Shalom, Rocky Wiley.
Rocky Wiley said:
Retro,
Things we know without a great deal of study.
1. Jesus said he had come to fulfill all that had been written of him. That included Daniel's prophecy.
2. When Jesus told his disciples the temple would be destroyed, thay knew he was speaking of the end of the age for as stated earlier, they ask, 'when will thise things be, what will be the sign of thy coming and the end of the age.
3. The age the disciples lived in was in the age of law.
4. We live in the age of grace, or the church age.
5. Jewish theologian, Rachel Adelman, has written an article of Jacob's vision the foundation of the World. Who knows more about the old testament than a Jewish theologian? Certainly not most Christians.
http://www.racheladelman.com/article/
6. Jesus told the Pharisees that judgement was coming upon them and their generation, not our generation.
My opinions don't come from men, they come from God's word. If Jesus said he would return in judgement in the disciples generation and some of them would not have passed away before he had done that, then we need to translate the rest of the bible with understanding that Jesus can not lie and we can not say he did not return just because man did not record it.
Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world.
Can we believe Jesus?
Right off the bat, we have a problem.
1. Yeshua` did NOT say that He came to fulfill all that was written about Him. That is a fallacy of your thinking. With a starting premise such as that, you are BOUND to have problems later in your reasoning.
2. When Yeshua` told his students that the temple would be destroyed, they weren't saying they "knew he was speaking of the end of the age" when they asked Him about the end of the age; this were simply asking for more information in ADDITION TO the temple being destroyed. You're reading more into the text than the text gives!
3 & 4. This "age of law" and "age of grace" nonsense is PURE DISPENSATIONALISM! There's NO SUCH THING as an "age of law" or an "age of grace!" Those are FABRICATED labels! In EVERY "age," God deals with all people exactly the same way: By grace, through faith, and by blood! David knew and spoke about justification through God's declaration of righteousness, and Avraham was justified by His faith! In fact, all of those mentioned in the Faith Chapter (chapter 11) of Hebrews were justified by their faith, not by any deeds done in service of the Torah (the "Law")!
5. Who knows more about the Tanakh than a Jewish theologian? LOTS of Jewish rabbis together as a group! One person can be in error, but a group tends to keep each other in check, like opposing forces on a force table in a physics lab, they counterbalance one another (except in the ONE area they ALL continue to stumble over - the Rock of Offense or the Tripping Stone, Yeshua`)!
6. The 1st century definition of "generation" is a far cry away from the modern definition of the term. For proof of that, simply count the "generations" (as we define the term) in the lineage of Yeshua` through His adopted father, Yosef, comparing what is written in Matthew 1 with the genealogies of the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy), Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel. You will find several apparent discrepancies in the number of "generations" UNTIL you learn to re-define what a "generation" is.
A generation as the term is used in the first century is anytime there is a change in direction between what God calls "good" and "evil." When one "does what is right in God's sight," and the next person "does what is evil in the sight of God," then that is a "generation," and
vice versa. When one "does what is right in God's sight," and the next person does the same, they are still in the same generation. Also, when one "does what is evil in God's sight" and the next person does the same, they too are still in the same generation.
In the northern ten tribes of Isra'el, their kings were ALWAYS doing what was evil in God's sight because NONE of them would remove the idols that Jereboam established in the lands of Efrayim and Dan. This is why they were driven out of the Land first!
However, the kings in the southern kingdom of Y'hudah (Judah or Judaea) were constantly flip-flopping back and forth between right and evil. There, the first century concept of "generation" more closely resembles the modern concept of "generation," ... but not perfectly. Hence, there are apparent "gaps" in the list of "generations," whenever the son keeps the same opinion as that of the father.
Lastly, Yeshua` said that His Kingdom was "not of this world-SYSTEM (Greek:
kosmos)," NOT "not of this earth!" In other words, His followers would not be living a dog-eat-dog, scratch-your-way-to-the-top kind of look-out-for-number-one mentality! Instead, Yeshua` said that whoever would be greatest, would be the least and a servant to all. THAT is what He meant, not that His Kingdom was in some ethereal, other-dimension called "Heaven!"
Of COURSE we can believe Yeshua`! We just can't always trust what OTHER PEOPLE SAY that Yeshua` said! The truth is that your opinions come from YOU! Whether you have arrived at your own conclusions based on what sounds right to you or whether you follow what someone else had to say to you and taught you, your opinions are your own. See, Yeshua` did NOT say that He would return in judgment in His disciples' generation. That, too, is a fabricated notion that did NOT come from the Scriptures directly but came from someone's FILTER of the Scriptures!
