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Author Topic:   Continuing the Endless Discussion between GDR and traditional Protestantism
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 58 of 103 (874804)
04-10-2020 2:09 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by GDR
04-10-2020 1:03 PM


Re: The Rapture isn't Biblical
Just one thing for starters: The author of Acts was not a Jew and his audience,were mostly Gentiles.. The author was Luke, a Gentile physician. He was not writing from a Jewish perspective at all.
As far as the expectation that clouds meant heaven, that's fine, but you can't get rid of the cloud as a real cloud just because it signifies going into heaven.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by GDR, posted 04-10-2020 1:03 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 60 by GDR, posted 04-10-2020 2:44 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 61 of 103 (874807)
04-10-2020 3:01 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by GDR
04-10-2020 2:44 PM


Re: The Rapture isn't Biblical
How can it say something that was never intended when it clearly says what it clearly says? There's some kind of crazy convoluted thinking going on here that makes no sense. It describes a cloud, that means a cloud was actually seen. It may MEAN heaven but it's still a visible CLOUD. How do YOU know something ELSE was "intended." That makes no sense.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by GDR, posted 04-10-2020 2:44 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by GDR, posted 04-10-2020 4:12 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 62 of 103 (874809)
04-10-2020 3:25 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by GDR
04-10-2020 2:32 PM


Re: Day of the Lord in context of the times
You don't understand how prophecy works. The prophecy of the future Day of the Lord is expressed in the context of the destruction of Babylon in that passage but it's still a prophecy of the much future event. And if you search for Day of the Lord you will find many references that point to that much future event even when couched in a present context, which changes from prophet to prophet.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by GDR, posted 04-10-2020 2:32 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by GDR, posted 04-10-2020 4:25 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 65 of 103 (874822)
04-10-2020 8:38 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by GDR
04-10-2020 4:25 PM


Re: Day of the Lord in context of the times
There are at least a dozen uses of "Day of the Lord" in scripture and they ALL refer to the day of great wrath from God, ALL OF THEM. There is no other meaning in the OLD Testament than the one I'm talking about, it's the Day of Wrath and never meant anything else. I don't know where you are getting your odd outlier version of the term but it has nothing to do with this subject. And yes you are wrong about prophecy, it often occurs within a contemporary context but also reaches into the future. That is STANDARD theology GDR. And again there are a LOT of uses of that term, it isn't as if we're stuck with the Babylonian context. ALL OF THEM describe a great day of destruction, and they do fit with the Great Tribulation Jesus talks about.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 66 of 103 (874824)
04-10-2020 8:45 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by GDR
04-10-2020 4:12 PM


Re: The Rapture isn't Biblical
Oh for pete's sake GDR. "Raining cats and dogs" is obviously metaphorical. Sheesh. "Up" and "Clouds" are simple understandable descriptive terms, not metaphors. Sheesh.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by GDR, posted 04-10-2020 4:12 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 1:29 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 69 of 103 (874904)
04-11-2020 5:45 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by GDR
04-11-2020 1:29 PM


Re: The Rapture isn't Biblical
Idiom, fine, who cares, the point is that we all know it's not literal. BUT CLOUDS ARE, "UP" IS.
When I say my theology is standard what I have in mind is the Protestant churches in general that derive from the Reformation. Where a church deviates from that I'm not including it. It's Reformed theology mostly but conservative Lutheran theology holds to the same basic understanding. It's a broad swath of Christendom. There are plenty of apostate churches these days of course and perhaps you wouldn't knolw one from the orthodox, but I'm only talking about the orthodox. I can go into MOST churches in my area and expect to find the same basic theology. I'd have to look far and wide to find a church with the oddball theology you hold to.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 1:29 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 6:11 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 70 of 103 (874905)
04-11-2020 5:59 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by GDR
04-11-2020 1:29 PM


Re: The Rapture isn't Biblical
Your Christian belief in many ways seems to be so much like the ancient Jews. They desperately wanted Yahweh to destroy their enemies. You seem to be so often fixated on a wrathful god, very unlike the god as embodied by Jesus in the Gospels. I don't actually believe you are like this, but your postings make it sound like you are craving vengeance on those who don't subscribe to your fundamentalist beliefs.
Maybe it's because your own theology is derived so much from your own feelings and preferences you think that's how I derive mine too but I don't, I'm writing what I believe is the standarad traditional theology. Nothing to do with me personally. I don't "crave" anything in the theology, I simply present what I understand to be true. And if you're talking about my emphasis here on the Day of the Lord that's because we are talking about the Rapture, or I thought we were, and we got stuck on the part that follows the Rapture, known as the Great Tribulation, which is understood in standard theology to be the fulfillment of the Day oif the LORD which is a Day of Wrath, found throughout scripture. You have some other interpretation of that term and that's requiring me to keep the standard meaning on the table. Nothing to do with my preferences, all to do with trying to keep the meaning of the topic alive.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 1:29 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 6:56 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 73 of 103 (874913)
04-11-2020 7:01 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by GDR
04-11-2020 6:11 PM


