Retrobyter said:
Shabbat shalom, Jack.
It's important that you understand that these are MORE than mere "visions!" The Hebrew word for "trumpet" is "shofar," the ram's horn trumpet that they often used. These trumpets were often used as air-raid sirens to warn of impending disasters and approaching enemies! These are not "visions of the Church"; they are literal sirens that Yochanan (John) hears warning inhabitants of the Land of Isra'el about the coming judgments!
Oh, and about your "agaping": I know that you're trying to use the Greek word "agapee" (I double the "e" for an eta), but it's a bit distracting when you consider that English has a word "agape." An example of its usage would be, "He stood there agape, marveling at the spectacular wonder." It means to stand there with one's mouth hanging open.
Just sayin'.
I make it a point, once in a while, to raise the bar considerably in these ambiguous areas in order to draw others to have an interest in an Amillennial approach to Revelation/Matt.24/IIThess.2 having to put their thinking caps on for those who want to...actually it's in our Lord's timing, ie, I didn't expect a response thus you caught me off guard. Great, I needed it.
Interesting enough your posit
"about the coming judgments" is not an Amill. approach to the visions in Revelation which sweetens the pot, great! I do appreciate bringing in the Hebrew and Greek which is all Greek to me, Let's eyeball
Rev.8:7 for an example regarding the Trumpets:
Rev.8:7, "...and there occurred hail and fire, having been mixed with blood, and were cast to the earth...." Obviously you would view this more in the literal sense where I would view this vision in a "signified" non-literal Amill. sense in light of
Rev.1:1, "to show...he signified." Both hail and fire have been mixed with blood. Hail is ice, the opposite of fire. How hail and fire were mixed with blood we don't know,
for the very combination of these three shows that natural hail, fire, and blood are not referred to in a literal sense, correct?
They didn't just free fall, they
"were thrown" to the earth, that is, thrown by an invisible had, the hand of our
Lord's in His rightous preliminary judgments ("impending disasters and approaching enemies") in the spiritual sense. My poiint:
The six Trumpets describe miraculous preliminary judgments coming to pass even today which simply expound IIThess.2:11-12.
Agape? Excellently put forth, ie,
"English has a word agape." Not that I'm anybody, as my friends RANDOR and Madad21 would attest to, I'm of a lower paygrade compared to some of the real students of the word on this great forum. However long ago, I was one paygrade up regarding the
Dictionary's fallacious definition of the word "agape" where I made repeated attempts to correct Oxford's defintion of
"agape" with no success of course). They defined
"agape": "
God's love for man; divine love; spontaneous altruistic love."
I faulted them regarding their definition with their
"man loved" instead of my definition with the
"man intelligently understood." Obviously you go more with the emotional and affection sense rather than
my "intelligently understood sense wtih a higher corresponding purpose."
Old Jack's oponion that appreciates your non-Amill. view
