What the Bible says about apostasy

[EMTL]

Assalamu alaikum,
What the Bible says about apostasy......

It is quite surprising to hear many tonques wagging antigonism and condemnation over the death penalty issued to an apostate under sharia law. However, the most interesting part of it is that, those who castigate and critisize Islam over the punishment, their books are filled with such verses stressing death penalty to anyone who abandons his religion. Below are some sellected verses form the Bible:

Deuteronomy 17:2 - 5
17:2  ( This is what you must do ) when you discover a man or a woman doing evils in the eyes of God your Lord in one if the settlements that God your Lord is giving you ( that person ) violated God's covenant.
17:3  By going and worshiping or bowing down to the sun, moon or other heavenly bodies whose worship i prohibitted.
17:4  What it is told to you, you must listen and carefully interrogate the witnesses if the accusation is established to be true and this revolting practice has been done in Israel.
?17:5  You shall take that man or woman who did the wicked act out to your gates, you shall then pelt the man or woman to death with stones.

?Leviticus 23:16  And he that blasphems the name of the Lord he shall sure be put to death.
?Deuteronomy 13:5  And that prophet or that dreamer of dreamers shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to turn you from the Lord your God.
?Deuteronomy 13:6  If thy brother, the son of thy mother or thy son or thy daughter or the wife of thy bosom or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly saying let us go and serve other gods which thou has not known ........... put him to death.
The Bible even went beyond that by saying:
?Luke 19:27  But those mine enemies which will not that i should reign over them bring hither and slay them before me.
According to Bible this is Jesus's statement, anybody who did not believe in him should be brought near him and be killed. So the  choice here is that: You either believe or get killed.

Nothing more painful than seeing a wise man turning to be ignorant or even worst than that, by upholding to man-made laws, abandoning the permanent, perfect and immutable laws of Allah as contained in their books. We Muslims appreciate the centralilty of Sharia in our lives and believe that Islam and Sharia are indivisible. The aims of its imforcement is for the creation of peaceful, decent and egalitarian society where all forms of vices will be eradicated totally. May Allah help us.

Above is a contribution from a brother.

[lionger]

EMTL,
My apologies for not responding to this thread soon enough. I had read your recent posts this forum with interest but haven't quite had the time to respond. Now I hope I shall be able to address the issues you have raised here and on other threads. And might I add that your recent interest in Christian teaching makes my heart smile :) .

Now to what you said

It is quite surprising to hear many tonques wagging antigonism and condemnation over the death penalty issued to an apostate under sharia law. However, the most interesting part of it is that, those who castigate and critisize Islam over the punishment, their books are filled with such verses stressing death penalty to anyone who abandons his religion.

I'm not sure why you are so surprised and upset that many take offense to this development in Afghanistan. How would you feel if converts to Islam were  sentenced to death in Nigeria or in the West? Wouldn't you be outraged? Likewise, Christians (and non-muslims for that matter) are justified in their dismay and disapproval at the condemnation of a fellow Christian for his beliefs. That isn't so surprising, is it?

Below are some sellected verses form the Bible:

Emphasis added.
Right here is the root of the problem with your analysis. You presented selected verses from the Bible without providing proper context for them. Context is always important when reading/researching any book/literary work; without it, we can make the Bible say anything we want it to. The verses you provided here are not adequately backed up by context, especially the last one!! Even you will appreciate the humor in it when we get there! :P

Let's start with the Old Testament verses.

Deuteronomy 17:2 - 5
17:2 ( This is what you must do ) when you discover a man or a woman doing evils in the eyes of God your Lord in one if the settlements that God your Lord is giving you ( that person ) violated God's covenant.
17:3 By going and worshiping or bowing down to the sun, moon or other heavenly bodies whose worship i prohibitted.
17:4 What it is told to you, you must listen and carefully interrogate the witnesses if the accusation is established to be true and this revolting practice has been done in Israel.
?17:5 You shall take that man or woman who did the wicked act out to your gates, you shall then pelt the man or woman to death with stones.

?Leviticus 23:16 And he that blasphems the name of the Lord he shall sure be put to death.
?Deuteronomy 13:5 And that prophet or that dreamer of dreamers shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to turn you from the Lord your God.
?Deuteronomy 13:6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother or thy son or thy daughter or the wife of thy bosom or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly saying let us go and serve other gods which thou has not known ........... put him to death.

These verses are from the Books of Moses (Leviticus and Deuteronomy), and they record the penalties for disobedience to God in as prescribed by the Law of the Covenant that He gave the Israelites in the desert.

