Jesus The false prophet

From all that I've read I would say absolutely. That does not of course preclude Him being Messiah or from the idea that through Him God was re-visiting His people.Just so we're talking about the same thing by the way, this is from wiki.

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In religion, a prophet is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people. The message that the prophet conveys is called a prophecy.

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I think that it is often assumed that a prophecy predicts the future but that seems to me to be seldom the case.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

There is this from Matthew 13 with parallel stories in th eother gospels.

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53 1When Jesus had finished these parables, He departed from there. 54 He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that 4they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers ? 55 "Is not this the carpenter's son ? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas ? 56 "And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things ?" 57 And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household." 58 And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.

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He never corrected anyone when they referred to Him as a prophet.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I think that you have a misunderstanding of what Jesus meant by the "Kingdom of God". When the Jews heard that term they would understand that God was going to empower them to overpower their enemies and return Israel to them, under Jewish power with Yahweh or His representative as King.Jesus had several things to say about that. First off He was saying that the military route was not the way to go - love your enemy - turn the other cheek - etc. He was establishing the "Kingdom of God" but it wasn’t just for Israel but for the world. It would be a Kingdom without geographical boundaries, where Jesus the servant king would be king and where its citizens would be those who signed on to carry the father's message of truth, love, peace, justice, kindness, mercy, forgiveness etc to the world.He wasn't prophesying about something that was going to happen in the future, he was prophesying about what was happening then - in the present.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Essentially it's his world wide church, empowered by His Holy Spirit. I think that I answered this in my last post. Here it is again. Jesus brought a new way to have power and rule. His way of ruling is to serve. His route to power is love. However, just as the Hebrews more often than not messed it up in the time of the OT, the church more often than not messes it up today.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Just a thought. Isn't this the kinda of thing that you complain about the scientific atheists doing. When you make assertians in their field you claim foul when they use condescending language. OK, theology is more your area than it is frako's and when he asserts something you use the same kind of condescending language that gets used against you in the scientific area.Frako doesn't claim to be any kind of expert in theology and for that matter is dealing, very well actually, in a second language.Don't mean to try and be clever but it's something to maybe think about.

I think I already made the point that church history has been full of inconsistencies and self serving human attitudes. At the same time though, the church has been a force for good in many many cases. Just as the OT Hebrews allowed themselves to be heavily influenced by their pagan neighbours, the church from the time of Jesus on, including the disciples themselves, keeps trying to make God over into their image. Not at all, the first church was in a sense Jesus and His disciples, but in another sense the first church would be when the disciples were empowered by the Holy Spirit.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

No, just that they would be empowered to serve others. No, it was that Jesus mission was essentially a "Kingdom of God" movement. He fulfilled the Hebrew scriptures but not in the way His contemporaries anticipated. In some ways it was even a political movement with Jesus as the founder if you want to look at it that way. It was of course more than that though. The disciples point is that had happened. The point at the time was very political, because essentially the disciples, after the resurrection were saying that Jesus is King which meant Caesar wasn't. But again rule under Caesar is all about power and control, whereas rule under Jesus is all about love and service.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Our little church sends thousands of dollars monthly to support a home in Kampala that is for young women who otherwise would be living in the streets. They get a home and education.I support a man who has started farming co-operative in the Sudan that has grown from a couple of used tractors into a very large farm. He has risked his life in that war torn country.How about Martin Luther KIng, Wilberforce or Mother Theresa.Look at what Nelson Mandela did in South Africa with his non-violence and with his "Truth and Reconciliation" initiative. I have never claimed that only Christians are capable of altruistic behaviour. I've said this before but I'll repeat it. Being a Christian doesn't necessarily make me kinder than my atheistic or Muslim next door neighbour, but it should make me kinder than I had been before I was a Christian.Here is a quote from Matthew 9:

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9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector's booth ; and He said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him. 10 Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners ?" 12 But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. 13 "But go and learn what this means : 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,' FOR I DID NOT COME TO CALL THE RIGHTEOUS, BUT SINNERS."

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I think you might reconsider your idea about what it means to be a prophet.This is from the on-line dictionary.

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1. A person who speaks by divine inspiration or as the interpreter through whom the will of a god is expressed.
2. A person gifted with profound moral insight and exceptional powers of expression.
3. A predictor; a soothsayer.
4. The chief spokesperson of a movement or cause.

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It isn't about predicting the future, and in the case that you brought up in the OP Jesus was talking about something that was starting then and would continue. He wasn’t predicting the future.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven and His Kingdom are all the same thing. Matthew used "Kingdom of Heaven" as a more respectful, (for Mattew anyway), way of saying Kingdom of God as many Jews wouldn't say the name of Yahweh.

