“The Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kansas, is a hate group that utilizes archaic Biblical scripture to justify its protests at funerals and homophobic rhetoric”
~ “Student from Afghanistan, local Muslim leaders separate Taliban from their religion”, Journal Inquirer, Eric Bedner, August 20, 2021.
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Is the Bible archaic? This author would have you to think of the Bible the way Will Smith described the car Tommy Lee Jones drove in Men In Black – “Old and busted”, while his fresh thinking for the brave world of today is “New hotness”. Old and busted … new hotness.
“Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” (2 Peter 3:3-4)
It is the primary work of Satan to drive confusion about and hatred of all God’s Word and commandments. If he can convince a world that that Word or those commandments are out of date, he can convince a human to consider them irrelevant and unnecessary. Mockers, like this reporter, are said to be worked by Satan’s very real and significant power (Ephesians 2:2).
You might make note that Satan – both his majesty as “covering cherub” (Ezekiel 28:16) and in his fallen state – predated the creation of the human race. So he must also be considered archaic, yet he continues as a strong influence behind this generation’s malice.
The real message of this writer is that since he so dislikes the notion that there is a standard with which he cannot agree, he must make that standard “old” while he and his views are “new”. Yeah, that’s it. The Bible is old and outdated, but he and his views are new and vogue and enlightened. The Bible articulates the notion that there is a sovereign God that has set a standard, but he and his views are grounded in the wonders of humanism. God’s standard archaic … humanism standards new and fresh and original.
Except humanism is not new. It existed in the Garden of Eden, spat forth from the venomous tongue of Satan into the itching ear of the first human female, like this:
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5)
Secular humanism. God archaic … humanism new and fresh and original. Man is his own savior. Same doctrine as the mocker who wrote the words for the Journal Inquirer. Seems that the “archaic” Bible tagged that spirit perfectly. Indeed, all of the pretended original and new thinking that possesses this generation about homosexuals is weak and homely compared to how those beasts ruled Sodom of old. Those homosexuals had some serious power! They possessed all the laws and law enforcement and the judges and the power brokers … “the men of Sodom compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter” (Genesis 19:4). All of them had the power to silence one dissenting voice. That’s real power, not like the relatively splintered and undisciplined power of the sodomites of our generation. So would the author consider those truly powerful and organized homosexuals archaic in their thinking?
Perhaps that part of the bible is “new hotness”?
The Bible teaches that God is eternal … that God does not dwell in this creation called “time” … that God preceded the human creation and will succeed the human creation and does not in any sense or way depend upon the human creation. The idea that humans know better is nearly as old as the human creation itself. The Bible teaches that the Word of God is “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any towedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12). It perfectly describes this present generation and the behaviors of the race at this hour. Hardly archaic. Not “old and busted”.
[Ever]new hotness.