FYI on Hyper-Calvinism:

[preacher4truth]

Nursing an old grudge are we, preacher4truth?

No old grudge *tom, I'm simply recounting your ways. You don't possess enough acumen theologically, nor otherwise to effect me to hold a grudge.

The point is, you need to start owning up. To you.

Several have noted this and have made such a suggestion.

My bet is it will never happen. Your pride (which is ridiculous and unfounded) won't afford you such an ample opportunity.

 

[asterisktom]

No old grudge *tom, I'm simply recounting your ways. You don't possess enough acumen theologically, nor otherwise to effect me to hold a grudge.

The point is, you need to start owning up. To you.

Several have noted this and have made such a suggestion.

My bet is it will never happen. Your pride (which is ridiculous and unfounded) won't afford you such an ample opportunity.

No, you couldn't find any examples, could you?

Yes, I am proud. On that you are right. And it is not a good thing. But it is not on the thing that you think. For those things that seem to rankle you (and I am sorry about that), on those things I am actually obdurately thankful. I am speaking of those doctrines that are usually summed up as "Preterism".

Either way I am very thankful for God's mercy and grace, that He is merciful to me in my many faults - but you have none, I assume? Or your Bible does not have Rom 2:1? Or Matt. 7:1-4?

And I am thankful for the wonderful things I am learning concerning God's kingdom, the spiritual nature of both it and of our King.

I am also thankful for the give-and-take here at BB, even (or especially) from those who differ, though graciously and with open Bible.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Psalm 25:8-11

New International Version (NIV)

8 Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
9 He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them his way.
10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful
toward those who keep the demands of his covenant.
11 For the sake of your name, LORD,
forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

And

Matthew 5:22-24


22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[a] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[c] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

good night

 

[asterisktom]

The very first instance of 'Last days' that comes to mind is 2 Tim 3:1ff. 'But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, proud, blasphemers......etc., etc.' This was written by Paul in Rome to Timothy who was almost certainly in the Gentile city of Ephesus. It was written in 66 or 67AD, just before Paul's martyrdom, so if it has any reference to AD 70 it is speaking only of a 3 or 4 year period. The reason for the 'perilous times' is not judgement coming upon Jerusalem, but because of the low morals that would define the 'last days.' Now if Tom has any evidence that the morality being spoken of was Jewish, or that it suffered a marked decline for three years and then improved, let's hear it.

I am already invited, in true Steve fashion, to prove something I don't believe. I do not believe that the ebb of morality here is strictly Jewish. Neither do I believe that Paul is speaking here of an improvement. Frankly, I don't even see the connection. This has been one factor in holding off on comment.

If the prophesy spoke only about the 3 or 4 years, how come people are still showing just the same behaviour when we are in the 'New heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells' (2 Peter 3:13)?

And, again, you are arguing against Preterism from within a futurist framework (though unconsciously assuming it is a universal one): "New heavens and new earth" is a theological term, an eschatological idiom, that needs to be understood from it's Jewish Old Testament foundation, not modern literal futurism. BTW, when Paul speaks elsewhere about being a "new creature" he is drawing upon this idiom.

In the "New heavens and new earth" the wolf and the lamb will lie together. The asp will still be - is right now - on Mount Zion. This is all to say that the Kingdom of Zion is right now concurrent with the deprecated kingdoms of the world. But the citizens of the Kingdom will, throughout, be overcomers and conquerors. They will be unharmed, never snatched from the Saviour's hands. They will - they do right now - follow Him wherever He goes.

Though Paul was writing here to a half-Gentile ministering in a largely Gentile city, he himself was a Jew, thoroughly versed and soaked in the Old Testament. When he wrote to Timothy, "all Scripture is inspired of God, etc." he was referring to the Old Testament.

I suppose Tom will trek down to verse 8 with the reference to Moses and the Egyptian court magicians. Does that prove that verses 1-5 are only about Jews? Of course not! By the same logic one could suppose that they are only about Egyptians.

See above.