Re: The Rapture isn't Biblical
No GDR, I know it's a literal cloud because the context makes it a literal cloud.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 6:11 PM GDR has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 74 of 103 (874914)
04-11-2020 7:04 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by GDR
04-11-2020 6:56 PM


Re: The Rapture isn't Biblical
I understand why you see it that way. The problem is that it is my belief that your detailed concept of rapture is not what is meant by what is in the Bible.
I'm going to have to give this up to save my sanity.
The resurrection of Jesus is a foretaste, (with Jesus as the new Adam), of what is ultimately to come. Ultimately God will do for all of His creation what He did for Jesus in the renewal of that creation.
Tyhere is nothing in anything I've said that says anything else. Good grief man. I'm following up on how things are to play out historically, you are just talking about the end result.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 6:56 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 75 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 7:10 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 76 of 103 (874919)
04-11-2020 7:37 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by GDR
04-11-2020 7:10 PM


Re: The Rapture is for the Church, the Day of the Lord is for unbelievers
Believers do not "look forward to a wrathful act," you really have to get this sorted out better. Believers look forward to the Rapture to be with Jesus in heaven and be permanently changed to fit into the Kingdom of God. Where the Day of the Lord comes in has to do with the playing out of the whole historical thrust of scripture from beginning to end. There IS a history that IS playing out that is outlined in the Bible. The "end times" of course refers to how this history comes to an end and that is what I am doing with the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. The Rapture comes first and I could stop there because that's what I personally have to look forward to if I am alive at that point.
But I actually care about the people who won't go in the Rapture and what is coming on the earth after the Rapture is the Wrath of God being poured out. This is what the Day of the Lord refers to, it is what the Great Tribulation refers to, it is what is described here and there in the prophets of the OT and in great detail in the middle part of the Book of Revelation.
If I belong to Jesus I'm not going to have to live through all this, but my unsaved family and friends will have to if it comes in our lifetime. It may not come until well past our lifetime, who knows, but some people are going to have to live through it whenever it occurs. This applies to them.
The main group to be left on the earth after the Church is raptured, besides all atheists, will be the Jews, and the Day of the Lord is the last seven years of God's dealings with Israel as described in the Old testament. Some Christians think Israel is out of the picture completely, that their role ended when Jesus came. I more or less accepted that for a long time but then I got into the thinking behind the Pre-Tribulation rapture and finally accepted that after the Church is gone what happens is that God resumes His dealings with Israel pretty much in Old Testament terms. During the Day of the Lord millions of people will be saved, and that includes a third of the Jews and millions of others from every people group on earth. This is all going to go on during the periodic and progressive destructions of the planet and the political domination of the Antichrist and the manifestation of demon hordes. I hate to think of ANYONE going through all that and those who hold this point of view want to be sure people have some idea of what is coming so they can deal with it better. \
OK? There's more but this should explain why the Wrath of God is so important in this discussion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 7:10 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 9:00 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 78 of 103 (874923)
04-11-2020 9:26 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by GDR
04-11-2020 9:00 PM


Re: The Rapture is for the Church, the Day of the Lord is for unbelievers
...However, it seems that you believe in a wrathful God, and if we are to look to Jesus to understand the Father then it is clear He isn’t a wrathful god.
Sure he is. He's the same God as the God of the Old Testament. What could drive me bonkers dealing with you is that you just believe what you want to believe and blithely toss away what you don't like. so of course you must toss away the following:
2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 writes:
when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
That speaks of JESUS as a wrathful God coming in vengeance. Jesus, GDR, Jesus. The Bible really is a whole from beginning to end, it reveals a God both of great mercy and great wrath.
Actually, no, none of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture thinking comes from the Reformed perspective. Reformed churches don't teach it. So I am departing from that theological camp in following this point of view.
You are quite wrong about the Reformation teaching, however, it was a very strongly theological rejection of the Roman Church for its doctrine of salvation by works in particular. The Roman Church certainly knew what it was being criticized for. All you have to do is read the Council of Trent's curses on the Protestant doctrines concerning salvation. The sale of indulgences was simply the original offense that drew Luther's attention to the corruptions of the Church. After studying its practices and history in the light of the Bible he came to realize that the corruption was far deeper than any specific offense, the Roman Church was not a Christian body at all and the Pope was the Antichrist.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 9:00 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 9:51 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 80 of 103 (874925)
04-11-2020 9:58 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by GDR
04-11-2020 9:51 PM


Re: The Rapture is for the Church, the Day of the Lord is for unbelievers
Oh blithering nonsense. Paul is not contradicting himself, that's just your own weird mental set that can't accept both sides of God and Jesus. And I'm fine with continuing scholarship that continues to plumb the depths of scripture but what yours does is rip it up, shred it, make it contradict itself. No that's not scholarship.
You actually think the Catholic point of view that ignores the theology of the Reformation is progress? Excuse me while I go and tear my hair out.

