2 Peter 3

[Michael The Disciple]

Originally Posted by Esaias

I have studied prophecy, beginning in Genesis and moving forward. Including through the NT. As a result, your end times outlook just doesn't cut the mustard. For me, anyway. Your mileage may vary.

I don't think you have a solid base from which to even begin a study of prophecy. You say "Why not let Jesus teach us?" but you won't actually let Him do that, instead you want Him to teach you your version of post trib futurism.

It's been Biblically proven that "the coming of the Lord" and "the day of the Lord" do not necessarily always refer to what you think of as the Second Coming. So just because those phrases appear in a text doesn't mean it is always talking about the Second Advent.
your apparent refusal to acknowledge that reality renders your opinions on eschatology irrelevant to me.

Jesus taught many things about prophecy you clearly don't believe, because they don't fit your system. And, all your system REALLY amounts to is "at some point, some rough stuff will happen, it's just gonna get worse, so no need to make any efforts to do anything except wait to die." Literally, in PRACTICAL terms, no different than the rapture cult in it's actual effects.

Would your eschatology ever convince you to encourage young people to get married, and have as many children as possible, and work on building a better future for their grandkids? Or no?

So you assume I have not studied prophecy? When did you start studying it? I started in 1974. Now you may say that doesnt matter to which I would say why did you bring it up?

Would Jesus understand prophecy better than you and me? If there is prophecy we need to know and believe was he not able to present it himself? There is prophecy that may be irrelevant to the saints of God.

But what is relevant and essential for us to understand I believe Jesus taught us either himself or through his apostles. The Holy Spirit is able to condense and tie together anything and everything that is meant for us to know through Jesus Christ.

For prets, or historists, or whoever to think that ONLY THEY have perceived Biblical imagery or "spiritual" application to prophecy is ridiculous. As if others have not read the Old Testament as much (if not more) than they.

As to the day of the day of the Lord, the day of God, or the day of Christ, referring EXCLUSIVELY in the New Testament to the coming of Jesus for his people I have proved.

If you have a place in the New Testament where one of these phrases is NOT referring to the coming of Jesus for his people please post it. After all if I am saying something wrong I would not want to wreck my credibility by saying it again.

On the other hand if there were say one or two verses in the NT where the phrase "the day of Christ" WAS talking about his judgment coming apart from the resurrection of the dead and catching up of the saints how would that diminish the force and impact of lets say EIGHT verses that DID refer to that event?

Think for a minute. The scriptures were written in what we would consider a primitive time. We have various Old Testament prophets preaching about the day of the Lord. You and I can simply open the Bible and find all the references and study the events and analyze them.

In the early days of the New Testament Church and for some 1500 years after very, very, few believers would ever have the chance to do so. The great majority of believers could not read. There was no such thing as like we have today.

Bibles where we simply open and within a minute or two we are were we need to be. So down through the years those who did have some part of the texts didn't have the advantage of separation between chapters and numbered verses. So there were things we can see now that they (mostly) could not.

My point about the day of the Lord verses is not that they are not important. But in the cases where they were simply for events of things that have already passed they may not be relevant to the time Jesus spoke of when HE would come. We can learn spiritual truths from them. We can compare these things with truths from the New Testament.

However when the writers of the New Testament wrote what they did they had been TAUGHT BY JESUS and passed on to us that which was for his disciples. He apparantley wanted us when thinking of the "day of Christ" or the "day of the Lord" wanted us to think about the day of his coming for his people.

An example might be Moses and Elijah appearing in a vision to Jesus. Peter wanted to honor them as he did Christ. A cloud overshadowed them and the Spirit said "This is my Son, hear him'!

If Jesus points us to believe the day of Christ refers to his coming that should be our foremost focus on it.

Having established THAT understanding we have hope of understanding the time frame of his coming.

[1ofthechosen]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

I am not overlooking events of the past. I understand like Peter was trying to teach the saints that with God a thousand years is as one day and one day is as a thousand years.

There was a great falling away from the faith. Now there has been a (at least partial) restoration of the faith. At the time of the end there will be another falling away.
You may notice things can repeat themselves during the many centuries we are talking about.

Yet there is only ONE SPECIFIC time prophesied when Jesus will actually COME AND GATHER TOGETHER HIS ELECT, including the resurrection and the rapture.

