So we got started this morning. I know there was a lot of information and some of it was quite confusing. I realise that when I say that no-one gets the book it can make us all think 'why bother?' It isn't that we can't understand it, we can if we remember the context, it's more a wariness of certainty. We're not the original audience so there will always be some uncertaintly.
The beauty of having this blog is that we can discern meaning together and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit we can make sense of what is going on. I like the idea of learning as a discerning community of believers. I hope this blog is a safe place to air our views, I hope it will be blessed.
Anyway, below is the link that'll take you to the text for this morning.
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhb3kbsd_1fbfsp3cp
"So teach us to number our days..."
2 years ago
Ronnie, thanks for your talk this morning, I appreciated the background and introduction to how you will be leading us through interpreting this confusing and strange book.
ReplyDeleteI also liked when you said that you "got it" but were still open to having got it wrong. You almost said that if someone says they have the right interpretation of Revelation that they are therefore almost certainly wrong (but that might be putting words in your mouth).
The question I was left with this morning was:
If the future events (Second Coming etc) that Revelation talks about were expected within the lifetimes of the people in the 1st century church, and have not yet happened, are they all made up, wishful thinking or motivational metaphors?
The first words of the Revelation place the ownership of the Revelation in God and in his purposes. This must detract from those who claim the words for their own ends and purposes, whatever they are. blessing is upon those read, hear and take to heart its message. there must be a response to its message.
ReplyDeleteRonnie is more prophetic than I realised. The morning after his sermon I sat in Glasgow university and heard the lecturer speak of the Islamic response to the Crusades and how for some there was a link between the Crusades, the creation of the state of Israel and right-wing thinking based on "apocalypse" and the end of things.
In response to John Adams. It is certainly the case that the early Christians were a wee bit puzzled by the fact that Jesus didn't come back in their lifetime. 1 Thessalonians covers this theme. I don't think it was wishful thinking, simply what they thought at the time. As far as the metaphors in Revelation go, I would say they are motivational. I'll be talking about this in the coming weeks, probably more than once, but the people wanted hope and an authority saying he has seen that it will be so is hope indeed to the people being executed for their faith.
ReplyDeleteIn response to John Stewart. I like the idea of being a prophet but they tended to annoy the king and met untimely ends. I hope that doesn't happen to me!
PRETRIB RAPTURE – HIDDEN FACTS !
ReplyDeleteHow can the “rapture” be “imminent”? Acts 3:21 says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven (He is now there with the Father) “until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign. Since Jesus must personally participate in the rapture, and since He can’t even leave heaven before the tribulation ends, the rapture therefore cannot take place before the end of the trib! Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. 4:17) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) (which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening – Matt. 24:29; Acts 2:20) WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who would be left alive to serve the Antichrist?) Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. 15:52) to the posttrib end of “death” (15:54)! (Will death be ended before or during the trib?) If anyone wonders how long pretrib rapturism has been taught, he or she can Google “Pretrib Rapture Diehards.” Many are unaware that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 it was stretched forward and turned into a separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which the mass of evangelical scholars rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.” Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” ["gathering"] in 2:1 can happen – the height of desperation!). Other Google articles throwing light on long-covered-up facts about the 178-year-old pretrib rapture view include “Famous Rapture Watchers,” “X-Raying Margaret,” “Revisers of Pretrib Rapture History,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” “Pretrib Rapture Desperados” and “Deceiving and Being Deceived” – all by the author of the bestselling book “The Rapture Plot” which is available at Armageddon Books online. Just my two cents’ worth.