Thoughts from a former Christian

reply to post by colbe


What does the Bible say? His reign will be over the entire planet. And I'm not at all angry, nor have I been mean to you in any way, I have no idea what you're talking about there.

reply to post by ddaniel


What if you were God?
and you just didnt know this?
www.abovetopsecret.com...
jesus has your back.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

Yeah? I'm just not seeing it, sorry.

Sounds like like a quite a stretch, after reading the whole chapter.

Not at all. It's a conversation between three people, and it's about the future when the Son is reigning.

Jesus isn't "reigning." He never has reigned over anything earthy. David, on the other hand did. Also, Cyrus was a "son of God," who fulfilled many of the Old Testament messiah prophecies. who also actually did reign.

reply to post by windword


That's why it's "prophetic". For every prophecy about Christ's first coming there are 8 dealing with His 2nd coming in the OT.

reply to post by NOTurTypical


Some of the Psalms, were obviously written in praise to Cyrus after the Jewish exile in Babylon. Cyrus the king of Persia invaded and took over the Babylonian empire. He decreed that Jews should be allowed back to rebuild their temple.

I don't know why you ignore the fulfillment of the prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah by Cyrus, and claim that there haven't been fulfilled yet.

Jesus came and went and never fulfilled those prophecies. Now, some 3000 years later, you're still waiting and saying that that Psalm guarantees Jesus' second, or third coming, if you count the resurrection as the 2nd time he came.

Sorry, that's too much of a stretch for my mind.

reply to post by windword


Psalms were written some 400 years before Cyrus the Great was born. And when did I deny a prophecy about Cyrus? God specifically calls him by name. That prophecy is referred to frequently to show the divine origin of scripture. And I don't count the resurrection as His second coming. He was still on Earth, He ascended some 50 days after His resurrection, and the angel told His disciples that He would return in like manner that they saw Him ascend.. which would be physically and bodily.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

Psalms were written some 400 years before Cyrus the Great was born

Some Biblical scholars claim that parts of the Psalms were written after Cyrus, but that doesn't really matter. If the Psalms in question is, in fact a prophecy, and not a proclamation of God's love for David, as many say it is, there's no reason to believe that "prophecy" wasn't fulfilled by Cyrus.

At any rate, there really isn't a great deal of agreement among scholars of your assessment that that Psalms predicts the 2nd coming of Jesus.

reply to post by windword


I don't really care if there is a scholarly consensus. Appeal to numbers arguments don't sway me all that much for obvious reasons.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by colbe

 

What does the Bible say? His reign will be over the entire planet. And I'm not at all angry, nor have I been mean to you in any way, I have no idea what you're talking about there.

edit on 3-1-2013 by NOTurTypical because: (no reason given)

Come on, rather immature response, we know, the earth is where all of God's children live. And why would Jesus reign over part of the earth, so silly.

I asked you to be specific, more than saying Jesus is going to reign like you first stated. What kind of reign is it going to be? I'll try again, which sect of Protestantism is Our Lord going to reveal to the entire planet is His true Church? The Millennium is not going to remain as it is now in this God's 6th Day. Answer the question, thank you, is it "Assemblies of God", or another of the 30,000 Protestant communities, denominations? Which one?

The Protestant prophecy I read speaks of unity of belief, of God's entire Word accepted and of the "awakening" to happen soon. Plus Our Lord keeps instructing, correcting the heresies. Our Lord is preparing Protestants to accept the faith. In the Catholic messages, Jesus is more specific for a reason, the Remnant is Roman Catholic. The Church will go through great persecution first. Everyone in the world will be shown by God, RC is the true faith before the appearance of the anti-Christ and his take over. You will have to choose to
convert, our free will.

NTT, think about the most holy Eucharist, believe. Get ready.



God bless you,


colbe


1 Thessalonians 5:20 Despise not prophecies.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by windword

 

I don't really care if there is a scholarly consensus. Appeal to numbers arguments don't sway me all that much for obvious reasons.

Friend, numbers are important. Most of Christianity is Roman Catholic. How can Our Lord return to say Protestantism is true, believe what you want and everything is to remain just as it is now in Protestantism, you choose (I'll use a kind term) the "denomination" of Protestantism you like out of 30,000, actually 30,000 plus? How confusing? How will Catholics know which one? At His return, Jesus is going to reveal it, yes?

You can't keep generalizing about Christ's return. Do you not think about this, Our Lord is coming back to do what? And what is Our Lord going to do with the Orthodox? Questions to ask. Believe prophecy, God is preparing everyone to accept the faith, there is only one, Roman Catholicism.


colbe

reply to post by ddaniel


I ran across this article today, and wanted to share it anyways...
thought this might be a good place to plop the link....

religion.blogs.cnn.com...