Perilous times for Christians continued, and indeed increased after AD 70, and FWIW judgement upon the Jews also continued after that time culminating in the 'Bar Cochba' rebellion of AD 132-136 after which no Jew was alowed within 50 miles of Jerusalem, which was itself renamed Aelius Hadrianus.

Not relevant here. The peril here, as you yourself seem to have noticed, has to do with morality. Actually, to be more precise, spirituality.

A good study here would be to look up all of the perilous verses, along with clear synonyms and similar phrases ("Why are we in danger at every hour?", etc.) [This is actually a note to myself]

Tom, if you want to be taken seriously you need to write some serious stuff.

Steve

I don't care that much whether you take me seriously, Steve. I am sorry to say that you have gone down in my estimation just from the countless attacks you have done to me. I really believe that you are sincere in your beliefs - as am I - and that you are a brother.

But you are, at the same time, a perfect picture of what happens when someone loosens their hold on Scripture and allows something else to take its place (to some degree, at least). The censure or praise of such a person has relatively little value to me.

 

[David Lamb]

Thank you for this comment, David. This seems to be the case indeed.

In order to understand the British slant on "High Church" I tried to access Steve's site but it is blocked here. But I think that the range of meaning is more limited and particular in the UK than I meant it.

That's what I thought Tom, yet even some well-known American dictionaries seem to define "high church" in the same way as we do here.

Merriam-Webster: favoring especially in Anglican worship the sacerdotal, liturgical, ceremonial, and traditional elements in worship

American Heritage Dictionary: Of or relating to a group in the Anglican Church that stresses the historical continuity of Catholic Christianity and maintains traditional definitions of authority, the episcopacy, and the nature of the sacraments.​

But I'd better not drag this thread off course, so I'll stop there. Thanks again!

 

[David Lamb]

Chum. What does that mean in English? I percieve it's definitely not 'brother'. (snip)

According to the American Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

a close friend​

 

[asterisktom]

That's what I thought Tom, yet even some well-known American dictionaries seem to define "high church" in the same way as we do here.

Merriam-Webster: favoring especially in Anglican worship the sacerdotal, liturgical, ceremonial, and traditional elements in worship

American Heritage Dictionary: Of or relating to a group in the Anglican Church that stresses the historical continuity of Catholic Christianity and maintains traditional definitions of authority, the episcopacy, and the nature of the sacraments.​

But I'd better not drag this thread off course, so I'll stop there. Thanks again!

Thanks, David. I probably should have just been satisfied with using "traditionalist", seeing that "high church" apparently evokes a wider association than I had intended.

 

[David Lamb]

Thanks, David. I probably should have just been satisfied with using "traditionalist", seeing that "high church" apparently evokes a wider association than I had intended.

Thanks, Tom, but let me assure you - my post wasn't intended as a criticism! :laugh:

 

[asterisktom]

Thanks, Tom, but let me assure you - my post wasn't intended as a criticism! :laugh:

Rest assured, it wasn't taken as such. But this little episode has reminded me to be extra careful in my terms.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Steve, it seems the phrase "High Church" can mean something quite different to the way we use it in the UK. Last year, on the thread: "Is this a new worship war starting?" someone wrote (my emphasis):

I am very old fashioned. I prefer high church- Isaac Watts with big orchestra and booming choir type music.​

It's mind-boggling to try to think of either Isaac Watts or yourself as "high church" in the British-English sense! :laugh:

Well David, next time I come amd preach for you, I shall be wearing a stole, a cassock, a dog collar and a purple shirt. I shall be preaching from the Apocrypha and in Latin. I hope you don't mind. :laugh:

Steve

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Well David, next time I come amd preach for you, I shall be wearing a stole, a cassock, a dog collar and a purple shirt. I shall be preaching from the Apocrypha and in Latin. I hope you don't mind. :laugh:

Steve

:laugh: Steve, dont forget the holy water & the candles....cross yourself often & what no miter. Maybe you can hear my confession (im a bad boy!) :smilewinkgrin:

 

[convicted1]

:laugh: Steve, dont forget the holy water & the candles....cross yourself often & what no miter. Maybe you can hear my confession (im a bad boy!) :smilewinkgrin:

What? Listen Brother, he doesn't have all week, ya know...:smilewinkgrin: J/K with ya Brother, youse knows???


fahgetaboutit!!!

