Scott McMahan wrote:
They sure ain't cutting back on marketing. I've gotten more mail and door-to-door literature from churches and cults this year than any year in my life. Maybe their money has gone into direct mail and there's nothing left for handouts?

AMillennialism wrote:
Dispy
"Relying on the Bible" is good advice.
Those who really do rely on the Bible have never accepted Dispensational Premillennialism. Thats a fact. As is indicated in the historic statement below.
Whereas those who rely on poor old Margaret MacDonald, her visions, Darby and Scofield's horrendus mistranslation of Scripture are surely not going to be content with Scripture alone. Hence their preoccupation with adding lots and lots of mythology, (eg rapture) to the Bible.
Stick to the Bible. God knows best.

djc49 wrote:
As an addendum:
Those who have no part in the "first resurrection" have NOT been born again; never had eternal life; have been DEAD only to face the second death at their BODILY resurrection on the LAST DAY.

AMill wrote:
From my perspective I think these verses simply put into human perception terms, an allusion to the resurrection of the elect when Christ returns to judge. Something at this moment our poor little brains cannot fully comprehend, nor do they need to.

djc49 wrote:
That's patent nonsense.
Paul, if you remember, also argued that there would be a Great "falling away" (apostasy) before the 2nd Advent of Christ.

The Thessalonians did not have the Revelation of Jesus Christ when Paul wrote to them, but they did have Paul, who had been caught up to the third heaven, and had been taught personally by the Lord, and was used of the Holy Spirit to write nearly half the books of the New Testament. Was that not sufficient training for him to have taught them how to interpret prophecy?

As to your brother Amill's objection to 'flying Christians,' perhaps one of you can explain what is meant by:

1 Th. 4:16-17
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

djc49 wrote:
And THAT, folks, is the Rube Goldberg ... uh, er ... the Pre-Mill/Pre-Trib Dizzy Spin Sational take on Christ's Second ... uh, er ... Third (or is it rather the 2nd [or 3rd?] PHASE of His Second) Coming?
BTW, ... All these eschatological contortions were unknown by the Church before ~1800. It took some "rapturous" vision by some entranced woman to solidify the foundation of Dizzy Spin Sationalism as preached by the (predominantly) American Evangelical church of recent vintage. The Reformers, Baptists, et al of 1500-1800 knew of no such nonsense. Guess they couldn't read Scripture!

But one more time: although the Reformers recovered very important truth from the papists, they were not able to recover all the truth. In particular, they ignored eschatology and bungled ecclesiology, which is how we ended up with all the denominations.

It's actually pretty simple:
1. The Lord will meet in the air the saints who have died and those still on the earth to take them to heaven. The bema seat judgment occurs.

2. He returns to earth after the time of Jacob's troubles, which lasts 3 1/2 years (1/2 week / 42 months / 1260 days), puts down his enemies, and rules for 1000 years on the earth.

3. Satan is loosed and the final rebellion occurs; the world is destroyed and the Great White Throne judgment of all unbelievers occurs; Satan et al. are cast into hell.

4. The Lord creates a new heaven and new earth; Israel enjoys the Lord on the new earth, and the church enjoys the Lord in heaven.

So, while it may seem complicated, I'm sure anyone who can understand the doctrine of the trinity from scattered passages, let alone those who can somehow find the diagram of a tulip in nearly any passage of scripture will have no trouble putting together this picture of the end times, if they choose to put the effort into it.

It is certainly less complicated than the contortions the amills go through to explain away the relevant passages into complex mixtures of allegory and prophecy in A.D. 70.

fuzzy logic wrote:
Amils call for repentance for all men.
Ignorant, murderous darbyists will, I notice, rarely relent their position because I think:
a) they would rather save face than admit they are seriously wrong, or
b) they spent soooooo much money on false end-times propaganda (Left Behind, Scofield reference Bible, and the like) and they don't want to feel like fools.
c) they love death.

1. I will freely admit when I am wrong, when shown to be so from scripture. This you have not done.

2. I have not read Left Behind, do not own a Scofield (he was racist, by the way), nor have invested in much more than a few Bibles and several commentaries.

3. I really do not understand this charge. Acknowledging the truth that judgment and death is coming does not mean I love death. Reference your previous post, I find no reference to nuclear war in the Bible. We know the world will not be destroyed by nuclear war ; it will be destroyed by Jesus at the Final Judgment.

Neil wrote:
...it appears that the perverse subject of the above story is a Green Party member, & possibly African Methodist Episcopal (though I cannot find any sources that plainly state which church he is affiliated with).

My objection to covenant theology mainly has to do with the confusion that seemingly inevitably creeps in when we fail to recognize that the covenant of grace is all the work of the Lord. Yes, we have a part in this covenant, to repent and to believe, but the work is all the Lord's, and none of ours. We have righteousness without works.

My objection to covenant theology is that it puts men back under the law. The outworking of the confusion of Israel and the church includes a misapprehension of eschatology, but this is not essential to fellowship.

