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Rapture
Dec 21, 2004 23:00:14 GMT -5
Post by Kenny on Dec 21, 2004 23:00:14 GMT -5
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Rapture
Dec 22, 2004 3:41:28 GMT -5
Post by Soulfyre on Dec 22, 2004 3:41:28 GMT -5
Pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib - what do you think? Oh, I'm definitely "pan-mil"...it'll all pan out in the end. Sorry, I just couldn't resist. I will respond soon. Matthew (soulfyre)
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Rapture
Dec 22, 2004 4:48:46 GMT -5
Post by worthily on Dec 22, 2004 4:48:46 GMT -5
rofl,
sorry i couldnt resist laughing with that comment in response to the question. i didnt expect to see a response like that but there is truth in that response.
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Rapture
Dec 22, 2004 14:40:15 GMT -5
Post by melinky on Dec 22, 2004 14:40:15 GMT -5
Okay, I'll bite...
I don't know!
The more I look at the subject, the more confused I become. After reading the Left Behind series I felt that we were definately pre-trib and that the books had a pretty good grasp of what was to come. In my Bible study class, we just finished reading Isaiah and Daniel and now I'm not so sure. I have found that a lot of the scripture used in the LB series was fulfilled long ago.
One of my teachers in my Bible study class last year made the comment that Revelation can be taken three different ways:
1. A book of historical events that have already been fulfilled 2. A book of historical events that still has a message for today 3. A book of future events yet to come
As I remember, I felt that it was all three. We'll say what I think in about 15 weeks when we study Revelation this year.
There is a lot of information out on the internet that says all sorts of things, but if I could choose the way I would like it to happen, it would be pretty close to the way it happens in the Left Behind books and it would happen within my lifetime!
“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.†(Rev. 22:20, KJV)
Melinda
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Rapture
Dec 22, 2004 14:51:01 GMT -5
Post by rgrove on Dec 22, 2004 14:51:01 GMT -5
None of the above. In Christ, Ron
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Rapture
Dec 22, 2004 15:10:43 GMT -5
Post by rgrove on Dec 22, 2004 15:10:43 GMT -5
Oh, I'm definitely "pan-mil"...it'll all pan out in the end. Sorry, I just couldn't resist. I thought I just read you attended Dallas Theological Seminary for a bit in the intro page. I'm sure any old professors you had would fall over in disbelief at this statement! ;D In Christ, Ron
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Rapture
Dec 22, 2004 20:05:06 GMT -5
Post by melinky on Dec 22, 2004 20:05:06 GMT -5
None of the above. In Christ, Ron That's all? Are you're going to leave us hanging with that one? Just kidding. I'm really curious now to know your thoughts on this subject. Melinda
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Rapture
Dec 22, 2004 20:42:26 GMT -5
Post by Kenny on Dec 22, 2004 20:42:26 GMT -5
That's all? Are you're going to leave us hanging with that one? Just kidding. I'm really curious now to know your thoughts on this subject. Melinda Ditto
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Rapture
Dec 23, 2004 13:51:14 GMT -5
Post by rgrove on Dec 23, 2004 13:51:14 GMT -5
That's all? Are you're going to leave us hanging with that one? Just kidding. I'm really curious now to know your thoughts on this subject. Melinda Just keeping my answers short and to the point. More specifically, I believe the tribulation period was prior to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 so I do not expect a future "Great Tribulation" period. I do expect a falling away shortly before Christ returns again at the Second Coming (Rev 20), but that's different than what is commonly called the great tribulation. I expect to see continued progress of the Gospel message to spread through the powerful, regenerating work of the Holy Spirit on earth in the future. At some point towards the end the Jews will be grafted back into the family by the Holy Spirit and then Christ will come to usher in the new heavens and new earth and the eternal state. Many amillenialists would call me a postmillenialist as a result of this optimism, but most postmillenialists would call me an amillenialist because I'm not optimistic enough to believe scripture teaches there will be a golden age that would be understood as the millenium. I'm kind of a hybrid of these modern categories. But I do fit in very well to the beliefs of earlier generations before these current categories came into vogue in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The rapture is an extremely recent innovation in the church. It was never taught before Darby began teaching it in the 1820's and didn't catch on well until the late 1800's at prophecy conferences. Darby gained a couple notable converts, in particular C.I. Scofield, who popularized the system in his highly successfull Scofield Bible and Lewis Sperry Chafer who founded Dallas Theological Seminary which has been the center of Dispensational teachings ever since. I encourage you to evaluate this system very closely as I find it to not only stand outside the historic teaching of the church, but downright unbiblical. Here are seven key propositions that dispensational thought stands on as outlined in Kieth Mathison's devastating evaluation of the system in his book "Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God?" 1) God has two distinct programs in history, one for Israel and one for the church. 