Posted on 05/21/2007 1:31:42 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
Everyone I know seems to be reading the Bible these days in search of answers. That is usually a good thing but not always. In fact, too many of the Biblical discussions I get into with friends and family members relate to the “End Times” and whether they are upon us. That is a shame because reading the Bible can enrich one’s daily life provided one is not obsessed with using it as a device to decipher the future.
Because of one relatively simple error in dating one book of the New Testament, author Tim LaHaye has misled tens of millions of people into thinking that a great time of tribulation is near. He has Christians everywhere looking for signs of an emerging anti-Christ and, ultimately, in a cowardly fashion, looking forward to a time when Christ will rapture his church away from earthly troubles.
If Christians would simply study the New Testament themselves – instead of relying upon 21st Century “prophets” writing fictional books for 21st Century profits – they would arrive at a few very simple conclusions:
1. The Revelation to John was written around 65 AD, not 95 AD.
2. The anti-Christ was Nero, not some world figure yet to emerge in the 21st Century.
3. The tribulation occurred in the First Century around the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD.
4. The “rapture” never happened and it never will.
5. The words of Jesus in Matthew 24 plainly reveal that most of the discourse in The Revelation to John is based on events in the First Century.
Once an individual realizes he is stuck here on earth and will not be raptured away from all of his troubles, he can begin to read the Bible the way it was intended to be read. I have a word of advice for those who have never really thought about reading the Bible as an end in itself rather than as a means to some goal such as predicting the future. My advice is actually borrowed from a friend who received a moving card from his wife just a few months ago.
After receiving the cherished card from his wife, my friend would sneak into their bedroom late at night (she always fell asleep while he was finishing his last TV show). After giving her a kiss while she was sleeping, he would take the card off his dresser and go into the spare room to read it by the light of a small lamp.
There were certain lines he would read three and four times over: “It is a privilege to know you, to share myself with you,” “I never knew such a person could exist until I met you,” and “You lift my spirits to places where my troubles seem so much farther away.”
Be the first to read Townhall.com. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com delivered each morning to your inbox.
It was wonderful to hear that a dear friend had found his “soul mate” and all of the joy that comes from lifelong companionship. But, at the same time, I could not listen to his story without thinking of all the other friends I know who have suffered through a painful divorce or, in some cases, never even met someone with whom they share a special bond of love. And some are growing older and lonelier by the day.
But, recently, I received a new insight into what seems to be an unfair distribution of soul mates among God’s children. It came as I was listening to a pastor named “Mike” whose last name I do not even know. His message was broadcast from Port City Church in Wilmington to a theater rented out to handle the overflow of his growing congregation.
He urged each member of his church to read the First Letter of John during the coming week. He also urged them to read it as if it were written just for them by someone who is madly in love with them.
I was so intrigued by this take on the proper approach to reading the New Testament epistle that I immediately bought a copy of the English Standard Version – a version I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time. Later that night I opened it and started reading by the light of a small lamp:
“…Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling… I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake … Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure… We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him…”
After reading those lines, it occurred to me that I had only been skimming through this great epistle on my last several runs through the New Testament. My zeal to get to The Revelation to John has been such that I have hardly noticed those great words in the years following the attacks of 911.
We all need to learn to read the Word as if it were written for us personally by someone who could not love us more. When we cannot get enough of it in the here and now, the future seems so much less important. And a little uncertainty is hardly the end of the world.
The writer’s position seems to come from the Preterist school. R.C. Sproul follows this line of reasoning.
I do not understand why simply reading the New Testament would lead one to the conclusion that John’s Revelation was written so early. The early Church fathers put this book at the end of the collection and it has a distinct feel of “finality” as one of the last books written, not one of the first.
However, I think I will stick with the more common position that John wrote Revelation toward the end of his life after the Asian churches had had a chance to fall into complacency. The “Talk Through the Bible” overview by Bruce Wilkerson of Dallas Theological Seminary, suggests that Domitian would be a better candidate than Nero as the Anti-Christ alluded to by John.
Furthermore, there are several cases of “near” fulfillment and “far” fulfillment for the same prophetic utterance.
I do like the author’s suggestion that the letters should be read as if they were hand delivered to YOUR mailbox. The epistles are full of teaching which we would do well to personalize.
Oh, bother. Now what are we supposed to do with all the Rapture-themed bumperstickers?
Too many are so wrapped up in “end times” speculation that they forget that the world doesn’t have to come to an end for their world, and the world of their lost neighbors and relatives, to come to an end (Ps 90:12). Laden down with the complacent view that “Jesus is surely coming soon to catch me away from all of this”, they turn Mat 16:18 around and cower in their little churches on the hill, waiting for Jesus to arrive with the heavenly calvary and save them from being overrun by Satan’s beseigning forces. I sometimes wonder if the even know Him (Matt 7:21-27).
I suppose this scripture is a not truthful...
The Coming of the Lord
13Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18Therefore encourage each other with these words.
Nero may have been a form of antichrist....but I don’t believe he was THE antichrist. There are too many things in the Revelation that have not come to pass. There is no New Jerusalem here...yet. 2/3 of the worlds population was not annihilated during Nero’s reign...he did some damage to the Christian population...but even his great empire did not encompass the whole earth.. Jesus has not set up HIS kingdom here..yet either.