Thats what this is all about

MTD I've talked to 2 of them privately and they don't believe even see that event the way you see it. Neither would say that the coming of the Lord that Jesus came once and for all time in 70 AD. Now some Jesuit pretrist may believe that, and claim this is the millennium while these people are not saying that at all. What they are saying is they don't see those events in what would be a orthodox Way. One told me "that the ressurection happens when you die, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."

Now no one I repeat no one said Jesus came in 70 AD once and for all. So therefore it's not the same as the teaching of hymenaeus and Philetus. So your argument is moot. You can't even understand their argument, because you keep saying this is what they believe. The thing is they don't see this event the same, so you using your position and view and making claims from it is totally off, because they don't even see it like that at all. But you keep saying it and keep saying it.

But they could be wrong but let me help you rest assure their view is just as wrong as yours. I agree to a certain extent to all these different views. If they didn't have anything true to them no one would believe it, but I look for what's right and throw the bones away. Somewhere in between all of this is the truth. But the Great Tribulation so called is not Biblical so for us to be using that as a marker for pre mid or post of this event is off in itself.

[1ofthechosen]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

So you assume I have not studied prophecy? When did you start studying it? I started in 1974. Now you may say that doesnt matter to which I would say why did you bring it up?

Would Jesus understand prophecy better than you and me? If there is prophecy we need to know and believe was he not able to present it himself? There is prophecy that may be irrelevant to the saints of God.

But what is relevant and essential for us to understand I believe Jesus taught us either himself or through his apostles. The Holy Spirit is able to condense and tie together anything and everything that is meant for us to know through Jesus Christ.

For prets, or historists, or whoever to think that ONLY THEY have perceived Biblical imagery or "spiritual" application to prophecy is ridiculous. As if others have not read the Old Testament as much (if not more) than they.

As to the day of the day of the Lord, the day of God, or the day of Christ, referring EXCLUSIVELY in the New Testament to the coming of Jesus for his people I have proved.

If you have a place in the New Testament where one of these phrases is NOT referring to the coming of Jesus for his people please post it. After all if I am saying something wrong I would not want to wreck my credibility by saying it again.

On the other hand if there were say one or two verses in the NT where the phrase "the day of Christ" WAS talking about his judgment coming apart from the resurrection of the dead and catching up of the saints how would that diminish the force and impact of lets say EIGHT verses that DID refer to that event?

Think for a minute. The scriptures were written in what we would consider a primitive time. We have various Old Testament prophets preaching about the day of the Lord. You and I can simply open the Bible and find all the references and study the events and analyze them.

In the early days of the New Testament Church and for some 1500 years after very, very, few believers would ever have the chance to do so. The great majority of believers could not read. There was no such thing as like we have today.

Bibles where we simply open and within a minute or two we are were we need to be. So down through the years those who did have some part of the texts didn't have the advantage of separation between chapters and numbered verses. So there were things we can see now that they (mostly) could not.

My point about the day of the Lord verses is not that they are not important. But in the cases where they were simply for events of things that have already passed they may not be relevant to the time Jesus spoke of when HE would come. We can learn spiritual truths from them. We can compare these things with truths from the New Testament.

However when the writers of the New Testament wrote what they did they had been TAUGHT BY JESUS and passed on to us that which was for his disciples. He apparantley wanted us when thinking of the "day of Christ" or the "day of the Lord" wanted us to think about the day of his coming for his people.

An example might be Moses and Elijah appearing in a vision to Jesus. Peter wanted to honor them as he did Christ. A cloud overshadowed them and the Spirit said "This is my Son, hear him'!

If Jesus points us to believe the day of Christ refers to his coming that should be our foremost focus on it.

Having established THAT understanding we have hope of understanding the time frame of his coming.

You have to realize the Bible was translated by scholars who had certain predisposed lens and angles they seen on all of this. Just like we can see our Bible is translated by Trinitarian's for trinitatarians, they same goes with Eschatology .

[1ofthechosen]

Ok MTD what's the difference in between what you believe and Steve Anderson? Would you agree with him?

[houston]

For prets, or historists, or whoever to think that ONLY THEY have perceived Biblical imagery or "spiritual" application to prophecy is ridiculous. As if others have not read the Old Testament as much (if not more) than they.

Really, MTD!? Isn’t that why YOU make posts about Post Trib? Because YOU believe that YOU are correcf. Don’t be a hypocrite.

[1ofthechosen]

Originally Posted by houston

Really, MTD!? Isn’t that why YOU make posts about Post Trib? Because YOU believe that YOU are correcf. Don’t be a hypocrite.