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

What? Listen Brother, he doesn't have all week, ya know...:smilewinkgrin: J/K with ya Brother, youse knows???


fahgetaboutit!!!

no he would probably need a month Im sorry to say....but I admit it! :smilewinkgrin:

 

[David Lamb]

Well David, next time I come amd preach for you, I shall be wearing a stole, a cassock, a dog collar and a purple shirt. I shall be preaching from the Apocrypha and in Latin. I hope you don't mind. :laugh:

Steve

Thanks fort letting me know, Steve! It gives me time to get an order in for the associated paraphernalia (incense, candles, plainsong sheet-music, a cross to lead the "procession" and "recession"......) :laugh:

 

[jonathan.borland]

What's the difference between a Hyper Calvie and just a Calvie? The Hyper Calvie is logically consistent.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

:laugh: Maybe you can hear my confession (im a bad boy!) :smilewinkgrin:

I can well believe it. It might be more than my delicate nerves could stand. :laugh:

Steve

 

[Havensdad]

What's the difference between a Hyper Calvie and just a Calvie? The Hyper Calvie is logically consistent.

Actually, that is at least partially true, at least in terms of Supralapsarians. True Blue Infralapsarian Calvinist Compatibalists, like myself, believe very strongly in God's Sovereignty, AND man's responsibility, so this would not be true there. We are not willing to compromise God's Sovereignty, like the Arminian, nor are we willing to Compromise man's inherent responsibility (at least logically speaking) before God, like the Supralapsarian.

Of course, if Arminians were consistent, they would all be Rick Warren types, performing whatever "tricks" are necessary to yank a decision out of someone.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Concerning this phrase ['Last Days'] Gill makes this helpful comment:

" the Jews generally understand by this phrase ["the last days"], when used in the Old Testament, the days of the Messiah; and which are the last days of the world, in comparison of the times before the law, from Adam to Moses, and under the law, from thence to Christ; and even in the times of the apostles, at least towards the close of them, great numbers of men rose up under the Christian name, to whom the following characters well agree,"
I can agree absolutely with Gill here. 'The days of the Messiah.' 'Who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life' (Heb 7:16). It didn't end in AD 70.

However, then Gill goes on to make, IMO, unwarranted applications to more modern times seeing, for instance, the "man of sin" as being connected with the Roman Catholic Church.

I think the Pope makes a far better candidate than Nero. However, I will hold my judgement in case a better candidate appears.

You think that I being "silly"

Yes.

As long as I am being silly, let me show you a cool doodle that I came up with:

- - - - - - - - x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

<- Not Last Days - >< - L A S T D A Y S - >

We have seven lines and twenty X's. Assuming, for the sake of neatness, that Isaiah's book was written in 700BC and going on, first, to the time of Christ's Incarnation we have seven centuries. These are marked by the lines. After this time we have, according to you, an incredibly long period that we are to believe is the "last days". This is shown by those long line of twenty X's.

So we have roughly three-fourths of history from the time of Isaiah's to our time that are the last days. Think about it. This is stretching language w-a-a-a-y beyond the breaking point. And I assume that you also are going to tell me that nineteen of those X's stand for John's "last hour".

So you believe that three-fourths of history, from the time of Isaiah's prophecy to ours is all "last days". This - if you weren't so trained to see it otherwise by your tradition - would strike you as a great incongruity. But tradition conditions you not to see this, not to even notice the incongruity of assigning two millennia to "last days" and "last hour". But you have to be, as that wonderful song goes, "carefully taught".

(I am just waiting for you to trot out that misused, overused single verse rejoinder. You know the one I mean.)

Ah1 You mean 2 Peter 3:1-9. Well, it is in the Bible, and you are fulfilling verses 3-4 in this very thread. However, Peter was actually alluding to Psalm 90, so I'll quote that instead. :tongue3: 'For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.'