This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 81 of 103 (874939)
04-12-2020 2:34 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by GDR
04-11-2020 9:00 PM


Re: The Rapture is for the Church, the Day of the Lord is for unbelievers
Yes Luther was a priest and he objected to indulgences. He thought the Pope would appreciate his efforts. Instead the Pope excommunicated him. That set him on the study that eventually showed him that the Pope is scripturally the Antichrist. The Roman Church WAS the main political power in Europe. All the kings had to serve the Pope. One king that dared to object to a papal decree was severely humiliated by the Pope, having to stand barefoot in the snow for an audience with him or something like that. It wasn't just "leading" to political power, it WAS political power.
The Dead Sea Scrolls pretty mucyh verified what we already knew. For instance their copy of the OT is identical to the one we had.
You don't say exactly what you think all the newly discovered documents contributed to theology. My impression has been they contributed nothing new. If they contributed YOUR theology then they undid the entire previous two thousand years. That's not what I'd call progress in scholarship.
There were always dissidents who tried to take the scriptures in the vernacular to the people. Itinerant evangelists such as Peter Waldo of the Waldensians, a Christian community hiding in the Alps from the RCC. Wycliff was another. Jan Hus was another. Some got burned at the stake. The point is I know quite a bit of Christian history and quite a bit about newly found documents and how what they actually contributed was heresy for the most part.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by GDR, posted 04-11-2020 9:00 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 82 by GDR, posted 04-12-2020 2:43 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 83 of 103 (874942)
04-12-2020 2:55 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by GDR
04-12-2020 2:43 AM


Re: The Rapture is for the Church, the Day of the Lord is for unbelievers
The point was that it gave them increased knowledge of the language and culture making for better translation and understanding what was meant in the context of the culture and time.
Again you aren't specific but my impression again is that we already had tons of knowledge of language and culture by the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls at least. When Erasmus made his translation he had original Greek manuscripts for the first time and other documents that came from the East as Christians were driven out by Islam. That was a great boost to learning but not much has happened since. There has been a big hullaballoo about some supposedly extremely early Bibles that have been foisted on the Church as a corrective to the Textus Receptus. As I studied that situation I joined with those who see those old translations as coming from the early heresy camps. They are in remarkably good shape for such early documents, quite pristine, which demonstrates LACK OF USE and the lack of use suggests they were not regarded as accurate. Too bad. They got foisted on the Church anyway, they now underlie the newer translations and have poisoned the whole arena of textual analysis. If you think they are wonderful new translations as so many do I'm afraid I disagree. They are heretical, they are bogus. I don't see what they would contribute to your bizarre theology anyway. They mostly just eliminate some of the best known passages.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by GDR, posted 04-12-2020 2:43 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by GDR, posted 04-12-2020 11:08 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1700 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 85 of 103 (874972)
04-12-2020 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by GDR
04-12-2020 11:08 AM


Re: The Rapture is for the Church, the Day of the Lord is for unbelievers
Happy Easter to you too. I've spent a lot of time over the last few days listening to great Christian music. That will suffice for me this year.
GDR, the scriptures weren't generally available until the printing press and that did come soon after the Reformation I think (?). Otherwise only priests like Luther had the Bible. And Erasmus who also had the Greek manuscripts to work from in doing his translation, and I think Luther had Erasmus' translation and wasn't just confined to the Vulgate. Also Bibles in other languages than Latin and Greek. Bibles all had to be copied by hand until the printing press.
You don't say WHAT "light" was supposedly shed on the scriptures by the new documents. Possibly new insights into the culture of the time of the apostles and earlier but nothing that changed the meaning of the scripture. Good preachers usually include the cultural context of the passage they are preaching on, it brings it to life. But as for affecting the meaning why should it change? All the books of the Bible were passed down through the centuries, why would that change? There's a whole discipline of textual criticisim that compares all the copies and fragments of copies we have to correct small errors that accumulated in some lines of copying but they are able to do that. If you think some kind of substantive changes occured please be specific.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by GDR, posted 04-12-2020 11:08 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by GDR, posted 04-12-2020 8:39 PM Faith has not replied
 Message 87 by GDR, posted 04-12-2020 8:40 PM Faith has replied

  
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