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USER COMMENTS BY MURRAYA |
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Page 1 | Page 10 · Found: 500 user comments posted recently. |
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5/4/08 6:59 AM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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OP, Sorry for the latish reply. I have had a fairly 'full-on' day at my church today, and when I come home I'm a bit weary.However, to answer your query re Rom.16:20. The context is false teachers and those who cause unnecessary schisms (divisions), and are not really interested in the Gospel. Paul counsels wisdom in absorbing what is good, and the God of peace will crush Satan. This is a fairly clear allusion to Gen.3:15, but it must be seen within the context of the local congregation at Rome in its Gospel outreach, and maintaining Gospel integrity. They will enjoy God's blessing in keeping the devil out of their affairs and their congregational life. There is no incongruity between this and suffering persecution on the broader level. Consider this: Romans was written c. A.D. 55, and a mere 9 years later (A.D. 64) a persecution broke out, where Christians were made into living torches to illumine Nero's gardens, and others were thrown to the lions. Many of the leaders were lost in this persecution, even (according to tradition) Peter and Paul. Did God's promise fail (i.e. Rom.16:20)? of course not! As Tertullian was to put it more than a century later: "The blood of the Christian martyrs is the seed of the church". My point precisely. more anon. |
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5/3/08 7:38 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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Yes OP, the options are rather simplistic, and for that matter prejudicial in that they land one in the soup just by giving an answer. Of all the options I would tend to go for "Neutral": Christ's Kingdom and Satan's grow and develop until the end, but even that is overly simplistic.Christ's Kingdom advances in the face of, and in the teeth of opposition from the world and the devil. It has always been that way, and is right now: millions are being brought into the Kingdom across the African continent, China, and even in Muslim lands, but in the teeth of bitter and relentless persecution. Christ reigns indeed, but in ways we cannot discern. This is a matter of faith, not sight. |
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5/3/08 2:37 AM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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rogerant wrote: I would recommend that you read David Chilton's The Great Tribulation, William E. Cox: Amillennialism Today, Postmillennisalism, an Eschatology of Hope by Keith A. Mathison, and The Basis of Premillennial Faith by Charles Ryrie for a comparison. One must study all positions. rogerant, I am familiar with most of these, and other works (save for Mathison), and I am more than comfortable with a standard a-millennial view, and a broadly historicist view of prophecy. Chilton depends (at least partly) on an early date for Revelation, and his argument gets horribly circular for that reason. If the traditional date of c. A.D. 95 is established his edifice collapses. His exegesis is warped and far-fetched, as I said earlier. Cox is altogether too negative: demolishing the Dispies (fair enough), and a few other positions into the bargain. Ryrie is standard Dispensationalism, fraught with all the false hermenuetical assumptions which that position entails.The book I have found much to my satisfaction in recent years is: Kim Riddelbarger, "A Case for Amillennialism". I don't agree with all of his views, but where I disagree is more around the edges than anything of great substance. |
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5/2/08 11:26 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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Preacher, From your comments on Matt.24 and Revelation it is clear that you advocate a type of preterism, which I do not follow. In fact, in some respects I find it just as objectionable as Dispensationalism. I firmly believe that what purports to be about the future IS about the future; that when the disciples asked about the end of the world (sunteleias tou aioonos) they intended the end of this present age, as Jesus had often spoken before, and which He did again in Matt.28:20. When He speaks of His 'parousia' (Matt.24:3) He refers to His triumphant return in glory, as everywhere in the NT. It is far-fetched to make so much refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the view that would refer the whole book of revelation to this one event is indeed far-fetched. Revelation is a book designed to encourage and prepare God's people to face the future, a long era of persecution not from Jews, but from Gentile powers, in the immediate circumstance imperial Rome, but beyond that various Gentile powers, even including a corrupt church (the harlot woman of ch.17), until His return, as depicted symbolically in ch.19. I have read and considered the preterist view, and I find it far-fetched and entirely unconvincing. |
