."

NAB EXO 21:17

**“Whoever curses his father or mother shall be put to death.” **​

NAB 2SA 12:9

Why have you spurned the LORD and done evil in his sight? You have cut down Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you took his wife as your own, and him you killed with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah to be your wife.'NAB 2SA 12:13

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan answered David: "The LORD on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die."

NAB EXO 31:12

The LORD said to Moses, "You must also tell the Israelites: Take care to keep my sabbaths, for that is to be the token between you and me throughout the generations, to show that it is I, the LORD, who make you holy. Therefore, you must keep the sabbath as something sacred. Whoever desecrated it shall be put to death. If anyone does work on that day, he must be rooted out of his people.
NAB MAR 2:23

It happened that he was walking through standing grain on the sabbath, and his disciples began to pull off heads of grain as they went along. At this the Pharisees protested: “Look! Why do they do a thing not permitted on the sabbath?” He said to them: “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his men were hungry? How he entered God’s house in the days of Abiathar the high priest and ate the holy bread which only priests were permitted to eat? He even gave it to his men.”(1SA21)NAB LEV 22:9

"They shall keep my charge and not do wrong in this matter; else they will die for their profanation. I am the LORD who have consecrated them. “Neither a lay person nor a priest’s tenant or hired servant may eat of any sacred offering.”

 

[Grace_and_Glory]

Even more interesting is Jesus telling His followers not to nullify God’s law to put to death those who break God’s commandment to honor parents. So should the Catholic Church nullify God’s commandment to put to death those who dishonor parents or should they not?

I don’t think Jesus is exactly telling his followers to uphold the law of the death penalty in this case. I think he is pointing this out because the Pharisees were the people who claimed most to uphold the law of God, and he was showing them that they were being hypocrites by not applying to themselves the strict letter of the law they claimed to follow. The reason I say that Jesus is not himself advocating the death penalty in this case is because when the same incident is recorded in Matthew, Jesus advocates a different response from what is recorded in the Mosaic law.

NAB Matthew 15
1 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem… 3 He said to them in reply, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die.’”…12 Then his disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” 13 He said in reply, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides [of the blind]. If a blind person leads a blind person, both will fall into a pit.”

 

[itsjustdave1988]

That was capital punishment in the OT. It doesn’t trouble me as it came from a just authority, the Lord who governs life itself. The commands of the OT were fulfilled in Christ. So, I do not live by that covenant (the Law of Moses), but live by the Christian covenant.

 

[Steven_Merten]

itsjustdave1988:

That was capital punishment in the OT. It doesn’t trouble me as it came from a just authority, the Lord who governs life itself. The commands of the OT were fulfilled in Christ. So, I do not live by that covenant (the Law of Moses), but live by the Christian covenant.

Hello Dave,

Are you saying that God’s Old Testament ten commandments are fulfilled by Christ and now we do not need to obey them?

NAB MAR 10:17

"Good Teacher, what must I do to share in everlasting life?" Jesus answered, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments:
’You shall not kill;
You shall not commit adultery;
You shall not steal;
You shall not bear false witness;
You shall not defraud;
Honor your father and your mother.’"

Scripture tells us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are in heaven. We know that the only way that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can be in heaven is by entering through the blood of the Lamb. Isaiah tells us that the Israelites have their sins put on Jesus to go to heaven also.

**NAB ISA 53:4 **(Isaiah to the Israelites.)

Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; But the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all.
Both OT people and NT people go to heaven through Jesus. Both OT and NT people are commanded by the Father and Jesus to obey the Law if they wish to enter into life.

So what exactly is your meaning in that Christ fullfilled the Law and now you do not have to obey the Law? The law state that those who do not obey the law will spiritually die. Jesus fulfills this part of the law by dying for sin in place of the sinner who has repented and goes to heaven through the blood of Jesus. In this way Jesus fulfills the law condemning a sinner to spiritual death so that he may live.

Do not be confused by St. Paul’s writtings which lead many to feel that Christians, unlike the Israelites who go to heaven through Jesus, do not have to obey the law to go to heaven as Jesus teaches.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Steven,

Are you saying that God’s Old Testament ten commandments are fulfilled by Christ and now we do not need to obey them?

No. If I was saying that, I would have said it.

John Paul II describes the commandments of the OT as having an immutable aspect to them as well as a temporal or provisional aspect to them. For example, in describing the commandment to “Keep the Sabbath day Holy” there are two aspects that need to be rightly understood, a Divinely revealed Ecclesiastical Law, which is a provisional aspect depending upon contemporary circumstances, and there’s a Divinely revealed Moral Law, which is an immutable aspect.