It is you who lack a sense of Scriptural perspective. Was not Abel looking by faith down four millennia to the Christ, the Lamb of God, when He sacrificed that firstling of His flock? That is why the Lord Jesus calls him a prophet. Even by your own ridiculous estimation, was not Enoch looking down around 3,000 years to the Lord coming in judgement (Jude 14-15)? These are the first two men of faith listed in Heb 11. The essence of faith is to wait for something that has not yet occurred.

Here's something I wrote on my blog recently:-

Habakkuk 2:2-3. ‘Then the LORD answered me and said, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”’

Here we learn that the prophecy given to Habakkuk will both tarry and not tarry. What can it mean? It surely means that God’s timescale is different to ours. He has established His purposes and they will not be thwarted. What may seem to us to be an interminably long time is just a blink of the eye to God (Psalm 90:4). We can see this again in 1Samuel 15:29, where Saul is told that God has torn away the kingdom of Israel from him, yet in fact he continued to reign for another 20 or so years.

Haggai 2:6-7. ‘For thus says the LORD of hosts: “Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; and I will shake all the nations, and they will come to the Desire of all Nations, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the LORD of hosts.’

The earliest that this prophecy could have been fulfilled is at the coming of the Lord Jesus, 500 years in the future when Haggai prophesied it; yet to God it is just ‘a little while.’ With these thoughts in mind, we can let the apostle Peter explain the whole matter to us.

2 Peter 3:3-4, 8-9. ‘…….Knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation”………..But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promises as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’

Those who deny the Return of Christ are called “Scoffers.” The reasons for God’s apparent tardiness in the completion of His purposes are shown to be two-fold. Firstly, God sits outside of time. The thousand years spoken of here means all the years that are, just as the ‘Cattle on a thousand hills’ in Psalm 50 means all the cattle that there are. To God, everything is in a boundless present. Secondly, in His mercy God is waiting for the very last of His elect to come to faith before the end. When will that be? We cannot know. It could be this very night, and it could be many years away. Our business as Christians is not to speculate on such matters but to be ready for Him to come at any time (Mark 13:32-37 etc.).

Read more at http://marprelate.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/the-forgotten-doctrine-loving-the-return-of-christ-2/

I will respond to your other post as I have time.

Steve

 

[asterisktom]

The essence of faith is to wait for something that has not yet occurred.

Here's something I wrote on my blog recently:-

Read more at http://marprelate.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/the-forgotten-doctrine-loving-the-return-of-christ-2/

I will respond to your other post as I have time.

Steve

Just a few short comments for now:
The essence of faith is not to "wait for something that has not yet occurred" but to believe in eternal things invisible, even though sight and seeming experience seem to tell us otherwise. It is, ultimately, to be assured of God's presence and goodness - and in the victory of His Kingdom - even though outward circumstances point to an opposite conclusion.

It is loving His presence even more than His coming. The latter is a temporal event, the former an eternal reality.

As far as your link is concerned, those are all impossible for me to get. This country does not allow access to most blogs.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Just a few short comments for now:
The essence of faith is not to "wait for something that has not yet occurred" but to believe in eternal things invisible, even though sight and seeming experience seem to tell us otherwise. It is, ultimately, to be assured of God's presence and goodness - and in the victory of His Kingdom - even though outward circumstances point to an opposite conclusion.

Doubtless it is both those things. What it is not is to scoff at those who wait patiently for the fulfillment of God's promises (Heb 11:9-10).

It is loving His presence even more than His coming. The latter is a temporal event, the former an eternal reality.

The first Century Christians knew the truth of God's presence among them (Col 1:27), but that did not stop them eagerly awaiting His coming (1Cor 1:7; Phil 3:20f; 1 Thes 1:9f; Titus 2:13; Heb 9:28 etc.).

As far as your link is concerned, those are all impossible for me to get. This country does not allow access to most blogs.

That is a shame. I have just posted a further study, specifically on Matt 24:34. Perhaps I will cut and paste an extract for you in due course.

Steve