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If that was true, that was not my intention and I apologize. My intention was for my defense because you brought a contributor into the conversation. I have asked you repeatedly to be respectful. Can you do this? I would like to have a conversation without comments like "you're deflecting, you are frustrated, your inability... etc." These are all comments that Christians should not use. Do you agree? I will do my best to respect you and I ask the same.
I try to portray Jesus, but like many I have mistakes. We are to help each other when a brother falls. Me "policing" your character is for your good. Are we to let each other do things that are unholy? The NT is littered with scripture explaining this. Shouldn't we care for one another and advise each other? When I make mistakes, I want to learn from them. Just as you said earlier that I had said something you took offense to, I apologize and will do my best to be cognizant of that even if that wasn't my intention.
Well, that's not true at all. I am here because I enjoy eschatology and conversing with other like minds.
You're misunderstanding me. I surely was not trying to be cryptic at all. I'll say it this way, sort of using your own words here:
...falsely. Yes, that's very dangerous.
The components are basic in the parables.You're misunderstanding me. I surely was not trying to be cryptic at all. I'll say it this way, sort of using your own words here:
What's dangerous, Rebuilder, is knowing those components and taking a story/message from that story... what one thinks is that story/message within what is related... and thereby possibly making something of what is related into what it is not, or more (and sometimes much more) ~ or less ~ than it really is. "Reading something into it," as the kids call it these days...
Okay, fair enough. If you want to have further conversation on this, though, I'm certainly game. Grace and peace to you, Rebuilder.
But you don't, because the theory of a rapture removal of the Church before any tribulation or testing, is not Biblical. Such a belief, has to be read into scripture, assumed and conjectured, as it is not actually Prophesied to happen.
Then Satan was not part of "those" deceieved, and not the "them" who was consumed by fire. Plain English.
<chuckles> Satan is the deceiver... And the "them" will follow him...
It is plain, I agree, buuuuuut...
And no verse states the deceiver, Satan, was consumed by fire, just the deceieved, who moved across the breadth of the earth.<chuckles> Satan is the deceiver... And the "them" will follow him...
Grace and peace to you!
So much talk and so little knowledge/understanding. But, knowledge, though, is a work/gift of the Spirit, and these things are spiritually discerned...
I tend to lack all that human imagination you all add to the Scripture, you all call "spiritual".
No you don't. That would mean you only imagine what your human understanding makes up. Seems you are good at twisting the words you read, to make them say something different than what they actually do say. That was my point to be in agreement with. I post what I accept from God's Word, and you turn that into your own human imagination.I agree about your lacking some things.
Oh, I do agree about your lacking things, but surely not in the way that you want me to.
Do you want to start an argument about that, now?I don't care one iota (anymore) about your opinions of me.
Yes, I'm well aware of that.
Sure, you accept your own opinions, about everything, I imagine. So do I. But what does that really mean? I say, not much, really...
I accept your opinions for what they are...
No, they remain as just Jews of the "house of Judah" that believe Jesus of Nazareth is The CHRIST, and thus represent the "stick of Judah" per Ezekiel 37.
Absolutely. Well, that's what we call them, but believing Jews. And in thus, they are grafted in again ~ as Paul says in Romans 11 ~ to God's Israel.
Right, Jews by the letter, outward Jews ~ as Paul puts it in Romans 2:28. But before they become Messianic Jews, they are not in Christ and therefore not part of God's Israel... and many will remain that way, because, as Paul says in Romans 9:6, not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and in Romans 11:6-7,25, there is a remnant, chosen by grace... Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened... (this is the) partial hardening (that) has come upon Israel.
Right. Sure. Absolutely.
Well, right. Outward nationality or ethnicity has no bearing on salvation or God's Israel, which does and will ultimately include people of every tongue, tribe, and nation.
All... must believe on Jesus Christ as God's Promised Savior and in His death and resurrection, in order to receive remission of sins and be saved. That is regardless of one's nationality or birth.
Sure. Agreed.
Well, I wholeheartedly agree that the flesh cannot save, and spiritual blindness must be removed by God. But the latter is a function/result of God's mercy and compassion, as Paul says in Romans 9:16. And God has mercy on whom He will, and compassion upon whom He will, as both Moses and Paul say (Romans 9:15,18). Yes, I agree that they must make their choice to believe on Jesus, but I would submit to you, Davy, that this belief is a result of them having been included in God's salvation because of His mercy/compassion upon them and the work in their hearts, the working of faith in them, by the Holy Spirit. Paul does not say that believers "can't or don't make a choice," but that their being among God's elect and receiving of His salvation depends first on... something else.
Paul also writes to the Philippians in this same vein, that "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." And He says to the Ephesians, "God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ ~ by grace you have been saved ~ and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus... (f)or by grace you have been saved through faith... (a)nd this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast... (f)or we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Absolutely nothing in any of these passages denies that we can or do make a choice or that it is not necessary. 