The Church does not have the authority to disregard the Divine Moral Law which has immutable aspects inherent within the Ten Commandments. Yet, with regard to Ecclesiastical Law, the provisional aspects are within the competency of the Church to change.

Thus, by Divine Law, we are to rest after 6 days of labor, resting and keeping holy the seventh day, refraining from work that would detract from the joy of the Lord’s rest day. Under Jewish ecclesiastical law, that rest day was Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. The ecclesiastical aspect is not immutable, the Divine moral commandment is immutable. So, we still must keep the Lord’s rest day holy by Divine law, but according to Catholic ecclesiastical law, we do so by keeping the Lord’s Day, Sunday, as our rest day, in accord with Catholic canon law.

What part of the Ten Commandments tell me to kill pagans? I don’t find that as part of the Decalogue. Paganism is still a crime against immutable Divine law, but the penalties associated with it are not immutable, as they are a part of Ecclesiastical Law to which the Church under the Vicar of Christ has the power to change.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

For more on the divine and ecclesiastical apsects of the Mosaic Law, and to understand why some civil and ecclesiastical aspects of the Mosaic Law no longer apply, while the moral aspects are immutable, I recommend the following article:

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Moral Aspect of Divine Law

Here’s an excerpt:

The Divine Law of the Old Testament, or the Mosaic Law, is commonly divided into civil, ceremonial, and moral precepts. The civil legislation regulated the relations of the people of God among themselves and with their neighbours; the ceremonial regulated matters of religion and the worship of God; the moral was a Divine code of ethics.

… all the precepts of the Decalogue are also precepts of the natural law

… Because the code of morality which we have in the Old Testament was inspired by God and imposed by Him on His people, it follows that there is nothing in it that is immoral or wrong. It was indeed imperfect, if it be compared with the higher morality of the Gospel, but, for all that, it contained nothing that is blameworthy. It was suited to the low stage of civilization to which the Israelites had at the time attained; the severe punishments which it prescribed for transgressors were necessary to bend the stiff necks of a rude people; the temporal rewards held out to those who observed the law were adapted to an unspiritual and carnal race.

… It has always been freely admitted by Christians that the Mosaic Law is an imperfect institution; still Christ came not to destroy it but to fulfil and perfect it. We must bear in mind that God, the Creator and Lord of all things, and the Supreme Judge of the world, can do and command things which man the creature is not authorized to do or command. On this principle we may account for and defend the command given by God to exterminate certain nations, and the permission given by Him to the Israelites to spoil the Egyptians. The tribes of Chanaan richly deserved the fate to which they were condemned by God; and if there were innocent people among the guilty, God is the absolute Lord of life and death, and He commits no injustice when He takes away what He has given. Besides, He can make up by gifts of a higher order in another life for sufferings which have been patiently endured in this life.

… Christ is the author of the New Law. He claimed and exercised supreme legislative authority in spiritual matters from the beginning of His public life until His Ascension into heaven. In Him the Old Law had its fulfilment and attained its chief purpose. The civil legislation of Moses had for its object to form and preserve a peculiar people for the worship of the one true God, and to prepare the way for the coming of the Messias who was to be born of the seed of Abraham. The new Kingdom of God which Christ founded was not confined to a single nation, it embraced all the nations of the earth, and when the new Israel was constituted, the old Israel with its separatist law became antiquated; it had fulfilled its mission. The ceremonial laws of Moses were types and figures of the purer, more spiritual, and more efficacious sacrifice and sacraments of the New Law, and when these were instituted the former lost their meaning and value. By the death of Christ on the Cross the New Covenant was sealed, and the Old was abrogated, but until the Gospel had been preached and duly promulgated, out of deference to Jewish prejudices, and out of respect for ordinances, which after all were Divine, those who wished to do so were at liberty to conform to the practices of the Mosaic Law. When the Gospel had been duly promulgated the civil and ceremonial precepts of the Law of Moses became not only useless, but false and superstitious, and thus forbidden.

It was otherwise with the moral precepts of the Mosaic Law. The Master expressly taught that the observance of these, inasmuch as they are prescribed by nature herself, is necessary for salvation — “If thou wouldst enter into life keep the commandments”, — those well-known precepts of the Decalogue.

… The Catholic Church by virtue of the commission given to her by Christ is the Divinely constituted interpreter of the Divine Law of both the Old and the New Testament.