Now God had brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt and at this stage was taking them through the desert; all the while displaying great miracles of his might and power and revealing his glory to them. These miracles are recorded in the books of Exodus and Numbers. They include all the plagues God punished Egypt with until Israel was let go(Exodus 7-13), his leading them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night(Exodus 13:21, 40:36-38), parting the Red Sea so they could cross (Exodus 14:21-31), feeding then with food(manna) from heaven  (Exodus 16), providing water miraculously several times (Exodus 15:22-27, 17:1-7, Numbers 20:1-11), and speaking to the entire community from heaven (Exodus 19,20), and perhaps his direct judgment on them for disobedience (Exodus 33:35, Leviticus 10:1,2, Numbers 11, 12, 16, 25).

The point I am trying to make is that God was directly ruling this nation, Israel, and as such it was a theocratic nation. It existed solely because God directly intervened in history to create it. No other nation can say that of itself. As such, God was the absolute ruler, and he gave them the laws as guidance. We all understand the fact that no absolute ruler tolerates rebellion among his subjects and thus God did not tolerate that among the Israelites. The Old Testament is filled many examples of God's direct judgement on the people; some of which I have already mentioned.

God himself said to the Israelites,
"Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." (Exodus 19:5,6).

And in another place He says, "for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession." Deuteronomy 7:6

Israel agreed to this covenant as well: in response to the reading of the Book of the Covenant, they said,"Everything the Lord has said, we will do." Exodus 24:7

Israel was to be God's physical nation on earth, set apart as holy and a light to the nations; and for that purpose he gave them the Law. Did Israel succeed in this task? Not at all! They were disobedient and unfaithful to God right from the beginning. Eventually God allowed them to be overrun by the Babylonian empire and subsequent empires, and scattered them all over the world. Why did this happen? Did the Law fail; was it bad? Or was Israel just unable to keep up? Yes, Israel simply wasn't able to measure up to the standards of the law. And in fact, none of us can. This is the lesson we ought to learn from Israel's history; that the Law was/is only able to give knowledge of right/wrong, but powerless to enable one choose right and not wrong. All the great wonders that God performed before Israel and even the thundering of  his voice from heaven saying "you shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3) was not able to prevent them from idol worship a month later (Exodus 32). So in the end, the law only served to condemn Israel because they could not meet up to its high demands.

And it condemns us as well. Righteousness by the law is defined this way in Deuteronomy 6:25:
"If we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness".
Can any of us stand up to God and say that we are righteous on this basis?

So we have a problem. The Law sets God apart as holy, sovereign and perfect, but condemns us as sinful and imperfect. Maybe this covenant (agreement) is insufficient since it cannot save us. If that was true, then God might be talking of a better deal which Christians claim is offered by Jesus Christ. Well this is precisely what he does and in the Old Testament, in Jeremiah 31: 31-34. This prophecy is given during the period when finally after much warning Israel is swallowed up by the Babylonian empire because of their disobedience. Here God faces the apparent failure of the covenant:

" 'The time is coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was like a husband to them,' declares the Lord.
'This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,' declares the Lord.
'I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest,' declares the Lord.
'For I will forgive their wickedness, and will remember their sins no more.' "

I will continue this write-up in a later post, but keep this in mind for now.  :P

[lionger]

Sorry for the lay-off; but I'm back. Before we go into the meaning of the new covenant or agreement that God talks about in the passage above, let's first address directly the question the thread title asks. What does the Bible say about apostacy in the light of all this?

The verses you provided in Deuteronomy prescribed capital punishment for certain sins, to be carried out by the judges upon proper and thorough investigations. However in Deuteronomy 27:28 we are told, " Cursed is the man who does not continue to everything that is written in the Book of the Law".
Therefore it doesn't really matter if you commit the capital 'apostate' offenses such as blasphemy, idol worship and sexual perversion, or the other 'lesser' offenses such as lying and stealing. If you break any of God's law, you are under a curse and God's judgement.

Since no-one can keep up with the law, no-one is righteous:
Psalm 14: 2-3
"The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt;
there is no-one who does good,
not even one."

And in Ecclessiastes 7:20,
"There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins."

What does the Bible say about apostacy? It says that we are all apostates.

So God's solution to this problem is to introduce a new arrangement:
Jeremiah 31:31-34
" 'The time is coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was like a husband to them,' declares the Lord.
'This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,' declares the Lord.
'I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest,' declares the Lord.
'For I will forgive their wickedness, and will remember their sins no more.' "

There are four points we can take from this passage:

1. First of all, there is a new covenant! We might have thought that the old arrangement was all there was and was meant to last for ever. But here God promises a new deal; the reason being that we could not keep the old covenant. We will see more of this in the next point.

