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Hello guys,
I've always believed Acts 15 is speaking of Moses' law (Acts v. 5,29). Acts is speaking of blood ingested as food or for pagan reasons. The blood in Acts has nothing to do with intravenously adding blood inorder to save lives. I don't think they had intravenous anything back then. Did they?
The Jehovah Witnesses say use common sense and ask “Would you burn your son forever” which I believe is “correct” and so common sense should apply to blood. last I checked no doctor has written a subscription for the ingestion of blood.
So I ask would you let your son die because of misinterpretation of scripture? Would God do that? How many lives has been saved and went on to serve the Lord because of the transfusion of blood.On the other hand I agree If there is a better solution than using blood then by “all” means lets use it. But don't deny life for someone, in doing so your playing God.
A pastor's son had pain in his side so he and his wife laid hands on the boy driving out demons and asking God to cure their son. After an hour or so the pastor and his wife (who is now associate pastor) finally “gave in to Satan” and brought the boy to the emergency room where they rushed his son to surgery to remove his appendix.
Did God want that boy to die? According to the bible sickness is caused by sin! “Go and sin no more” Jesus said.Where do we draw the line. Use the sense God gave us with prayer. Remember the pastor wasn't listening “he was screeming for a demon to leave”. True story I attened that church for some time until the Lord called me out.
Nick wrote:
Quote Hi,
I was told I could or should have had a transfusion last year when I was severely anaemic but chose not for any spiritual reasons to rather because of hygiene and all the hepatitis viruses that are about.As Nick points out, blood transfusions are a risky sometimes deadly way to try to solve these problems.
Kenrch asks:
Quote How many lives has been saved and went on to serve the Lord because of the transfusion of blood.
How many more lives have been lost because of using blood transfusions when better, safer, and higher quality treatment could have been used?Kenrch, just wondering what you think of what I wrote about blood and how God views blood and why he would command us to abstain from it?
To david,
Quote (david @ June 14 2006,19:02) Hi T8. Really, it is only Jesus blood that can save you. To break or go against God's command to “abstain” from blood will not save you in the long run.
I have heard a few stories on the news where a JW couples have let their child die because they refused a blood transfusion. If they had a blood transfusion, I assume they would have lived.Two things:
- I assume that blood transfusions save lives, hence my comment regarding being saved by someone elses blood. I know Jesus blood saves our souls, but I am talking of the body.
- Does abstaining from blood in scripture mean orally as in eating/consumption, or is it talking about in every way such as a mother passing blood components to her child?
Quote If they had a blood transfusion, I assume they would have lived.
You assume incorrectly. They may have lived. Or, they may have been infected with various diseases and suffered death by another new means. They choose the highest quality of treatment, but it is not for health reasons. It is because of God's Word. 'Abstain from blood.' (NIV)Quote Does abstaining from blood in scripture mean orally as in eating/consumption
If Nick, the Doctor tells you that you must “abstain” from alcohol, would it be ok to inject it into your body? Would it? Nick is a doctor, and he is telling you this for your benefit. He is wiser than you in this matter. And he says to 'abstain' from it. Would you? What if YOU thought by disregarding Him, you could somehow improve your life, or even save it?To disregard God's command to save a few years of this life? Jehovah's Witnesses do not want to die. We cherish life as a gift from God. The Bible is “inspired of God.” That book encourages worshippers of God to avoid practices and habits that harm health or endanger life. (Pr 23:20; 2 cor 7:1) When JW's get sick, they demonstrate reasonableness by seeking medical care and accepting the vast marjority of available treatment options. (Phil 4:5) True, they obey the Bible comand to “keep abstaining from…blood.” (acts 15:29) And this choice often results in a higher quality of treatment.
A lot of people sacrifice their sons to the god of war, and nationalism, going against God's will. People make no issue of it. But when a child dies who may have died even if they were tranfused, it always makes the papers.
Quote I assume that blood transfusions save lives, hence my comment regarding being saved by someone elses blood. I know Jesus blood saves our souls, but I am talking of the body.
Yes, but do you see the connection? Do you know WHY God commanded what he did? Please see my previous posts.Quote (david @ June 15 2006,20:36) If Nick, the Doctor tells you that you must “abstain” from alcohol, would it be ok to inject it into your body?
To david,I might still use a mouthwash or possibly use alcohol to clean a wound. Abstaination would mean not drinking it only unless stated otherwise. Also if injecting alcohol was going to save my life, then would it not be better to save your life than die while preventing any adverse reaction I may have to alcohol.
Blood transfusions may be risky, but a certain death due to lack of blood seems more extreme to me.
Like I said before, if a man's blood can save my life or my sons life, then I would consider it for that reason. Are we to preserve life, or let it go? What man doesn't give a hand to save someone, even his own child?
I think abstaining from blood is about consuming it. I do not promote this of course. But then we could talk about that rugby team that crash landed in the Andes and ate the dead in order to survive. Sure we shouldn't eat humans, but in that situation would you choose death for you and your family?
