A Question Unanswered, When in Church...

[POI]

During the last year or so of attending church, I was still reluctant to ask probing questions for fear of 'rocking the boat'. In the back of each chair were suggestion/question cards, which anyone could fill out and turn in... I asked the same question, about a dozen times, and never received any type of response.

For debate:

Why would an all knowing and all loving God ever place favor towards one specific race, the Jews?

[POI]

...
Why would an all knowing and all loving God ever place favor towards one specific race, the Jews?

By what the Bible tells, it was because they were loyal to God, others rejected Him.

1) The Bible tells it's readers that if you are a Jew, you are loyal?
2) If He creates people, then why not create everyone as a Jew?
3) If Jews are already loyal, then why test them?
4) So no non-Jew was loyal?

1) No. It tells the ancestors of Jews were loyal, that is why God gave them the promises and chose the nation. Bible also shows not all Jews have been loyal, because these came true:
"'But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments; and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant; I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.
Leviticus 26:14-16
I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
Leviticus 26:33
2) Creating everyone as a Jew is not useful, if people don't want to be that. God has given freedom to people to choose to do they want to be loyal to Him or not.
3) Test them? What do you mean?
4) I think everyone who is loyal to Bible God can be counted as a Jew, because:
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.
Romans 2:28-29

1) Then your rationale does not follow. If some Jews were not loyal to god, then giving exclusivity to the Jews makes no sense.
2) You cannot choose your race, can you?
3) Why test the ones who are already deemed loyal?
4) Again, I'm speaking about race. Why did god grant favor to one specific race? As the OP asks....

[POI]

Jews are not a race BTW.

"Jewish people
Ethnic group
Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people,"

The rest of your response is based upon a false premise. So I will await another response.

Other examples exist, where god favors a race. When he speaks about Israelites, for example.

[TRANSPONDER]

It strikes me as a weird situation that God locks himself into his own rules as though he didn't know what was going to happen. Quite apart from the whole Eden scenario which makes no sense unless God had set the whole thing up to make sure that man would Fall and take the whole of creation down with him, apparently, and also created a bunch of angels he knew would revolt, he picks one Urbanite and promises to favor his descendants (the Hebrews) for ever after. Even though he knew that they would offend him so much that he would have use the Assyrians and Babylonians to destroy them, the Persians to re-establish one tribe (Judah) pretty much, the Romans to destroy them again, pretty much and the Balfour doctrine to re-establish them, much to the annoyance of the Muslims who were running the place.

But it gets worse. He sends 'his only son' specifically to be a sacrifice for sin, but acts like it was to call the Jews to repentance when he knew they would reject Jesus and get the Romans to execute Jesus as part of the plan to make a loophole in his own sin -law.

But it gets worse. forgetting his promise, God shifts his support to the Gentiles even though helping the Jews to find their car -keys, as though they still were his people, and Jesus pretty much bins the Laws he imposed, because His on now 'fulfilled' them (thus making them obsolete) and explaining in his sermon on the mount that playing nice and not following Rules was the way to go.

How can one make sense of all this other than with blind faith - 'God knows what he is doing', together with a few lame excuses. Like 'God didn't favour the Jews. He only favoured Abraham's children...who were the Jews'. More or less.

Fortunately there is a simple explanation for all this muddle (Blind faith isn't an explanation but ignoring the problem), but it probably isn't one the believers will like.

[AquinasForGod]

Jews are not a race BTW.

"Jewish people
Ethnic group
Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people,"

The rest of your response is based upon a false premise. So I will await another response.

Other examples exist, where god favors a race. When he speaks about Israelites, for example.

So Jews are not a race, thanks. I did not expect my clear answers to your questions to be challenged either way.

[JehovahsWitness]

2. Because God is not actually placing favor toward Hebrews but toward one person like Abraham, and then promised Abraham that he would bless his children and does so.

I have to agree with AquinasForGod, God did not favor the Jews [as in the Israelites] because they were faithful and loyal (on the contrary the bible record presents them as a particularly stubborn and rebellious people). God made a promise to a friend, ABRAHAM because he (Abraham) was faithful and loyal.

Jesus had to be born a human being, so by necessity had to have a nationality, the descendents of Abraham were given that privilege.



JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

[POI]

Jews are not a race BTW.

"Jewish people
Ethnic group
Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people,"

The rest of your response is based upon a false premise. So I will await another response.

Other examples exist, where god favors a race. When he speaks about Israelites, for example.

So Jews are not a race, thanks. I did not expect my clear answers to your questions to be challenged either way.

You can choose your ethnicity/race? I thought not... Please formulate a new argument. I'll be waiting.

[Avoice]

[Replying to 1213 in post #10]

So circumcision of the flesh means nothing?
You might want to listen to God rather than Paul:

This is what the Sovereign Lord says: No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh is to enter my sanctuary, not even the foreigners who live among the Israelites.

So now what ? How will you get around this ?

[POI]

2. Because God is not actually placing favor toward Hebrews but toward one person like Abraham, and then promised Abraham that he would bless his children and does so.

I have to agree with AquinasForGod, God did not favor the Jews [as in the Israelites] because they were faithful and loyal (on the contrary the bible record presents them as a particularly stubborn and rebellious people). God made a promise to a friend, ABRAHAM because he (Abraham) was faithful and loyal.

Jesus had to be born a human being, so by necessity had to have a nationality, the descendents of Abraham were given that privilege.



JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

If you cannot see how this argument is faulty, then I do not know what to say....

[AquinasForGod]

Jews are not a race BTW.

"Jewish people
Ethnic group
Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people,"

The rest of your response is based upon a false premise. So I will await another response.

Other examples exist, where god favors a race. When he speaks about Israelites, for example.

So Jews are not a race, thanks. I did not expect my clear answers to your questions to be challenged either way.

You can choose your ethnicity/race? I thought not... Please formulate a new argument. I'll be waiting.

That has nothing to do with the fact you are incorrect about Jews being a race. Do you concede that point or are you going to die on that hill that Jews are a race?

[Diagoras]

Fortunately there is a simple explanation for all this muddle (Blind faith isn't an explanation but ignoring the problem), but it probably isn't one the believers will like.

Tell us! Tell us, master! How should we explain this muddle?

Is it something to do with symbolism, perhaps?