2. The new covenant would not be like the old covenant. How so? The difference is that God will write His law in our hearts and minds, rather than  tablets of stone and scrolls. Now what does God mean when He says He will write his law on our hearts? Is He saying He will cause us to memorise the law, or that he will physically inscribe it on the heart organ itself? No, that would be of no significance; the Jews were already in the practise of memorizing the law anyways.

The significance lies in motivation. The old covenant was inadequate because it only provided increased knowledge of sin without giving us the ability/strength to choose right and not wrong. We are not able to keep God's law because we simply do not have the natural capacity to do so; we are corrupt and sinful. And with increased knowledge of sin, there is increased punishment for disobedience! So God solves the problem by providing us with the motivation to obey His word. When God says He will write his law in our hearts, He implies that He will change our hearts. If it is a changed heart, then it is a new heart; and if it is a new heart, then it is a new nature, a new life, a new person! For if a person's heart is changed, the person is changed. Since our old heart was naturally disposed to thinking and doing evil, God promises to replace it with a new heart that will be naturally disposed to doing good. Not only so, it will have the strength and capacity to do good.

This point is necessary to dwell on for a little while longer, for it tells us something about the nature of the new covenant. If God writes His law in our hearts, then the law becomes internal. If the law is internal, then the covenant itself is internal and obedience to it is also internal, from within us. In other words, the law is spiritual because it deals with our hearts, i.e. our spirits, which are internal. In contrast, the old arrangement was physical and external in nature; written on tablets of stone and on scrolls, it made its demands from without. Accordingly, it instituted worship that was also physical and external: temple ordinances, various sacrifices and offerings, and the special days, weeks, years and festivals - all this was/is outward worship. Everything about the old arrangement design was physical; the new arrangement is spiritual and worship under it is spiritual, i.e. it starts with our spirits, our hearts. Since the spiritual is naturally superior to the physical; the new covenant is superior to the old covenant. The physical realm is temporary, but the spiritual is eternal; the old covenant was temporary, but the new covenant is eternal!

All this is implied when God says, "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts".

3. 'No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest'.
Here God says the new covenant will cause us to grow in the knowledge of Him, and thus enable us to enter a deeper relationship with Him. Now this is a result of what has been discussed previously - the regeneration of our spirits, the new heart. God is spirit, and logic implies that it takes spirit to know spirit. Can a human being have a perfect, loving relationship with even the most well-trained and domesticated of pets, as with a child or another human being? Of course not. Why not? Because we are are of different species, different natures. It takes a human being to know and relate perfectly to another human being; like natures attract! Likewise, it takes a spiritually-enabled person to enter a loving relationship with the One who is Spirit. Much more will be looked into this later.

4. The basis for all these fantastic promises in the new covenant is itself another promise, the forgiveness of sins: 'For I will forgive their wickedness, and will remember their sins no more'. This is the most important of all; and everything else rests on it. All sins will be forgiven, so there is neither curse nor condemnation, but the assurance of a continued loving relationship with God! The old covenant did not provide this; if it did, then would capital punishment for breaking the covenant have existed? And would there have been a curse on all who didn't continue to keep the law? Even the sacrifices prescribed by the law for various sins clearly did not provide forgiveness in themselves. They had to be repeated day after day, month after month, year after year! If there was true forgiveness of sin, then they would have stopped being offered, and those who offered them would have been cleansed once and for all. As it is, the sacrifices only served as a constant reminder of sin and thus also of its penalty - eternal separation from God and all His goodness.

The new covenant solves the problem of condemnation that the old convenant did not: God excuses our failures, and chooses not to remember them. If sins are forgiven and not remembered, then there is no penalty and the person is deemed righteous by God. And because he is righteous, he can continue to grow in the the loving relationship of a righteous God - remember that like natures attract! What a fantastic promise, that where we fail and it seems hopeless, God himself will make provision for our failures and will sustain us. This is what David the king and prophet spoke of when he said, in Psalm 32:1-2,
"Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him".

Christians believe they live under this new covenant, and next we shall look at the New Testament to see if this is true. This will be done in a follow-up post, since this is a bit too long already.

[EMTL]

Lionger,
Welcome back. waiting to read the continuation of your findings before i respond.

[lionger]

EMTL,
Hey, I trust all is well. I never really left the forum anyways; I checked in to read the new posts from time to time. Just didn't have much time to make any solid posts myself, especially to tricky issues such as these.

