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To: amessenger4god
the small, but growing minority of Christians who emphatically state that the rapture isn't even in the Bible...

Bandwagon fallacy. Just because a number of people believe it doesn't make it true. Moreover, the statement is not even true, unless Catholics and Orthodx Christians don't count- they do not believe the concept of a pre-tribulational rapture is in the Bible either.

The argument is that the pre-tribulational rapture theory was invented by a girl in 19th century Scotland named Margaret MacDonald. This is patently false. For starters, 18 years prior to MacDonald, a Catholic Jesuit priest espoused his belief in the pre-trib rapture in his book The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty.

Strawman fallacy. This is not the argument at all. The argument is that this was never a doctrine of any Christian church before MacDonald; that is no group of Christians ever accepted this, incorporated this into their written beliefs, and believed it as divinely inspired. No sifnificant number of Christians believed this before Margaret MacDonald spread this false doctrine to John Darby who spread it to a number of seminaries, which led to the result of it spreading like wildfire as a wholly new doctrine that was eventually believed by a significant number of Christians, despite never being accepted as such in the two thousand year history of the church.

8 posted on 03/13/2015 7:59:05 AM PDT by LambSlave
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To: LambSlave
>>that is no group of Christians ever accepted this<<

Jesus and the apostles did.

13 posted on 03/13/2015 8:03:57 AM PDT by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
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To: LambSlave

I once got into it on Facebook with some who made similar arguments. You really can’t reason with someone like that.


15 posted on 03/13/2015 8:04:36 AM PDT by darkangel82
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To: LambSlave

John Darby!


27 posted on 03/13/2015 8:19:31 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.)
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To: LambSlave

Excellent points, thank you!


36 posted on 03/13/2015 8:30:49 AM PDT by Old Sarge (Its the Sixties all over again, but with crappy music...)
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To: LambSlave
I never heard of Darby when I read read Matthew 24, Luke 17, Isaiah 26, and Revelation. Jesus' description of the Rapture in those chapters/books gives the idea that when the rapture occurs, things will be relatively normal. Yet the tribulation described in Daniel/Revelation shows absolute chaos. Some of the world's finest Hebrew/Bible scholars also still believe in a possible pre-trib/mid-trib rapture while not being dogmatic (Arnold Fructenbaum, Jacob Prasch, etc).

When I hear people dogmatically state that rapture will occur at a particular time, it is a red flag that they do not know what they are talking about. Eschatology scriptures are not "perspicuous".
124 posted on 03/13/2015 5:03:56 PM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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