2) The church does not fulfill or take over any of Israel's promises or purposes. 3) The church age is a "mystery", and thus no old testament prophecies forsaw it. 4) The present church age is a "parenthesis" or "intercalation" during which God has temporarily suspended His primary purpose with Israel. 5) The church age began at Pentacost and will end at the pretribulational rapture of the church before Christ's second coming. 6) The church, or the body of Christ, consists only of those believers saved between Pentacost and the rapture. 7) The church as the body of Christ, therefore, does not include old testament believers. I have followed up Mathison's summaries and quotes and his is not misrepresenting the positions of classical dispensationalism (progressive dispensationalism is considerably different). These positions are untenable biblically and unprecedented in church history. I ask you why did many of the reformers like John Calvin and Martin Bucer have great hope for the future success of the gospel in this present world? Why did that develop into the very optimistic postmillenialism of the great Puritan divines who believed the gospel would one day have huge success? Why was this hope of gospel success so predominant in the ushering in the of the current missionary age in the 18th and 19th centuries? Why did the early Methodists have such a great expectation of gospel success in the world which developed into postmillenialism? I contest that World War I and the devastation it wrought turned people away from the promises of the Bible so clear to many in earlier generations. Instead of reading the Bible in light of God's promises they were reading it in light of current events. I encourage you to be open to looking at what many great Christian's of the past believed and why they believed it. In Christ, Ron
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Rapture
Dec 23, 2004 16:24:07 GMT -5
Post by worthily on Dec 23, 2004 16:24:07 GMT -5
perhaps your are correct with that interpretation and perhaps you are not. i will pray for discernment and devote more towards your aspect of agreement to verify consistency but at this moment i am compelled to disagree with that interpretation. Please do not take offense to my statement.
May God bless you assuredly and abundantly.
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Rapture
Dec 23, 2004 17:15:14 GMT -5
Post by rgrove on Dec 23, 2004 17:15:14 GMT -5
perhaps your are correct with that interpretation and perhaps you are not. i will pray for discernment and devote more towards your aspect of agreement to verify consistency but at this moment i am compelled to disagree with that interpretation. Please do not take offense to my statement. I don't. No matter what position I take on this topic someone will immediately appear and disagree. Dispensationalists don't agree with one another on countless details. Same with Amills and the same with postmills. I am not dogmatic on my position (unlike many others), but at this time I feel it is the best exegesis of scripture I've read. I also won't discuss it endlessly on boards. The topic is just too big. It can't be resolved by pointing to one piece of scripture and proclaiming all other viewpoints are clearly invalid. If someone disagrees, fine. The best I generally hope for on these boards is that someone will go and read proponents of viewpoints other than their own. What I mean is this. If one wants to understand the dispy, premil, amill or postmill position, or a futurist or preterist position, who should they go to for the clarification? Too many people immediately find someone that agrees with them and then reads what that person has to say about the other positions. They generally have no idea whether the other position is being properly represented or not. I refuse to do this in my own personal walk. I research the best proponents of any particular position. I purchase their best work. I then look very closely at their bibliography to find out who that person relied upon for the best aspects of their work. Then I go and buy that book, etc. In the area of eschatology I have many books by each position. I also have many commentaries by each position for the books of Matthew and Revelation. I do this with all doctrine and do my best to practice what I preach in this area. It took me a few years before I began to make even minimal decisions about what I believed. I came from Roman Catholicism and did not feel bound to any particular Protestant tradition in regards to eschatology. I recognized the issue very quickly when I began looking at the issue and picked up my Catholic Encyclopedia and noticed that "Great Tribulation" wasn't anywhere to be found. Didn't mean anything was right or wrong, but it told me to look futher. I took my time and it's only recently been starting to become clearer for me. Theologians build their cases and completely ignore whole categories of scripture that appear to lead one in a different direction. I believe in the full inerrency of scripture so I refuse to believe it's a problem with the Bible. It's obviously our sinful nature looking at the Bible incorrectly. So I keep looking and keep testing what I believe in complex, divisive doctrine. Fortunately not all doctrine is so difficult as eschatology. In Christ, Ron
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Rapture
Dec 23, 2004 17:40:43 GMT -5
Post by worthily on Dec 23, 2004 17:40:43 GMT -5
could you state that any or all of your sources that you draw upon, interpret from a gestalt point of view or how would you describe it?
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Rapture
Dec 23, 2004 18:03:23 GMT -5
Post by rgrove on Dec 23, 2004 18:03:23 GMT -5
could you state that any or all of your sources that you draw upon, interpret from a gestalt point of view or how would you describe it? I'm sorry. I don't think I understand what you mean by "gestalt point of view". It all started with a book my wife picked up called "End Times Fiction" by Gary DeMar. We read it and were shocked to see he didn't agree with the usual dispensational teachings but what he said made a lot of sense (of course at the time we didn't know anything about dispensationalism or any other viewpoint. We simply didn't know there were other viewpoints *at all*, and especially that they all predated this one. We also didn't know that it was built on such a radically new understanding of the church as it's starting presupposition and that this was such a huge break with the historical understanding of the church). He didn't sound like a loony heretic and after some investigation I found out he wasn't. He's a very conservative Presbyterian. After that I consulted my Catholic Encyclopedia and noticed that "Great Tribulation" wasn't in there. Neither was "Rapture" or any of the other buzzwords. I was curious and went to the pastor of the Southern Baptist church we went to. I found out he didn't accept the dispansational system either and he pointed me to a professor at Golden Gate Seminary in Vancouver, WA (we live just outside of Portland, OR). Before meeting with him I was doing a lot of research on the Internet and was surprised at what I was seeing from names that I knew weren't off the deep end. I found out this was a brand new doctrine and learned it's history somewhat. I got some good information from the seminary professor, who also wasn't a dispensationalist, on how to begin researching the issue. From there I just followed bibliographies like I said before. I've ended up with books from every protestant denomination for the most part because the good scholars were well read across denominational lines. I also looked into historic writings from well before the reformation. This was important because I wanted to understand how end times doctrine had developed since the time of Christ. At first I used the online copies of the Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene fathers online. Then last Christmas I scraped together all my Christmas money from relatives and bought the set for home. Don't know if that answered the second part of the question, but I think it did the first part. Thank you, Ron
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Rapture
Dec 28, 2004 7:57:16 GMT -5
Post by Kenny on Dec 28, 2004 7:57:16 GMT -5
gestalt point of view - being "gestalt" in a point of view. Yeah, it's spam and I don't care!
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Rapture
Dec 28, 2004 9:04:17 GMT -5
Post by worthily on Dec 28, 2004 9:04:17 GMT -5
sorry Kenny, i didnt mean to utilize the word undefined.
Gestalt
Definition: The German word Gestalt literally means "configuration" or "figure" and is used to refer to any general pattern which manifests characteristics different than are inherent in its parts. For example, a musical piece has a Gestalt because the tune and melodies are characteristics which it has, but which none of the individual notes have. Similarly, a sentence has a Gestalt because it has a characteristic of its meaning which none of the individual words or letters have. These characteristics of the whole are called emergent properties or supervenient properties.
The concept of Gestalt is used in a theory when it attempts to treat its subjects as unified wholes because any attempt to simply deal with the parts will mean that vital properties of the whole will go unattended. For example, Gestalt psychology attempts to study human behavior as a whole phenomenon because individual aspects of the mind or consciousness would not be the same thing. The movement which lead to the creation of Gestalt Theory grew out of dissatisfaction with the more traditional atomistic methodology in science.
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