YOU can learn directly from God.

If you're religion is confusing to you, there's a reason. Get a red letter Bible, and read the words of Jesus to the priests and preachers of His day. Then understand this: There's no difference between them and the priests and preachers of our day. Why would there be? Just as there was in His day, there are some with good intent, but even they are learning from a corrupted system. Want the truth? Throw out everything you've learned from them, pick up the Bible, and read it for yourself. Not by chapter and verse as you were taught. Particularly in the New Testament, read the way they were written, as letters. And unless you're well versed in Old English, get a modern translation. One you can read and understand. Stick to the New Testament at first, so as not to be overwhelmed. And know this, it isn't the word of God the way you were taught. It's the word of God as understood by those who wrote it. Try to understand it from the point of view of those it was written to...we were taught to read it as if it was written to us!
The problem with that is, those the New Testament was written to were going through the transition from one Covenant to another. They were awaiting an event in their time. To learn about that event, one needs to consult historians, such as Josephus and his account of it in "Wars of the Jews."

Questioning the established theologies. The church teaches the law, just as it did when Jesus railed against it in His day. A discussion on the freedoms He gave us, and why true followers might want to operate on the outside. The truth is out there, but where?

Saturday, May 26, 2012

A Little Eschatology

1000 years...are we looking for a literal 1000 years reign of Christ on Earth? Perhaps if we look at the use of 1000 as a number in the prophets, we'll find that it is meant to be used as a number meaning "all"...as in God owned a 1000 cattle on a 1000 hills, doesn't literally mean 1000 cattle, but all of the cattle on all of the hills. There is a lot of apocryphal language used in the Scriptures, and many or most all of our questions can (and should be) found by understanding that, and understanding that the judgment was about removing the standing of the literal Israel as God's people and representatives to the rest of the world, and handing off that mantle to "a people not called by my name." Seen in that light, and knowing that most of what was written was written TO THEM and not us, helps us to understand.

 To say that it was the generation that sees all these things, as opposed to "this generation will see all these things"...is to put a different understanding on what THEY understood it to mean. Consider: Four times in the last chapter of Revelation alone, we are told, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” That was over 1900 years ago. Who was John relaying those words to? Stop and think about that, and consider the following statements concerning WHEN and WHY the judgment for “the end” was coming, and what was going to happen? Then consider, were they talking about the end of our world, or theirs?

John the Baptist: "Who warned you to flee from the wrath about to come?" (Matt. 3:7)
"The axe is already laid at the root of the trees." (Matt. 3:10)

Jesus: "You shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes." (Matt. 10:23) "...the age about to come." (Matt. 12:32)
"There are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." (Matt. 16:28; cf. Mk. 9:1; Luke 9:27)
 "This generation will not pass away until all these things take place." (Matt. 24:34)
"From now on, you [Caiaphas, the chief priests, the scribes, the elders, the whole Sanhedrin] shall be seeing the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Matt 26:64; Mk. 14:62; Luke 22:69)
"These are days of vengeance, in order that all things which are written may be fulfilled." (Luke 21:22)
 "And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation." (Mat 23:35,36)

And Paul: "It is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand." (Rom. 13:11-12)
 "Now these things ...were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come." (I Cor. 10:11)
 "When He said, ’A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear." (Heb. 8:13)
 "Now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin." (Heb. 9:26)
 And James: "You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand." (James. 5:8)

And Peter: “But this is that which has been declared through the prophet Joel: 'And it shall be in the last days,' (God is saying)...” Acts 2:16,17
"He ...has appeared in these last times for the sake of you." (I Peter 1:20)
"The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer." (I Peter 4:7)

 John: "It is the last hour." (I John 2:18)
"Even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour." (I John 2:18; Compare Matt. 24:23-34)

 Jude: "But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, ’In the last time there shall be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.’ These are the ones who cause divisions..." (Jude 1:17-19)

 ALL of the writers of the New Testament were writing to THEIR fellow believers, and they ALL were looking for the soon to come judgment, which would signal the end of their age and the start of the age of grace to all mankind. Were they all wrong? Was Jesus wrong? No. In fact, one can read all about it in the book put out by the Jewish historian Josephus, “Wars of the Jews.” It was a terrible judgment, and the siege on Jerusalem was so bad that he recounts one story of a woman who cooked her own son for food. Hundreds of thousands died and the dump outside in the Valley of Gehenna was used to
burn their bodies. Those who survived were sold into slavery.

But Jesus had warned his followers, who had escaped to Pella when Vespasian (the Roman general) returned to Rome at the death of Nero, and sent Titus to finish the job.  Historians of the time have recorded that no Christians were killed during the siege on Jerusalem.  The modern day preachers of the second coming all missed the point of all the Scriptures they use to keep us in suspense.  And that's a problem, because instead of taking responsibility for the Earth we were given charge of, Christians are telling themselves Earth is doomed and are just waiting for an intervention to take care of it.

Followers