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5/2/08 10:22 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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Preacher, Thank you for your response. Yes, the Dispies do seem to derive their system from a preconceived eschatological position, which they then make an article of faith. I know of many fundie churches which have the pre-trib, pre-mill scheme as a condition of membership. As to signs of the times, I have some views, but when I share them I always preface them with the proviso that I could well be wrong, but I do believe that the signs are given in such a way that one may reasonably expect the Lord's return in his own lifetime. The fact that all such speculations (and there have been many) have so far been wrong does not on one hand invalidate such enterprise, since we need to be ever watchful, but it does caution us all against any dogmatism. For example, during the Napoleonic era 200 years ago many Christians firmly believed that Napoleon was the Antichrist, the little horn of Dan.7, and that Christ would come very shortly - within 20 years. But it was not Christ's coming which overthrew him, but the Duke of Wellington! I agree entirely that 1948 and the modern state of Israel has little or nothing to do with either the prophetic restoration of Israel, or with end times prophecy. The Israel-watching fad, which so excites the Dispies, is a rabbit trail. |
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5/2/08 7:56 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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On the issue of this thread, whether Israel and the Church are separate bodies or not, I observed a few days ago that in the light of Eph.2:16 this should be a no-brainer, an open-and-shut case. That this is posted as a "controversial question" (presumably) only shows how Dispies are determined to import their alien scheme into Scripture.Under the gospel, and hereafter into eternity, they are both one. In the language of the prophet Isaiah, "Israel AND the nations". In the words of the Apostle John, that Christ by His atoning death, "gathers into one all the children of God who are scattered abroad" (John 11:52). Or in the words of the Lord Himself, "I have other sheep (i.e. Gentiles), which are not of this fold (i.e. Jews); I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will be one flock (i.e. one Church) with one Shepherd." (John 10:16). Any attempt to read this plain teaching as other than an emphatic "yes!" to the question, "Are they one body?" is an abject failure to read Scripture on its own terms and is merely reading it through Dispensational (or whatever) spectacles. Over and out. |
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5/2/08 5:55 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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Preacher sighed concerning Casob/JD: "You have finally convinced me. You have absolutely nothing to say and are just full of hot air.What a waste of time!" Then Observation Post complains: " You are intentionally being evasive in the extreme and abusive without a cause and I don't know why anyone bothers with you in this "discussion" or any other." Amd of course, Casob/JD will no longer discuss anything with me. So let me make a suggestion to Observation Post, Preacher, DJC49, and any others who are getting frustrated with him: why not simply ignore his posts completely for the incoherent drivel that they are, and have a rational discussion among ourselves? For my part, I enjoy these discussions, but Casob/JD interrupts the flow with his silly contributions. I know, 'suffering fools gladly' has never been my forte, but perhaps I'm not alone there. |
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5/1/08 8:51 AM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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Just a note to clarify the position on the Jews in Rev.2:9 and 3:9. The so-called "letters" (they are really edicts, as they have that literary form) precede the symbolic passages from ch.4 to ch.22, so a literal approach applies here, albeit having regard to the highly schematised structure of these messages to the seven churches. As with all Biblical literature, one must interpret with respect to the genre.That being the case, the "Jews" here means precisely that: they seem to have claimed to be Jews according to the Spirit (cf. Rom.2:29), but that claim was false. In company they formed not a true church but a synagogue of Satan. At least, that appears to be the picture, although getting at the precise circumstances is difficult: the references are tantalising in their relative obscurity. Likewise the references to the Nicolaitans in Rev.2:6, 15. There we have only Eusebius to go on as to the beliefs of this group. BTW, Casob/JD: you want no more contact with me? Suits me fine! |
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4/30/08 10:40 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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JD, alias Casob, "Do we use MurrayA's rules? He is consistent in his hermeneutic, he doesn't believe anything literally in this book so Jews meaning Jews is out."Here you go again! It's not enough for you to import your Dispensational scheme into Scripture, and grossly misinterpret texts, such as Eph.2:16, to make them mean the opposite of what they say, but you presume to impute to me positions which I have never stated and do not hold. Well, Paul is not around to set the record straight with the likes of you, but I am. I will not tolerate you twisting my words to make them mean something other than what I have so clearly stated on many occasion, including just recently, e.g. on the subject of Romans 11. "Jews" there means "Jews"! Can you get that straight, or does that too go through your Dispy filter to make me say that there "Jews" means something else? Your persistent misrepresentations and distortions are reprehensible, and if you continue in this vein I will have no option but to hit the abuse button on the grounds of distortion. |
