Thoughts& Church of Christ21 May 2007 07:50 pm
Hello all:
So how about a manual poll?
What eschatological view do you hold, and why?
Premillenialism
Postmillenialism
Amillenialism
Partial Preterist
Full Preterist
or - Don’t know.
-Clarke
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May 21st, 2007 at 21:06
I am torn between amillenialism and full preterist. Part of this is just because the scripture are not clear. However my feelings are death will come before any return of Jesus so that rules out one of the option.
One other factor for me is evangelism and it’s connection towards end times. You know you can’t go to heaven unless you take someone with you. My indoctrination within the church of Christ has limited my ability to help people find salvation. Because of that a healthy fear of the end has turned into a fight for my own worthiness. When the church figures out who or what is authorized to evangelize then maybe the end of time theory will become more clear.
May 22nd, 2007 at 3:17
I honestly do not care as 5 different people will have 5 different views on what happens towards the “end”. So, since “don’t care/doesn’t matter” is not an option I will go with “don’t know”
May 22nd, 2007 at 3:58
I agree with JP on this one. God will “get it right” whether we do or not. But the way I read the scriptures, all of Dan 9 and most of Matt 24 was fulfilled in AD 70. So I think that makes me an amillennialist… though I would choose a different name for it, since I do believe Rev 20 means *something* when it mentions 1000 years–something that did not precede AD 70.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:12
Mark wrote:
You know you can’t go to heaven unless you take someone with you.
I’ve heard that said many times. I understand and appreciate the intent behind the statement, but it just is not true.
Think of the conversion lineage of Christians as a tree. The people on the ends of the branch won’t be bringing anyone with them (that’s why they are on the end–they were the last ones in their “line” converted). So if the statement is true, those people won’t go to heaven. And therefore the people who thought they had converted them won’t have anyone with them after all–so they won’t go to heaven either. Etc…and the whole tree blows away. So if the statement is true, nobody will go to heaven. But that can’t be true, because the scriptures clearly say that some will go to heaven. Therefore bringing someone with you is not a requirement for going to heaven.
Of course the same thing can be proven by enumerating all the things that are said about going to heaven, and noticing that bringing someone with you is not on the list. I do think a pretty good case can be made that a sincere effort to bring someone with you is necessary (though grace needs to be factored into that idea). But however you slice it, some people will go to heaven without having been successful in those efforts.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:52
Is it bad that i’ve deliberately avoided studying this topic? i don’t yet see it as practically valuable–whichever way it happens, i’ll be there and eventually end up in heaven. fine by me.
i’ve really only studied enough to know that i’m *not* a pre-miller. And i think these Left Behind folks have really altogether missed the point. A person should hear the gospel and respond appropriately regardless of whether doomsday is tomorrow or a thousand years from now.
Some of the reformed guys i read are post-miller and one day i’d like to at least give that view a thorough look-over.
May 22nd, 2007 at 15:07
I don’t think there’s a label for what I believe.
I believe Jesus began coming back when Jerusalem fell, instituting a process which continues to this day. How long it will continue, I do not know. But I believe the cataclysm described in connection with His return pretty adequately describes (in apocryphal terms) what Josephus describes (in historian’s terms).
In other words, I think a lot of folks are waiting for an event which has already occurred. But they are correct in anticipating a return which has not yet come for any of us who are still breathing.
To me - a fan of Occam’s Razor - it’s the simplest way to explain the imminence of Christ’s return as described in scripture, as well as the fact that our timeline on this planet continues. “End of the world,” obviously, I would recommend translating “end of the age.”
Believing this, I don’t have to try to artificially divvy up Jesus’ words in Matthew, Mark or Luke regarding which verses refer to His return and which verses refer to the obliteration of the holy city. He makes no such distinction, speaking of them as one event.
Eternity lies outside of our time, yet is fastened to it through Him. His return for us at the end of each of our lives connects us with His moment of triumph over the old age and ushers us into eternity with Him.
Okay, that’s it in a nutshell. I’m the nut who shells it out. But I have no name for it.
I understand that TransmillenialismTM is taken - though their site seems to be offline ….
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:48
I like Keith’s perspective.
J. W. McGarvey makes a lot of sense to me in his commentary in the Fourfold Gospel
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:49
Maybe this link will work:
http://www.studylight.org/com/tfg/section.cgi?section=T7-10