7 years...

[BassMan31]

... is about the amount of time I've spent (with varying degrees of diligence and alacrity) trying to determine the "right" eschatology. apart from fairly confidently dismissing dispensationalism, I have arrived at "i just don't know."

I would not file "i don't know" under "authorship of confusion." the Bible is not always easily understood.

I don't have a question. just wanted to make a comment opening discussion. I have not seen much from preterists which is recent.

 

[gordon 2]

I have just seen this now, Monday morning.

Between this and for these:

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man.…

this:

Now about the times and seasons, brothers, we do not need to write to you. 2For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.…

this:
However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. And since you don't know when that time will come, be on guard! Stay alert!


and this:

Matthew 24 ( with its claim of a way to discern the time)

much thinking, ink, discussion and speculation, prayer and study by many has occurred and is ongoing.

Somehow the truth of eschatology might be all in Matt. 24 since everything is resolved in Jesus. I would venture to guess that the "eschatology forests" that many are hunting in is not where the trophy game is at, since what we think is end times might not be about end times at all. ( I know this reads weirder than weird eschatological understandings some might entertain.)

How about that the eschatology game is a trap to weed out the wheat or separate the chaff from the wheat or the sheep from the goats or the elect from the pretenders?

How about that the focus on when The End will come and when Jesus will return is not the right question for those "in the way"? For those in the way the question just might be when will The Beginning or Beginnings be?

"And let no one in the field return for his cloak."

Maybe when we study eschatology we are dressed to kill and so we come to it weighted down. And weighted down greatly for the past but also the present instead of the spiritual space that with timeless meanings- or meaning items with the same solid definitions and so realities through out time.

Maybe we come to eschatology weighted down like the Israelites who expected a national figure and a political personality like they had had in their David as the promised Messiah. Maybe we are not unlike they were and some still are regards End Times.

Matthew 24 reads to me that when the end comes it will be a new beginning not unlike when we are made to be consciously aware that he or she are born again but that then ( at end time) he and she will be born again as if one birth joins God and man, perhaps not unlike the way Christ Jesus is joined fully man and God, that we shall be one not by the covenants we know now but by the default to which we were ever created to be as when we can say male and female He created one man.

When the end comes we will have no need to marry to unite with alliance and covenant the giving of one person to the another. The bonds of God to man and man's bond to God and others will be of a different order. It will be a new beginning. It will be a union not requiring vows, for all vows will be as of another Testament. No law will need vows, there will be no law.


In the mean time, like Cyrus the king of Persia to which God gave all the kingdoms of the earth sent the Jewish captive out of their slavery in Babylon back to Judea so to claim for himself Jerusalem, we are sent by our King to occupy a spiritual space to which Jesus will return but not as most might expect as it was when Christ came for the Jews.

The nature of God's interactions with man, especially His interventions have most times been of a whole order outside of the order we could know. What it will be we cannot know, but we can know that God is consistent in where He is aiming things to go and generally all theophannies have features that are consistent, hence God's guidance into, through and from the clouds.

Someday there is going to be a great wedding feast and a great wedding. Who will get married, who will perform ( officiate) the wedding ceremony...we can only wait to be there. I have no doubt that everyone there will be changed, as in the blink of an eye. There what we will be I don't think we can know, nor when it will be. But when it comes we will know it is come as when the gentiles were converted for the cross.

So yes eschatology and how man studies eschatology is very interesting. Again I suspect that Matthew 24's reporting of what Jesus says about the end times is where the real telescope to see the stars might be found and not so much in the proxy wars fought elsewhere in scripture and all over the spiritual spaces people embark on.

 

[SemperFiDawg]

... is about the amount of time I've spent (with varying degrees of diligence and alacrity) trying to determine the "right" eschatology. apart from fairly confidently dismissing dispensationalism, I have arrived at "i just don't know."

I would not file "i don't know" under "authorship of confusion." the Bible is not always easily understood.

I don't have a question. just wanted to make a comment opening discussion. I have not seen much from preterists which is recent.

 

[gordon 2]

 

[formula1]

Our purpose is to know Christ and make Him known!

My eschatology is unimportant except in the matter above! When He appears we will belong to Him if indeed He is in us and we are in Him!

 

[gordon 2]

Our purpose is to know Christ and make Him known!

My eschatology is unimportant except in the matter above! When He appears we will belong to Him if indeed He is in us and we are in Him!

I guess you're not the kind of fish that will razz to a " seven years..." lure. O well. It is what it is. You have prayed and sufficiently gone without food perhaps.

 

[BassMan31]

Our purpose is to know Christ and make Him known!

My eschatology is unimportant except in the matter above! When He appears we will belong to Him if indeed He is in us and we are in Him!

i read this a lot. i don't understand the sentiment. is it that we should just 'let go and let God'? if we're not called to understand and search why give us minds for thought and ears for hearing? why direct its writing in the first place? to confuse?

nothing i said could be correctly interpreted to detract/distract from the purpose you describe.

i find no wickedness in attempting to understand the things which he has spoken should happen. "let he with wisdom count the number of the beast. for it is the number of a man..." It's a call to search the matter out. my point is that I have not found the conclusion and that I may not have wisdom enough to do so.

 

[BassMan31]

I have just seen this now, Monday morning.