So lets see if Christians claims about Jesus Christ actually fits with the Old Testament prophecy of Jeremiah that we have been looking at:

1. The new covenant.
Christians claim that Jesus brought a new covenant, and most Muslims I know object to this idea. Some Muslims such as my good friend on this forum Barde (o boy long time no see, wia u dey?) point to Matthew 5:17 as proof that Jesus didn't come to bring anything new:
Matthew 5:17
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will dissapear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
From a cursory glance at this it seems that the Muslim interpretation is correct. However, as Christians have argued, such an interpretation takes Jesus' words out of its original context and thus brings it into sharp disagreement with what he says elsewhere, such as at his last supper with his disciples, on the night before he was killed:
Matthew 26: 27,28
"The he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.' "

The gospels of Mark and Luke record the same thing:
Mark 14:24
" 'This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,' he said to them."
Luke 22: 20
" In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."

So Jesus did come to establish the new covenant, which provides the forgiveness of sins through His death.This corresponds nicely with what God says about the new covenant as we have already seen: "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time....for I will forgive their wickedness, and remember their sins no more".

2.The new heart/new life/regeneration.
Quite a lot can be said about this in light of Jesus' words. Let's  see if we can be selective.
In John 3:1-21, Jesus has a conversation with a highly-placed member of the Jewish coucil called Nicodemus. Let's skim through:
"..Jesus declared, 'I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdon of God unless he is born again.'
'How can a man be born when he is old?' Nicodemus asked. 'Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!'
Jesus answered, 'I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but Spirit gives birth to spirit...'
'How can this be?' Nicodemus asked.
'You are Israel's teacher,' said Jesus, 'and do you not understand these things?...the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.' "
Clearly Jesus says that unless a person is reborn, or regenerated, he cannot enter God's kingdom. Well as we have said before, God is righteous, but man isn't. Why, because his heart is naturally evil. Also God is eternal, so is His kingdom. God is Spirit, his kingdom is spiritual. So to enter it, man needs be spiritually enabled; he needs a new life. Nicodemus thought Jesus was talking of physical rebirth, but on the contrary, Jesus was talking of spiritual rebirth - being 'born of the Spirit', being spiritually-enabled. Remember what was said before? The new covenant is spiritual! Now how would this spiritual rebirth be accomplished, Nicodemus asks? Jesus, the 'Son of Man' must be 'lifted up' i.e. crucified. Why? For the 'forgiveness of sins' of those who believe in him so that they may have eternal life.

By the way, what is the kingdom of God? Well according to the Jewish understanding of the Old Testament prophecies on the subject (this in fact includes the new covenant prophecy), it would be God's direct rule over the entire world through His Messiah (Christ) and Israel which He establishes as the head of the nations. Jesus claimed to be the Christ and as such it is no surprise that he was asked many questions about the time of God's kingdom and certainly spoke a lot about it. The Jews were waiting expectantly (and still are) for this Kingdom and imagined it as a purely physical reality.  But in Luke 17:20-2, Jesus said,
"the kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you.' "
Get it? The kingdom of God is in fact internal, it is spiritual, not a physical thing that can be seen with the naked eye or achieved by mere human force. The new covenant, just like the old one, was to be made with the nation of Israel. But where the old covenant failed in that it neither brought righteousness to Israel or to the rest of the world - for Israel was to be the light of the nations - the new covenant will succeed. How? Because it is spiritual in nature, it transcends all physical boudaries, such as ethnicity, sex, age, race, status, etc. The covenant is open to everyone!

More can be said of this, but not now. All this shows is that Jesus came to bring the promised regeneration of the heart and the new life. However, if this seem difficult to follow and too fantastic a stretch from the original statement in Jeremiah - 'I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts' - then the following verses will suffice.
John 7:37-39
'On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.' By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive."
If a person believes in Jesus, the Holy Spirit will come and live in him. Now what will He be doing in the heart of the believer?
John 14:26
'the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."
John 16:13
'But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you in all the truth.'

The Holy Spirit, living in the heart of the believer, will guide him in all the truth. This corresponds nicely with what God says in Jeremiah, for the law also guides in truth.

3. 'No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest'.

Another wonderful provision of this new covenant is that we will know God in a deeper way. How did Jesus provide this? Simply put, he is God. So if you believe in him and know him, then you know God. Here of course exists another huge source of disagreement between Christians and Muslims, and I'm not sure how much I should say about this subject here. I have said much elsewhere and actually plan to do so later. In any case, it is only until Jesus comes that we have a clearer presentation of what the Old Testament spoke of in whispers and shadows - that God is a 'plural unity' in nature; Father, Word and Holy Spirit.