Neil wrote:
Heretofore, I have never heard anyone, either online or in books (including Dispy writers), use the label "covenanter" in such a broad sense. So pardon my ignorance.
The idea of anyone making a covenant for which they would rather die than violate seems hopelessly gallant & out of date now.

The second paragraph seems to be a non sequitur. That said, certainly I believe I am willing to die for my Lord, though I say that with an abundance of caution, having Peter before me as an example, but trusting that the Holy Spirit would provide sufficient grace to gain the victory in such circumstance. But my Lord is not a covenant, though he has made a covenant with himself to save me.

Neil wrote:
Pickney a Covenanter? I would like to see evidence for that claim. AME is a more likely affiliation.
I suppose black Covenanters may exist, but I haven't heard of any. I do grant that modernists also believe in a Postmillenial Kingdom, but upon Marxist principles instead.

hidemi williges wrote:
Is this guy a minister or a witch?

fuzzy logic wrote:
from article: "...God will change him so he can emerge from the scandal a more humble and effective leader."
Hey...He's taking a play from the Evangelical playbook. He should've committed more than adultery and then he would be an even MORE 'effective leader.
- - -
"...in many ways I feel like I was at my own [funeral] in the past weeks..."
WOW! He's equating the consequence of 'stolen waters' with a funeral. Interesting. I wonder what he would equate murder with? You know, like Dispy's who want nuclear war.
I wonder.

Jim Lincoln wrote:
I don't know where to start.

Jay P. Green sr's Introduction to his Interlinear Bible deals with these issues clearly and succinctly, but I do not have a link I can post to it.

The basic argument for the so-called 'superior texts' is that they are older. Green quite ably argues that these older manuscripts were found on dusty shelves in the Vatican library because even the medieval popes were embarrassed to use such obviously altered texts.

The manuscripts that form the basis of the Received Text did not survive - because they were actually used. The revival of the altered manuscripts in the 19th c. was employed for the same purposes as the original shameless tinkerers - to deceive.

Green's English text in the Interlinear is excellent, in contemporary English, and based on Scrivener's reconstructed TR (published by Trinitarian Bible Society, JohnUK), for those who object to the NKJV. It is not missing any verses, unlike the NASB, ESV, et al.

Hidemi Williges wrote:
I've noticed when I first started reading the Bible that many comments made by many commentators usurp the very authority of the written words contained in the Bible. One such example is the word "corn". Almost without exception commentators will say that corn did not exist in the middle east and that the word should be changed to grain. That seems odd considering that the middle east is the gateway between Europe, Africa and Asia with an abundant trade industry. Corn could have easily been imported from India. There are many such changes made by "experts" to validate their superior intellect. HA!

In other words, a "corn of wheat" is a grain of wheat.

The many references to corn in the AV would, I suppose, confuse those Americans who believe it refers exclusively to maize, but what is interesting is that rather than using a dictionary, some attack the very word of God and attempt to show that it is inaccurate. All such attempts invariably fail, of course.

Jim Lincoln wrote:
The British should understand they have an excellent translation in the ESV.

It's time that English preachers stop trying to be Shakespearean actors, and use a good English version such as above in their church services.

BTW, Elizabethan English is not Old English, but rather Early Modern English, and more precise than contempoary English. (I doubt any of us could understand more than 1 in 10 words of Old English.)

I have heard that perhaps the most correct edition of the Authorised is the 1873 Cambridge Paragraph Bible, wherein (as I understand it) F.H.A. Scrivener went to considerable trouble to research the various editions and notes of the original translators of the 1611 edition to present what, as best he could discern, they originally intended to publish. It is very difficult to locate one of these.

Cambridge recently published a new edition of the Paragraph Bible, but it 'helpfully' deletes the second person singular and 'modernises' certain words (e.g., changing 'alway' to 'always', even though they are not the same word: the first refers to space, the second to time).

There were a number of printing errors in the first editions, but some would argue that some of the revisions that found their way into the 1769 edition were corruptions of the original intent of the translators.

SteveR wrote:
Faithful Remnant,
Churches that do not cater to culture too are losing youth at an alarming rate. The article states that Sunday Schooled children were more likely to doubt our faith, and I have personally witnessed the painful loss of youth at a 'very conservative' Church. We have had sermons blaming the world, the family, the devil for the loss. Maybe its us? Maybe its the Churches fault? Just maybe ....Our Spirit doesnt match our Word

"Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8)

Paul also discusses the apostasy:

"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first" (2 Th. 2:3)

Thankfully, our gracious Lord gave us hope, comfort and assurance for this time, sure to come, perhaps already upon us:

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Mt. 18:20)

Tim Etherington wrote:
Paul is not a Roman Catholic saint, he is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox church and in Protestantism (though Protestants mean something different).

See the many references to 'saints' in the Pauline epistles, in Hebrews, Jude, Revelation...including this one where Paul refers to himself as a saint in the inerrant word: