I look at the history of Palestine and think we could all learn lessons from it.
Let us compare two incidents.
Jesus lived under Roman Occupation in the land known as Palestine going all the way back to the days of Herodotus. He did not choose armed resistance to Occupation, but He was not silent in the face of Injustice. He opposed it and confronted it through nonviolent methods. He sacrificed Himself to save mankind, dying on a cross. And He arose, opening a pathway to eternal life for those who believe in Him.
Fast forward to 70AD, we see a different choice, we see armed Resistance to Occupation led by a group called the Zealots and it brutally put down. What happened next is a matter historian Shlomo Sand writes about.
And the Occupier Roman Empire ultimately fell. That is always the fate of Occupiers and Empires, they rise and they fall.
Violence leads to destruction of people.
Sacrifice of self and persecution and dying to self and living for Christ leads to Life.
And I really do not want to end my comments with this idea I am all about pushing Christianity on people. I have looked upon so many people who I do not believe who are Christian who I watch from a distance believing they are following God too, at least what I see of them at specific points in time.
How God chooses to show Himself to another and establish a relationship with them which I do believe is through Jesus is all up to God and not for me to judge.
But I do certainly believe in a God who is mighty to save, who loves all and desires all to turn to Him. He desires all of us to be His people and for Him to be our God.
Salvation is for individuals, not nations.
That is not true, Sherri. Jesus didn't live in Palestine. He lived in Israel and it was called Israel. In fact in the New Testament Israel is mentioned 259 times and in the Old Testament I believe it is 369 times which is a total of 628 times Israel is mentioned in the bible.
Palestine is not mentioned at all in the New Testament, neither is it mentioned at all in the Old Testament. No. Not once.
Jesus was not ever referred to as a Palestinian.
In fact the arabs who call themselves Palestinians never did so until 1960.
On the matter of saving nations:
God does save nations as we can see from the story of when Ninevah repented.. it is written - The great salvation of Ninevah
Jonah 1: 10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil, and God repented of the evil that he has said he would do unto them and he did it not.
And again it is written:
Jonah 1: 11 And should I not spare Ninevah that great city wherein there are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand.......
And again it is written: All Israel shall be saved.
But lets go back to your other claims about Jesus and what you claim about him. We can verify from scripture the term "Palestine or Palestinian is never mentioned in the New Testament or the Old Testament for that matter...
On the matter of violence leads to destruction of people - yes and no... the violence that has been commited against Israel which is a sovereign nation with a people - the Israelites recognized as the rightful deed holders - according to the written Word of God which supercedes everything - that will lead to the destruction of the House of Esau as it is prophesied - Obadiah 1:18
On the matter of Israel defending against herself against enemies attacking her civilians is not violence but self defense. They are a sovereign nation and have every right to defend themselves.
I believe you are confused, Sherri, about these arab people who started calling themselves Palestinians in 1960 - they do not have sovereign state of their own and have never missed the opportunity in order to "miss the opportunity" to have one because quite honestly the people representing them - terrorist organizations including the original terrorist Arrafat - never wanted peace.
What they wanted was to drive Israel into the Med. Sea and when they saw it was not possible they opted to a propaganda warfare of lies and terrorism which has been their strategy since they lost six wars in a row and realizing this would not be profitable to continue along those lines then adopted the new term "Palestinian" in order to give the appearance that they had some claim to the land when in fact they had none.
Even the Egyptians will tell you the peope there today came from Jordan and other places, Sherri. None of these people have any claim to Israel and the end result will not be a solution but an outcome. Yes. An outcome. The time of a two state solution has come and gone. It is no longer even a possibility. The outcome is all that is left.
The outcome will be most devastating because God isn't going to delay his judgment much longer so the right thing to do - as you say you wish these people salvation - is to preach the gospel to them and convince them to vacate the area and go back to Jordan and the other nations that grant them asylum if their own nations refuse them a home.
That is what I would do if I were in your shoes because you have obviously gained an audience with them and they will realize that as a christian you are required to do what is right in the eyes of the LORD and the written word of God and not what your friends are hoping you will do. After all, it is God we shall be answering to one day. On that day we will hear one of two things, well done good and faithful servant or depart from me ye worker of iniquity. - Jeri
We have writings of the Historian Herodotus to tell us the land was called Palestine, he lived about 2500 BC, I think.
Palestine is mentioned as Philistine, the name Palestine derived from the name Philistine.
Israel was not the name of the land when Jesus lived, the name refers to a people. There was a kingdom called Israel that once existed, but that was thousands of years before the time of Jesus. Places we read about are Roman provinces, like Judea and Samaria.
The word Jew did not appear in the Bible until the 18th Century.
Jesus was called a Nazarene. His parents lived in Nazareth.
When I say God saves people and not nations I base that on the words of Jesus Himself in John 3:16, because I believe Jesus words. A nation is not a person who believes in Jesus, only a person can do that, believe in Jesus. When there are words addressing nations being saved outside of The Gospels, those words have to be interpreted in a way they are consistent with the words of Jesus for a person who follows Jesus. Jesus tells us in The Gospels He shows us who God is.
As for your claim all Israel shall be saved , a number of issues arise. One, there is no nation of Israel being referred to. Two, Israel in The New Testament refers to the Church, believers in Jesus, Spiritual Israel. Three, in Revelation inconsistent things are said. Fourth, John 3:16 tells us who is saved.
The story of Ninevah is about God not destroying a nation who has sinned, it is not addressing Spiritual Salvation.
The wages of sin are death. God is love. Jesus teachings are to love, to love God, with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and the 2d command, to love our neighbor as ourselves. And Jesus new ccommand is love one another as I have loved you. His life is the example to follow. Jesus says love your enemy, for God made the sun rise on and the rain come down on them too, He loves them too. We cannot love and kill, killing is always sin against God. And I end where I started, the wages of sin are death. We choose to love or we choose to hate . We choose the world or we choose God. We choose Peace and the Prince of Peace or we choose war and violence and Satan.
Back to your comments, I must look to Jesus and who He shows me God is because that is what His words in The Gospels tell me to do. I cannot let words in Obadiah in The Old Testament define God for me, a believer in Jesus. And I must look to Jesus to lead me, not Obadiah.
You wrote: "On the matter of violence leads to destruction of people - yes and no... the violence that has been commited against Israel which is a sovereign nation with a people - the Israelites recognized as the rightful deed holders - according to the written Word of God which supercedes everything - that will lead to the destruction of the House of Esau as it is prophesied - Obadiah 1:18"
When I said violence leads to destruction of people, it was in the context of comparing two ways we have to respond to Injustices like Occupation. Jesus response was nonviolence, that is the example He sets for His followers. That may lead to physical death, we see most all of early Christians martyred. But that path leads to eternal life. The second choice is violence, that is turning from God and leads to physical death and no eternal life. Matthew 23, Jesus is telling the Pharisees and Jewish leaders the choices before them and the consequences of those choices.
Jesus says the meek will inherit the land, He gives no preferences to Jew or Gentile and grants no land exclusively to anyone, but the meek.
Jesus does not say anywhere His teachings are inapplicable when people are defending themselves. Remember Peter cutting off the ear of a soldier and Jesus response? Jesus reprimanded Peter. Jesus way was nonviolence. And this explains why for hundreds of years Christians were Pacifists, until the time of Constantine. Violence was simply not Jesus way.
Palestinians are the indigenous peoples who were living in the land of Palestine when Zionist Jewish Colonists came to Palestine to settle Palestine, this Zionist movement began in the late 1800s. Under intl law, the indigenous Palestinian people have a right of self determination in the land. They belong to the land. Christians in Bethlehem and Beit Sahour and the Galilee trace their ancestors back to the first Christians.
is unconscionable to anyone in their right mind. It is also illegal in international law to impose collective punishment on an Occupied population. Some 70% of the 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza are from families expelled from what is now southern Israel by the 1948 ethnic cleansing campaign of Jewish settlers. Many could walk home in an hour or two but they are kept in refugee camps by the Israeli military. They are besieged on three sides by Israel and on one by Egypt, whose officers are cooperating with the Israeli-imposed blockade.
