Posted on 07/26/2019 3:04:17 AM PDT by Cronos
"This doctrine is not really found in the book of Revelation. If you read the book of Revelation, you won't find any mention of the rapture there," said William Craig, ResearchProfessor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology at Houston Baptist University. .. Instead, Craig says, the idea of the rapture comes from a "misinterpretation of 1 and 2 Thessalonians where Paul is describing the coming of the Lord and resurrection of the dead, which will occur at His coming."
"If you compare what Paul says there to what Jesus says about the End Times, Paul uses the same vocabulary, the same phraseology. I think it's very plausible that Paul is talking about the same event that Jesus predicted, namely the visible coming of the Son of Man at the end of human history to usher in his kingdom,but proponents of the rapture view, say that Paul is not at all talking about the second coming of the Christ there. What he's really talking about is this invisible preliminary secret return of Christ to snatch believers out of the world before the great tribulation occurs. I think there's no textual warrant for that at all."
According to Craig, the rapture became a popular theory about the End Times due to the influence of the Scofield Reference Bible, which was published in the early 20th century and promulgated John Darby's mid-18th century's views on the rapture.
"A good many Bible-believing Christians absorbed this view as their mother's milk as it were and have never thought to question its Biblical credentials,"
"It is astonishing, American evangelism is very widely misled, that it has departed from the historic Christian position about the second coming of Christ. That's really rather sobering, because if we're wrong about this, what other things might we have misinterpreted?"
(Excerpt) Read more at christianpost.com ...
why would Paul discuss the resurrection and then discuss the rapture? Paul is analogically saying that when Jesus returns, we will go to meet Him before he begins His reign on earth. But this has nothing to do with any kind of rapture theory. It has to do with resurrection and the Lord’s return.
The apostles were told in Acts 1:11 Who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven.
Seems to me Christians might want to be careful paying heed to “theologians” who would discredit Paul. Without him there just isn’t much of a New Testament left. Of course, that just may be the point.
Rev 4:1
The ones who discredit Paul seem to be the same ones with the “left behind” philosophy
bfl
Positions on the Rapture don’t matter.
If there is a Rapture, all those who belong to Jesus will also belong to the Rapture. You don’t have to believe in the Rapture to be taken in the Rapture.
If there isn’t, those who are truly devoted to Jesus will be saved anyway, even though they thought the Rapture would happen.
In the meantime, many souls are being saved as people give up their sinful ways before it is too late.
Win win.
So don’t worry about it.
Which sort of brings one to ask, “Just whom does ‘Liberation Theology’ propose to liberate and from whom?” IMHO it takes only a little thought to discern the answers to that question and the inexorable answer is not reassuring.
The Council of Nicea never should have accepted Revelation as a book of the Bible. The dreams of St. John are no more relevant to the theology of Jesus than the dreams of Muhammad are relevant to theology.
The head pastor in a sermon series on Revelation gave a brief description on all of the different views of the end times and the rapture. Then said something like “Now me? Well I believe in ‘endism’. Everything will work out in the end!”
I'm guessing that he probably does have his own more scriptural beliefs - but kept those to himself. Perhaps not. The main thing that I got out of that long sermon series was 1) It is very symbolic. 2) The Old Testament is referred to all the time, and 3) Most important, God is on His throne and is sovereign over it all.
It has some important things in it.
Mind Blowing, but not in a bad way. More thought provoking
They obviously recognized it was inspired, inerrant, and infallible. It must have been more than "dreams".
If you love Jesus, it kind of doesn’t matter.
My Better Half has no worries.
Me?
We’ll lets just say I’ve work to do.
Moses Stuart wrote in the early 19th century that you need a key to understand Revelation and the key is found in Revelation 1:1 — “... to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass...”
or, in verse three — “... for the time is at hand.”
Now, it is taught that “must shortly come to pass” means times meandering through the millennia, or the “time is at hand” means you must wait thousands of years.
Craig did not discredit Paul in any way. He is saying that rapture fiction is based upon a incorrect interpretation of Paul.
Agree, it’s heresy
Yes, the Rapture/millennium theology misinterprets Paul and it also skips around and misinterprets some Old Testament passages and uses the Old Testament to interpret the New Testament. It is quite a patchwork. It should give people pause that while Christians from early on had somewhat differing views of the end times, no one knew anything of the Rapture and Jesus’ secret or partial return and dispensations until this system was first taught 200 years ago. This system was an odd, minority view even among Baptists until 100 years ago when the Scofield Bible made it popular.
What are your thoughts on the book of Enoch?
That is what is so wonderful about the Gospel Jesus has already done all of that work for you. You simply have to accept it.
Might I suggest you start accepting today?
The counsel on Nicea had nothing to do with which books would be considered canonical scripture nor did it ‘accept” Revelation as a book of the Bible. It dealt with the heresy of Arianism.
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