And it is only fitting that Jesus is the one that gives us a deeper glance into God's nature, because of the office ascribed to him in his Deity. We know this by the names given to him - the Word of God, the Son of God, the image of God. All these names tell us the same thing about Jesus - that he is God revealed; God made visible; God expressing Himself in relationship. When God opens His mouth, the Word comes out. When God appears, His glory and image shines forth. Jesus is that Word, the Light that shines forth from the Father, revealed to us in human form. How else would you know another person if you do not know what he says, or have not seen his image? EMTL, though I have never seen you or looked into your mind; I know you, and I've seen what is in your mind, because I have read your words. Likewise we can't claim to know God unless we know His Word. It takes God to reveal God.

As such, Jesus, the 'Word made flesh,' says to his disciples,
"I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" John 14:6.
And when Philip, one of his disciples, asks him to show them the Father, he says,
'Don't you know me Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.'
EMTL what would you think if I said that anyone who sees me has seen God? Well that is exactly what Jesus is saying here. He is God, and if you know him, you know God. Outside of Jesus, God remains a God far away and invisible, and not 'Immanuel', a God nearby that one can relate to.  
As long as anyone has existed, he has had a means of expressing himself. In the same sense God never existed in solitude; as long as He has existed, His Word and Spirit has existed. Because the Father is eternal, the Word (and Spirit) are eternal.

From another perspective, remember that Jesus said that he came bring to give eternal life to those who believe. Now what is eternal life? Mere endless existence in paradise? Jesus defines it for us in John 17:3.
Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.'
Eternal life is knowing God the Father and His eternal Word. In case you are tempted to take this verse as showing that the Father alone is God and Jesus isn't, then remember John 1:18:
'No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.'
Jesus the Word is also the One and Only God; God is one.  

Lastly, remember that Jesus said that those who believe in Him will receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit (God) will guide them further in the knowledge of of the truth and will glorify Jesus in them. And Jesus gives those who believe eternal life, which is knowing him (God) and knowing the Father (God). Thus the promise of the new covenant is fulfilled: they will all know me.

4. Forgiveness of sins.
We have already seen that when installing the new covenant, Jesus said that the forgiveness of sins would be accomplished by his death. And we said before that where there is forgiveness, there is no condemnation. As such, Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3:16-18:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.'
Jesus did not come to condemn anyone, but to save sinners. At this point we can finally tackle the last verse you provided to prove that Jesus killed those who did not believe him:

The Bible even went beyond that by saying:
?Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies which will not that i should reign over them bring hither and slay them before me.
According to Bible this is Jesus's statement, anybody who did not believe in him should be brought near him and be killed. So the choice here is that: You either believe or get killed.

In my first post on this thread, I said that the verse quoted here was thoroughly dragged out of context to the point that it was even amusing. I'm sure that even you EMTL will chuckle a bit as we read the passage where that verse came from:
Luke19:11-27
While they were listening to this, he [Jesus] went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to come at once. He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten servants and gave them ten minas. 'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'
"But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king.'
"He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.
"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'
" 'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. "Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'
" 'The second came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned five more.'
"His master answered, 'You take charge of five cities.'
Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, becuase you are a hard man. You take what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.'
"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'
"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'
" 'Sir,' they replied, 'he already has ten!'
"He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken from him. But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and kill them in front of me.' "
I have put Jesus' words in red and highlighted EMTL's verse. His quote was part of a story that Jesus was telling. No, Jesus wasn't condemning any one; the man in his story was! Now do you see why I thought this was funny? I trust that you can appreciate the lighter side of this discussion :P . Its hard to see how your friend came to the conclusion he did by reading this passage. I invite and  encourage you and your friend to read the New Testament for yourselves. John's gospel is a good place to start. May this be your guide to knowing the one and only God, and Jesus, which is eternal life.

In conclusion, Christians are by no means obliged to implementing the apostate laws of the Old Testament, nor do we have the desire to do so. Those laws are part of the old setup and covenant which condemns everyone anyways.Christians live by the law of the Holy Spirit, the spiritual law, which is the law of love. This law dictates: 'love your neighbor as yourself', and 'love God with all your strength'. How can we condemn others for sin when God did not condemn us? The heart of God as revealed by his Word is love: 'For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him'. Therefore as Christians, as 'Christ-like' people, we do not desire to condemn others, but to show them the error of their ways in love. God is love, and His love is able to cover all sins. To Him be glory and honor for ever and and ever! Amen.

Thanks for your patience. God bless!