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4/29/08 9:41 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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Casob wrote: MurrayA, I an going to answer you this time but I am very wary of you. I do not trust you any more. When you are around people tend to get banned. Maybe it is a coincidence but it seems this is not a good place for a man of your temperament. Strange! I don't get banned. The last time I had a post pulled was some years ago, as I recall. So perhaps the reality is that my posts bring out the worst in others, and thus it is not my temperament that is at issue, but your own!As to Romans 11, I have answered that many times: there is ONE olive tree, and the Gentiles are GRAFTED IN to that one tree. There are not two trees, As Dispensationalism would have us believe, but one. During the major part of this Gospel age branches (Jews) are broken off, and Gentile branches grafted in, but at the end Jewish branches are grafted in again. That too, should be a simple no-brainer, but for you that too has to go through your Dispensational mincing machine and come out a very different product. |
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4/29/08 7:57 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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Casob wrote: RK Borill You stopped quoting at a semi-colon, RK. This is not good. Your evaluation of these verses raise many more questions than they answer, and I will begin to ask them in my next post. That is, the plain text of Eph.2:16 has now to go through the Dispensational mincing machine so that we can properly understand that Paul really meant to say, and really does say, that the middle wall of partition still stands, the the two bodies are still two (rigidly so!), that there are two peoples of God, etc.This question, "Are the Church and Israel one body or separate bodies?" should really be a simple "no-brainer", a QED, but no, the Dispensational system must have its way, and turn the NT on its head. But getting the likes of JD to see this - one may as well try to tell a blind man that the sun exists. Oh, and that bit about the semi-colon: are we to understand that the punctuation in the KJV is just as inspired as the actual text?? May I remind you that there was NO punctuation in any of the ancient manuscripts. That has been added by translators. |
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3/27/08 10:34 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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Bernard, Just to endorse your remarks, and to reply to those who go on about the evils of holding a Ph.D., it will prove a blessing to anyone serious student of Scripture to study at least Greek, and preferably Hebrew as well. In this country anyway, and I am quite sure for the U.S. too, the Bible colleges have made it part of their programme to teach the Biblical languages, as well as Bible backgrounds, so that Christians can get an insight into the text not fully available even with the best translation. If kenny and others see something wrong with this then it is to their own impoverishment. They are the losers. kenny, have you read Miles Smith's "Translators to the Reader"? You should, because what he says there remains valid today, and if you take that seriously there is an end to hidebound KJVO-ism. |
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3/26/08 9:25 PM |
MurrayA | | Australia | | | |
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Elkin, Thank you for your support. While it is certainly not my intention to come over as conceited and superior (as kenny charges me), if my posts have been read that way I apologise.However, I seriously question whether the real issue is alleged 'superiority', rather than an inability to answer the points I raise. The failure to interact with my post on 2 Peter 1:1 is a case in point. This only illustrates that KJVO-ism is not tenable from a scholarly perspective; it is merely a hidebound, obscurantist traditionalism which the KJV translators themselves would repudiate, as evident from the remarks of Miles Smith in his preface, "Translators to the Reader". Hence the constant grenade-lobbing from the KJV-only trenches with irrelevant and false charges, plus innuendo and allegations of moral turpitude against those who would seek to improve on a version from 400 years ago. They all miss completely. Example: 1. "The Sinai Codex was rescued from a rubbish bin." False! While certain leaves of the OT were rescued from being thrown in the fire, the NT had been carefully wrapped in a red cloth and kept in a safe place in a monk's cell. Even if this were true, so what?! So also were many of the papyrus fragments. Does this make them any less useful?? |
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