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To: DaveMSmith
To me, and many others, Swedenborg's Writings have to be taken in a complete picture - 35 volumes over 27 years. We appreciate the fact that he revised and extended his teachings and we're still trying to understand it all.

Do you think it is a wise thing to depend upon the teachings of a single man who "revised and extended his teachings" over nearly three decades? How can you know that you have finally wrapped your mind around a doctrinal point you studied in an early volume if you find out in a later one that he "revised" it and it no longer is true? See, that is the security we Christians have in the Bible - it is complete, it is comprehensive and it doesn't change. What is truth will always be the truth if it comes from the mind of Almighty God.

Certainly, there is a fuller and deeper understanding of God's truths as we grow in grace, but we need not fear that something has become outdated or was replaced by "newer" revelation which makes the first untrue. Even the truths of the Old Testament revealed by God through the Jewish people are still true. In fact, the revelation in the New Testament books shows a central theme woven all throughout the entire Bible and which finds its culmination in the person of Jesus Christ.

The problem I have with those who profess "new" revelation that supposedly supersedes the Divinely-inspired Scriptures is they only have their own words to prove it. Guys like Mohammed or Joseph Smith proclaimed that they had been visited by God or His messengers and they put forth their writings they say came from that experience, but NOBODY witnessed it happening. They set out to establish entirely NEW religions based only on their own testimonies. That they have been able to lead millions or more into accepting their word for it, demonstrates to me more about the gullibility of mankind than it does to the legitimacy of their message.

Did Swedenborg ever have any accompanying miracles to back up what he was saying? In the first century, Jesus and then His Apostles and disciples went around their part of the world converting souls to the Gospel by confirming signs and miracles. In Acts 2:22, Peter says:

    “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know."

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, Acts 19:11 says, because He was confirming the authority of Paul as an Apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul told the believers at Corinth that, "The things that mark an apostle--signs, wonders and miracles--were done among you with great perseverance." (II Corinthians 12:12) If you read the Old Testament prophets, what gave the people assurance that a prophet was truly speaking from God, was that what they prophesied came to pass. God does these things for our benefit because He knows how stubborn we can be.

So, you promote the teachings of a man who lived hundreds of years ago and you desire (sincerely, I believe) that his teachings be given a chance to touch people's hearts. The problem is that a lot of what he has said goes against what the Bible says. Those who have studied the Scriptures can see immediately that there are certain phrases and doctrines that sound "off" - they don't have the ring of truth to them. You are asking people to let go of what they have learned and believe and accept new doctrine that has nothing to verify it but a single man's dreams and visions and what he claimed they meant. I don't know your religious background, but I wonder what it was you saw in Swedenborg that caused you to devote yourself to his views and go out and convert others as well? How can you be sure that what he says is really true? A feeling? A sense? What makes you believe what he says about Jesus is more true than what Christians have believed for two thousand years? Thanks for answering these sincere questions.

72 posted on 11/23/2012 8:32:27 PM PST by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: boatbums

And yet miracles themselves do not a real prophet of God make, as the case of William Branham examples, but it conformity with Scripture in word and in power that attested to the veracity of their claims. With Borg types, the Bereans would have to rely upon Roy Masters-type esoteric revelation in order to see how Paul was indeed of God.


74 posted on 11/23/2012 8:45:10 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: boatbums
A significant event occurred between the paragraph in question and his final treatment of the subject in 1771, namely the Last Judgement in the spiritual world. The first was a paragraph from some inter-chapter material. We use our reason to put it together, relying on the findings of past teachers. We never alter the Writings, just have new translations. Always learning and developing the understanding with an open mind.

Swedenborg wrote that miracles compel belief and it is such that it does not last. For myself, I've had mystical experiences which seem common today.

I'm just here sharing a good Bible Study for those that may not have one.

112 posted on 11/25/2012 3:22:15 AM PST by DaveMSmith (Evil Comes from Falsity, So Share the Truth)
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