I got a feeling if Christ walked into most of churches today, they would not recognize him..
he probably wouldn't recognized them either, but well, he would not be what they would expect. not only in physical appearace, but may the word that he spoke, the ideas that he presented, ect...

remember the established religions of his time rejected him, and today's probably would also.
it's what is in the heart that is important, not the fancy buildings, the spotless clothing (I actually met someone who quite church after his pastor sat down with him and discussed the proper attire to wear to church, ya know, suits and such. this guy didn't own any suits, and he wasn't dressing like a scum when he went to church...)

reply to post by ddaniel


Thank you very much for your post. I was raised in a very loosely religious family so I can´t really relate to you experience, but I can imagine that it was very hard.

I do not see anything wrong with what you wrote, there are quite a few more holes in the stories of various religions, and bigger ones as well.

Yet a solid belief in religion has helped a lot of people as well. I personally do believe in god but i certainly am not religious. I do think as well that quite a few deaths in our past can be ascribed to religions. That should not be ignored.

In the end everyone has to decide for themselves what to believe in. And if nobody tries to convince anybody of their specific belief, then we may just be fine.

Originally posted by wjones837
I didn't come to faith until later in life and that may be why I see this from a completely different perspective. I never followed anything "blindly", but I sought out to learn why Christians believe what they believe, and read the Bible to see what it said for itself, and because of that I just see something else.

I believe you said that the message you heard was that of a defeated attitude, and and I don't know about that. Sometimes the truth is a bitter pill to swallow, but it's good for you nonetheless. Jesus didn't teach a message of "you're all screwed guys, quit while you're ahead", if that were so, why did the church spread over the world the way it did, with men losing their lives at the hands of violent, "religious" men? It appears as if jesus' cowardly disciples were empowered to do things that these ordinary men would have never done on their own. Jesus apparently believed that we couldn't help ourselves, and or he wouldn't have come to teach, lead, and and lay down his life as a ransom for many. The problem is many in the church stop there.

Granted, the church has been blamed of sitting on its hands for a long time here, especially those with Calvinist leanings, and essentially laying the burden on God while they have pot luck dinner. But I read about a different church in the Bible, and I see people laying down their lives for their enemies all around the world, even here in America.

The gospel, how as I read (but don't regularly see around here admittedly), is one of power, and a power to affect change, and something I have experienced myself, I and have seen worked out in the most depraved of men in my short lifetime. And, I myself have been able to help many men regenerated and changed.

 

Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

 

There are so many contradictions and illogical statements in this posts that I do not know where to start.

There are two things that come to mind from reading your post.

First, you are anti-religious because at the simplest level you see yourself as being better than them. You point out how religion has been the cause of many deaths over the yearswith the implicit presupposition that you are immune from one day being possessed by this mercilessness and the second implicit notion that this is the fruit of religion and not hysteria. You present this as a noble perspective when all it amounts to is you're to busy to be bothered and you're also too good to associate with any institution that has made this record for itself.

Examined critically, this view falls apart. You cannot slander the entire Christian religion because a few Christians throughout the years committed murders. Many Christians were being murdered at the hands of the popes and other theologico-political leaders so making this statements equates innocents murdered with the persecutors themselves. Think of the Trinitarians who slaughter the Unitarians. The Catholics who slaughtered the Anabaptists, the Calvinists persecuting non-Calvinists, the Anglican-Presbyterian wars, and the other conflicts where you say "so many precious lives were taken". Do you really believe that? Then why do you slander those innocent lives and lump them into one category with murderers and despots?

Secondly, you talked about this reverence of the Bible as the infallible Word of God. I've got news for you the Christians and the unbelievers are both liars on this subject. The Bible has the words of many people, not just God's, but it does have God's. God's words are found in the Torah, the Prophets, and Jesus Christ (and also following a phrase such as "the word of the lord came unto ____, saying, "). Other commentators include the Epistle writers, the historical narratives such as Kings, Chronicles, Samuel, Ruth, Esther, (etc.), Elihu, Eliphaz, Balaam, Satan, etc. A lot of this talk is not inspired so it is incomplete to say it is God's word because it has other people's words in it too.

Is it perfect? No. There are a few contradictions but not as many as copypasting keyboard evangelists of atheism would have you believe.

One says that Solomon (in one book) had 4,000 stalls. Another book, which essentially repeats much of the information from a prior book indicates that he had 40,000. When you examine it for its internal consistency, you find that God's words do not contradict at all. Man's words in the Bible can be disputed, but God's words and his doctrines are not in dispute. What it comes down to in those few truly contradictory cases is something of such utter irrelevance like this 4,000/40,000 thing that it doesn't touch on anything remotely considered sacred in the faith. It is the most complete irrelevance imaginable and of no effect to central teachings.

Finally, my exhortation to you is not to listen to these Christians or atheists who have an agenda for this or that, but to read God's words, not Paul's or Nehemiah's or Elihu's, and invite Him to speak to you and wait for His direction and peace. You can see a lot of Christians don't have that, and you know atheists do not either. This is a place of unity that is not found through Chick tracts or doctrinal disputes but something found in quiet solitude and peace, between you and the Creator, that wholesome Communion.