Between this and for these:

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man.…

this:

Now about the times and seasons, brothers, we do not need to write to you. 2For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.…

this:
However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. And since you don't know when that time will come, be on guard! Stay alert!


and this:

Matthew 24 ( with its claim of a way to discern the time)

much thinking, ink, discussion and speculation, prayer and study by many has occurred and is ongoing.

Somehow the truth of eschatology might be all in Matt. 24 since everything is resolved in Jesus. I would venture to guess that the "eschatology forests" that many are hunting in is not where the trophy game is at, since what we think is end times might not be about end times at all. ( I know this reads weirder than weird eschatological understandings some might entertain.)

How about that the eschatology game is a trap to weed out the wheat or separate the chaff from the wheat or the sheep from the goats or the elect from the pretenders?

How about that the focus on when The End will come and when Jesus will return is not the right question for those "in the way"? For those in the way the question just might be when will The Beginning or Beginnings be?

"And let no one in the field return for his cloak."

Maybe when we study eschatology we are dressed to kill and so we come to it weighted down. And weighted down greatly for the past but also the present instead of the spiritual space that with timeless meanings- or meaning items with the same solid definitions and so realities through out time.

Maybe we come to eschatology weighted down like the Israelites who expected a national figure and a political personality like they had had in their David as the promised Messiah. Maybe we are not unlike they were and some still are regards End Times.

Matthew 24 reads to me that when the end comes it will be a new beginning not unlike when we are made to be consciously aware that he or she are born again but that then ( at end time) he and she will be born again as if one birth joins God and man, perhaps not unlike the way Christ Jesus is joined fully man and God, that we shall be one not by the covenants we know now but by the default to which we were ever created to be as when we can say male and female He created one man.

When the end comes we will have no need to marry to unite with alliance and covenant the giving of one person to the another. The bonds of God to man and man's bond to God and others will be of a different order. It will be a new beginning. It will be a union not requiring vows, for all vows will be as of another Testament. No law will need vows, there will be no law.


In the mean time, like Cyrus the king of Persia to which God gave all the kingdoms of the earth sent the Jewish captive out of their slavery in Babylon back to Judea so to claim for himself Jerusalem, we are sent by our King to occupy a spiritual space to which Jesus will return but not as most might expect as it was when Christ came for the Jews.

The nature of God's interactions with man, especially His interventions have most times been of a whole order outside of the order we could know. What it will be we cannot know, but we can know that God is consistent in where He is aiming things to go and generally all theophannies have features that are consistent, hence God's guidance into, through and from the clouds.

Someday there is going to be a great wedding feast and a great wedding. Who will get married, who will perform ( officiate) the wedding ceremony...we can only wait to be there. I have no doubt that everyone there will be changed, as in the blink of an eye. There what we will be I don't think we can know, nor when it will be. But when it comes we will know it is come as when the gentiles were converted for the cross.

So yes eschatology and how man studies eschatology is very interesting. Again I suspect that Matthew 24's reporting of what Jesus says about the end times is where the real telescope to see the stars might be found and not so much in the proxy wars fought elsewhere in scripture and all over the spiritual spaces people embark on.

i understand the idea of preconceived notions. i've tried (and probably failed) to eliminate them with prejudice.

your sentiment seems similar to those I've heard from orthodox priests on the matter. they put very little emphasis on end-times, which is fine. the gestalt of their view is that end times are called upon more to admonish a Godly life through Jesus than it is a subject to be understood.

as far as separating wheat from tares, that application is unambiguously referring to separation of the wicked from the righteous. i regard other "doctrinal extensions" of little value. if you differ on this, I'd like to hear more.

on the whole matter being more complicated than is prudent to understand, I presently agree more than not.


Also: I think it's fairly obvious that I'm not trying to determine "the day or the hour." I know I can't do that. However, we can know the seasons and mark the major powers in the midst of our season. I'm not one of the weird people who say the euphrates is drying up so we're at the 6th vial.

 

[formula1]

i read this a lot. i don't understand the sentiment. is it that we should just 'let go and let God'? if we're not called to understand and search why give us minds for thought and ears for hearing? why direct its writing in the first place? to confuse?

nothing i said could be correctly interpreted to detract/distract from the purpose you describe.

i find no wickedness in attempting to understand the things which he has spoken should happen. "let he with wisdom count the number of the beast. for it is the number of a man..." It's a call to search the matter out. my point is that I have not found the conclusion and that I may not have wisdom enough to do so.

Nor do I! I consider it important to learn what you can about the subject. And I have many thoughts on it but my overriding thought is simply that what I and others believe is non-essential, that is, not pertinent to my faith in Christ or others faith in Christ. It helps me personally to not get offended by another’s thought and opinions on the subject. Search all you desire. I commend you for doing so. But search the whole on the matter, not the parts. And always have a solid footing on your essentials! God Bless your effort!

 

[SemperFiDawg]

is non-essential,

And it could be left right there. It has no bearing one way or the other on how we should live as Christians, none.

 

[BassMan31]

And it could be left right there. It has no bearing one way or the other on how we should live as Christians, none.

no? are we not to keep oil in the lamp?

 

[SemperFiDawg]

no? are we not to keep oil in the lamp?

If I'm living my life in the will of God there is always "oil in the lamp." Worrying about a time of it running out isn't a concern.

 

[BassMan31]

If I'm living my life in the will of God there is always "oil in the lamp." Worrying about a time of it running out isn't a concern.

who's worrying? i want to understand God's plan to the degree he has revealed it. to lack that desire is odd, to me.