What sort of "ages" was Paul speaking of? There is nothing in this passage (or anywhere else) to suggest a connection between what Paul refers to as "ages to come" and what some folks have in mind when they say "dispensation". (Of course there is not much to relate what some folks have in mind when they say "dispensation" to anything in the Bible.)
I believe Paul was merely using an idiomatic phrase to describe "the future". (There is no Greek word in the NT for "future". The closest seems to be the word loipo which means "that which remains".)
I think that by applying some hyper-literal interpretation to the phrase misses the point.
hmmm...I didn't know that. AND, after a quick look at the KJV...it doesn't appear at all in the KJV.
Matt 6:34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
...seems to make this consistent?
The "ages" that he was speaking of when he chose to use the word "aion" again and again and again rather than another word or words.
There is nothing in this passage (or anywhere else) to suggest a connection between what Paul refers to as "ages to come" and what some folks have in mind when they say "dispensation".
There certainly is as well as in the rest of his writings especially when coupled with those of Luke and John and the others.
(Of course there is not much to relate what some folks have in mind when they say "dispensation" to anything in the Bible.)
And your evidence for that is what???? ---- the clear blue sky overhead.
Remember: "insisting does not good exegesis make" [topcat54]
I believe Paul was merely using an idiomatic phrase to describe "the future". (There is no Greek word in the NT for "future". The closest seems to be the word loipo which means "that which remains".)
Oh please! Certainly he is describing the future. What else would it be. And he is doing it in the way the NT Greek does in so many cases with the use of the word "to come". We do it in English as well and other languages in order to be more specific regarding the time frame of which we are speaking.
Paul could have said: "in the hours to come", "in the days to come", "in the weeks to come", "in the years to come", "in the generations to come", "in the age [aeon] to come", or "forever and ever". But Paul uses the plural: "in the ages [aions] to come".
He used the plural [ages] in some places to convey a more distant future and the singular [age] in other places to convey a nearer future for the "age" in which he was writing. If he didn't mean what he said then why didn't he say what he meant. And if he said what he meant, then why is it so hard to believe what he said???
I think that by applying some hyper-literal interpretation to the phrase misses the point.
Hmmm: "hyper-literal interpretation" --- Did you mean that literally, figuratively, hyper-literally, or hyper-figuratively??? Please identify which of your words that the reader is free to interpret any way they so choose.