The great Battle in which Christ leads his army against the antichrist hasn’t happened either...unless we missed something during Nero’s time. If it happened during Nero’s time.....where is Jesus reigning the whole earth for a millenium? A lot of earthly governments haven’t gotten that memo yet...I suppose. Why is evil still here..when the revelation says the evil one, the Beast will be thrown into a lake of fire with all his cohorts...?
If God is who He says He is...then He is incapable of lying...to deny the “rapture” and to claim Nero the antichrist....is saying the scriptures are not true.
No. It is to say that your interpretation of them (which is rooted in dispensationalism, a complex interpretive scheme invented in the 1850's that you have, perhaps unconsciously, superimposed upon Scripture) is not true.
Mr. Adams, as a partial preterist, doesn't disagree about the veracity of 1The. 4:13-16 - he just believes that it refers to the resurrection of the dead.
Saving for later.
Well, IMO if one proclaims Jesus as their "personal" savior there ought be no other way to read scripture.
‘If God is who He says He is...then He is incapable of lying...to deny the “rapture” and to claim Nero the antichrist....is saying the scriptures are not true.’
On the other hand, it might be just saying that a reading of the 2Thess passage and the Apocalypse that did not exist before the early 19th century Plymouth Brethren intererpretations popularized by John Darby caught on in Britain and the USA is not true.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/cathouse/darby.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nelson_Darby
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Brethren
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture
he just believes that it refers to the resurrection of the dead....
Which it does..but it also speaks of those who are still alive. Leaving that part out puts a whole different spin on it, don’t you agree? I am not a Bible scholar...just someone who has read the Bible and taken it at face value. I believe it is truthful , as God is a truthful being. I know nothing about the 1850’s scheme gobbledegook...
I believe that when I ask the Holy Spirit, my teacher, to help me understand what I am reading, that He doesn’t lead me down a path of deception...for the Word says He will lead me into all truth.
I have a problem with relying my biblical understanding on the understanding of other men...when the word tells me I have no need of other teachers. The Holy Spirit’s job is to teach me...and I believe He does.
It may be simplistic...but the Bible really is simplicity...God didn’t make it so it would be difficult to understand. I rely on the Holy Spirit to lead me and to help me discern the truth.
If the Bible says that there will be people still alive who will be caught up in the air with Christ...then I believe live people will be caught up in the air with Him. If it says that Jesus will reign in the New Jerusalem.....then He will reign there.
The only thing superimposed on me is what the Lord himself has revealed to me through his Word.
“The anti-Christ was Nero, not some world figure yet to emerge in the 21st Century.”
Absolutely wrong.
“The “rapture” never happened and it never will.”
This is a denial of the Scripture.
The Book of Revelation was clearly written during one of the periods of Roman persecution, most likely during Nero's reign, which in fact would be in the early AD 60s. The code '666' actually refers to Nero, coming out of the Hebrew apocalyptic and mystic tradition, and it doesn't take much imagination to realize that the seven-headed beast, as well, as the scarlet-clad harlot of Babylon, is Rome (sitting on its seven hills). The book of Revelation is all about Rome's persecution of Christians as well as its domination of Judea, and St. John's vision of its downfall and the rise of a new city of Jerusalem is not at all about the end of time, if one studies the text very carefully and objectively.
It may be because it is so early in the morning...but this doesn’t make sense to me...could you rephrase it?
On the other hand, it might be just saying that a reading of the 2Thess passage and the Apocalypse that did not exist before the early 19th century Plymouth Brethren intererpretations popularized by John Darby caught on in Britain and the USA is not true.
Your ideas don’t square with the apocalyptic passages in the Thessalonian books.
Sounds like your professors may have skewed your studies.
bump for later
About the end-times: there is nothing you can do about it.
About today: you can live in Christ.
The lillies of the field do not spin.
Here is something I reflect on often about many of the non-prophetic passages that may apply to the prophetic.
Scripture often speaks to me on many several levels. As this author points out, John may seem at first to speak to a group of people. However, it also speaks directly to me.
Many OT passages and prophecy were fully understood and sometimes thought to be fully complete before Christ. After Christ we came to understand that many parts of the law, the traditions and the stories all pointed to Christ and that many of the prophecies that seemed to be fulfilled in prior times and places were also more fully filled by Christ.
For us to try and put John’s Revelation into a box that makes a claim that it only refers to Nero and Rome or that it only refers to the final days is placing more restrictions on prophecy and its purpose than we have placed on the prophets of the OT.
In short, I don’t think the question of timing of the events of Revelations is an either/or proposition as to time and place any more than I believe it is speaks merely about world events.
The same process that Revelation’s has in our outer world is the same process that takes place in our inner world. We all have inner Babylon’s that need a Christ on a white horse. We all need new Jerusalem’s paved in gold to replace the old cities we have created in our hearts. Just as the Flood is also a baptism of our inner selves and Exodus is a process of leaving our Pharaohs and learning to be dependent on God for manna, the Revelations is our final surrender for every knee or our inner selves to yield to Christ.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.