The craziest thing is that MTD has yet to refute anything anyone else believes in the context of what is being claimed. Yet I've seen many refute and blow huge holes in what he claims totally in the context of what he says and when that happens he doesn't at all most the time respond. And when he does he stands upon his own paradigm to battle it. When all and all , all that is is a elaborate strawman because it's not even what is being discussed or claimed in the first place.

Ita all 2 different subjects with only the category of Eschatology to tie them together. At this point it's a pointless discussion because there's a great gulf fixed in between context of what's even being said. Good grief!

[Michael The Disciple]

Jesus taught many things about prophecy you clearly don't believe, because they don't fit your system. And, all your system REALLY amounts to is "at some point, some rough stuff will happen, it's just gonna get worse, so no need to make any efforts to do anything except wait to die." Literally, in PRACTICAL terms, no different than the rapture cult in it's actual effects.

Would your eschatology ever convince you to encourage young people to get married, and have as many children as possible, and work on building a better future for their grandkids? Or no?

What you say my "system" amounts to in your opinion is nothing at all. Some rough stuff happens at some point..... Myself and others have not forgotten that through the centuries there have been terrible times for the saints. Matter of fact I hardly even hear that mentioned in our present day.

Persecutions by Rome, Catholics, Vikings, Islam, various cults and their leaders, Communists and others, real saints, real people had to endure. They were taught they would be persecuted. It happened.

If we consider THEIR EXAMPLE we will have some understanding of that which is coming. It may not be in the "great tribulation" period. Any time we are suffering for Christ can be great tribulation for the one suffering. This can happen any time.

Even now millions of people are persecuted for the name of Christ. Is it going to get worse? Jesus said so. He warned that in the day of his coming it would be like Noahs day. Or like Lots day. Really bad business.

In my "system" the practical teaching while waiting for the end time and coming of Jesus would be to follow the teachings of Jesus. In them is all the wisdom we need to live in this world.

First off a close walk with him. That should be first and foremost. Obedience to his commands. Witnessing to others, being part of the great commission.

His commands contain instruction about things like working for a living, getting married and having children. If one teaches THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD the audience will have "practical" things to do while waiting and hoping for the coming of Jesus.

Now if one teaches Jesus is coming soon so FORGET ALL OF HIS OTHER TEACHINGS........then yes they could be called a "cult" and deluded group of people that have nothing "practical" to offer.

But then again there is teaching out there which I see no basis for in Jesus teachings where it is taught that the saints will "dominate" the world.

That saints will transform society and rule the nations before Jesus comes. Not only is that not scriptural but has never been "practically" accomplished.

No doubt there have been areas where Christians have influence. As far as "domination" not even close. Jesus did not "dominate" in his sphere of influence except spiritually. The Apostles did not "dominate" nations but rather were murdered by them.

In my "system" of believing, the ancient New Testament faith it is taught we dominate spiritually. We live holy lives unto God and spread our faith individually that others may believe and then teach others and so on.

[Michael The Disciple]

Originally Posted by houston

Really, MTD!? Isn’t that why YOU make posts about Post Trib? Because YOU believe that YOU are correcf. Don’t be a hypocrite.

You missed my meaning entirely. My point is that Prets accuse us of interpreting scripture ENTIRELY on a literal basis without ever taking into account Biblical imagery or spiritual application.

[Michael The Disciple]

Originally Posted by 1ofthechosen

You have to realize the Bible was translated by scholars who had certain predisposed lens and angles they seen on all of this. Just like we can see our Bible is translated by Trinitarian's for trinitatarians, they same goes with Eschatology .

Gee I never realized that!

Look at it this way then. If WE in this time dont have a decent Bible translation, altho I have about 15 printed versions within my reach not to mention dozens if not hundreds available at a computer click, think of the saints before us.

For hundreds of years most of them could not even read! Much less have hope of owning a "Bible". Their faith stood in what a priest or preacher told them. Do you really think they had these FANTASTIC systems of belief like you see on this forum? Things so complicated to understand people cant even discern that men teach that Jesus came in 70ad? Why do they defend this stuff?

Does YOUR Pastor know YOU DO?

Its possible that MOST disciples of Jesus IN OUR DAY dont own their own Bible.

[houston]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

You missed my meaning entirely. My point is that Prets accuse us of interpreting scripture ENTIRELY on a literal basis without ever taking into account Biblical imagery or spiritual application.

Because that’s exactly what you do.