{"id":958,"date":"2012-06-27T05:14:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T10:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fearofwhales\/?p=958"},"modified":"2012-06-22T07:50:55","modified_gmt":"2012-06-22T12:50:55","slug":"gender-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2012\/06\/gender-identity.html","title":{"rendered":"Pedantic Word Choices"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There is an old hustler bet where you offer a sum of money (say $50) to somebody in a bar if they can drink an entire pint in a minute. An experienced drinker can often polish off a pint in well under that, at which point you can take their money because they did not finish it in exactly a minute, they finished it in less, so they lose.<\/p>\n

We in the Christian community often do the same sort of thing. We will insist there is a moral difference between Murder and Killing People<\/a> despite the fact that there is nothing about the Hebrew Language to indicate that. We’ll say we don’t like Dating<\/a> but instead we’ll support "courting" we will insist that it’s wrong to Lie<\/a> but we’ll say stuff that is deceptive or misleading as if that’s okay.<\/p>\n

We are like the expert in the law in Luke 10. We know that we should love our neighbor, but we pretend not to know what the word "neighbor" means<\/p>\n

I could write articles about every one of these inconsistencies I see. But frankly I’m just not that starved for topics. At the end of the day the root problem is simply this: It is very easy to follow the bible so long as you are prepared to reinterpret all of the words in the bible to mean whatever you need them to.<\/p>\n

So if you believe there is a difference between "teaching" and "preaching" between "submitting" and "obeying" between "drinking" and "drunkenness" between "judging" and "judgement" and between "gossip" and "talking about someone behind their back" then I have to ask you a question:<\/p>\n

What then is the difference between believing the "bible" and just believing "whatever you want"?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is an old hustler bet where you offer a sum of money (say $50) to somebody in a bar if they can drink an entire pint in a minute. 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