I might choose death. I am not sure if I could do it. But wouldn't know unless I was in that situation.
We are also told to keep the Sabbath holy. But labouring on the sabbath a supposed breach, was one of the accusations Christ faced when healing people on the Sabbath.
Is it not better to save someone, than be so strict about it that you leave someone to perish?
Hi david,
I believe there are matters that conscience dictates to individuals and I can accept that. But is it conscience or denominational restriction?Quote What about mouth to mouth, giving someone the breath of life? What do you think of this?
Nick, I'm not sure you have the power to give someone the breath of life. Doing CPR on someone is obviously different then what God did with Adam. I don't know of anything anywhere in the Bible that could be taken as restricting someone from performing CPR, if this is what you mean. Is this what you mean?Cannibalism, the eating of human flesh, naturally repugnant to the human mind, was abhorred by God and his ancient covenant people Israel. (De 28:53-57; 2Ki 6:28-30)
This is the problem:
Quote Sure we shouldn't eat humans, but in that situation would you choose death for you and your family? How strong is your faith in the resurrection t8?
If God says not to do something, can you reason things out better than Him? Can you justify something He has condemned? Do you in any way know more than Him?Quote Also if injecting alcohol was going to save my life, then would it not be better to save your life than die while preventing any adverse reaction I may have to alcohol.
What if injecting the blood that your God said to abstain from “may” save your life, but it was God who gave you this life, and He said to abstain from it? What if He holds a special purpose for blood? What if over time He has repeatedly shown that it is used only for this special purpose and that is why it is to be poured out? What if you actually believed what God said? And what if you held following his Words as more important than your very life? What then?Hi david,
What about the practice of having some of your own blood taken off preop and being transfused with it again. Is that OK?Nick, I'd like to ask you, as a doctor, … you said you were a general practioner, a general doctor, a family doctor, right?
Or were you an emergency doctor? I can't actually remember now.Am I? You're a physicain right? I just want to know what you know? I could be using bigger words. I am wondering if you've ever done a transfusion, which certainly is “on subject.” If you have, then you have some special knowledge in this area. It's not off subject. I wanted to ask it before.
Hi david,
This is a biblical site and all are entitled to some personal privacy.
Can you address the question above?Only sacrificial use of blood has ever been approved by God
Lev. 17:11, 12: “The soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have put it upon the altar for you to make atonement for your souls, because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul in it. That is why I have said to the sons of Israel: ‘No soul of you must eat blood and no alien resident who is residing as an alien in your midst should eat blood.’” (All those animal sacrifices under the Mosaic Law foreshadowed the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ.)
Heb. 9:11-14, 22: “When Christ came as a high priest . . . he entered, no, not with the blood of goats and of young bulls, but with his own blood, once for all time into the holy place and obtained an everlasting deliverance for us. For if the blood of goats and of bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who have been defiled sanctifies to the extent of cleanness of the flesh, how much more will the blood of the Christ, who through an everlasting spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works that we may render sacred service to the living God? . . . Unless blood is poured out no forgiveness takes place.”
Eph. 1:7: “By means of him [Jesus Christ] we have the release by ransom through the blood of that one, yes, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his undeserved kindness.”
How did those who claimed to be Christians in early centuries C.E. understand the Bible’s commands regarding blood?
Tertullian (c. 160-230 C.E.): “Let your unnatural ways blush before the Christians. We do not even have the blood of animals at our meals, for these consist of ordinary food. . . . At the trials of Christians you [pagan Romans] offer them sausages filled with blood. You are convinced, of course, that the very thing with which you try to make them deviate from the right way is unlawful for them. How is it that, when you are confident that they will shudder at the blood of an animal, you believe they will pant eagerly after human blood?”—Tertullian, Apologetical Works, and Minucius Felix, Octavius (New York, 1950), translated by Emily Daly, p. 33.
Minucius Felix (third century C.E.): “So much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food.”—The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, Mich.; 1956), edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, Vol. IV, p. 192.
Does the Bible’s prohibition include human blood?
Yes, and early Christians understood it that way. Acts 15:29 says to “keep abstaining from . . . blood.” It does not say merely to abstain from animal blood. (Compare Leviticus 17:10, which prohibited eating “any sort of blood.”) Tertullian (who wrote in defense of the beliefs of early Christians) stated: “The interdict upon ‘blood’ we shall understand to be (an interdict) much more upon human blood.”—The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV, p. 86.
Is a transfusion really the same as eating blood?
In a hospital, when a patient cannot eat through his mouth, he is fed intravenously. Now, would a person who never put blood into his mouth but who accepted blood by transfusion really be obeying the command to “keep abstaining from . . . blood”? (Acts 15:29) To use a comparison, consider a man who is told by the doctor that he must abstain from alcohol. Would he be obedient if he quit drinking alcohol but had it put directly into his veins?
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