I think you're wrong in this. There is a narrative throughout the OT that Jahweh would return to redeem His people. In saying that though, there is no doubt that the pre-Jesus Jews had varying ideas of how that would look and that very few if anyone thought it would look like it did when it finally happened in Jesus. There are however some clues.One would be the "Son of Man' reference in Daniel 7:

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13 "I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. 14 "And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away ; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.

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Another one that is less cryptic is in Isaiah 42.

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1 "Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold ; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. 2 "He will not cry out or raise His voice, Nor make His voice heard in the street. 3 "A bruised reed He will not break And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish ; He will faithfully bring forth justice. 4 "He will not be disheartened or crushed Until He has established justice in the earth ; And the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law." 5 Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it And spirit to those who walk in it, 6 "I am the LORD, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You, And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations, 7 To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the dungeon And those who dwell in darkness from the prison . 8 "I am the LORD, that is My name ; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images. 9 "Behold, the former things have come to pass, Now I declare new things ; Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you."

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Or the suffering servant in Isaiah 53:

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1 Who has believed our message ? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed ? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground ; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. 3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried ; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities ; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way ; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth ; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? 9 His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. 10 But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief ; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. 11 As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied ; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong ; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors ; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.

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Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

HI EricBoth Matthew 16 and 24 have to be read in the context of time and place.Mathhew 16 is as has been said is Jesus establishing the "Kindom of God", or as Matthew calls it "The Kingdom of Heaven" as the new Israel. It wasn't about a plot of land in the Middle East, it was now for the whole world which even goes back to the promise to Abraham.Mathhew 24 doesn't have anything to do with end times either. It has to do with Jesus' political message. He was essentially saying that if you keep on poking a stick in the eyes of the Romans that they will do what they always do. He was saying that the way you deal with the Romans is essentially to love your enemies as the war isn't against flesh and blood but against evil itself. He said that if the Jews kept on their revolutionary path that Jerusalem and the Temple itself would be destroyed. It wasn't so much a supernatural prediction as a practical one. As was we all know by the way, He was right. Both the Temple and Jerusalem were laid to waste by 70 AD.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Hi EricPart of the problem is that you are insisting on reading these texts in the same manner that a Christian fundamentalist would. Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews and we have to understand it in that context. Absolutely, but what age were they referring to? In the mind of most Jews they were still in exile. Sure they were back on the land but they were occupied by the Romans who had installed a brutish turncoat to do Rome's bidding and to quell dissension and rebellion. The disciples were asking; when is this age of exile going to end? When will Yahweh return in power, kick the Romans out, rebuild the Temple and be their king. I don't know what you are referring to here. The whole chapter is Jesus explaining, mostly by parable, about the "Kingdom of Heaven" that He is inaugurating. Fine but that isn't the same discussion he is having in Chap 24. In 25 He is essentially saying that at the end of time people will be divided into two groups: those that hold in their hearts selfish love and those that hold in their hearts unselfish love. It has nothing to do with what will happen at the end of time.Verse 29 which you quoted above refers back to Isaiah 13.

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10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash forth their light ; The sun will be dark when it rises And the moon will not shed its light.

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It then goes on in Isaiah 13 with the following which makes it very clear that this is an earthly event.

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17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold. 18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children. 19 And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 20 It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation ; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, Nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. 21 But desert creatures will lie down there, And their houses will be full of owls ; Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there. 22 Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers And jackals in their luxurious palaces. Her fateful time also will soon come And her days will not be prolonged.

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This has to be understood in the language of the times. When we talk about the fall of the Roman empire we don't mean that it literally fell from a great height. This language used by the people of that day refers to huge social and political unrest along with great conflict. This quote is referring back to the following passage from Daniel 7.

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13 "I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. 14 "And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away ; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.

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This is about the vindication of the crucified Christ. That is about a permanent kingdom that is very much rooted in this world that we live in now and that they lived in then.Jesus essentially made three claims about the future in this.Firstly He claimed that the Father would raise him up, which of course happened with His resurrection and ascension.Secondly He said that if they carried on in their rebellion, Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed which of course happened.Thirdly that the message of His victory over death and HIs message of truth, love, mercy and forgiveness
would go out to the world which also happened.In one sense though there is an end times theology that rolls along underneath all of this. Jesus inaugurated an eternal kingdom that began through his life, death, resurrection, ascension and empowered with His Holy Spirit. In that sense we have been in the end times ever since but as Jesus made clear no one knows the hour or the minute, or for that matter how it will happen. This place might go on like this for another million years or more. Personally I hope so.In the meantime we all have a job to do. As Christians we are to help people to understand the story of God as revealed through Jesus, but all of us as humans, regardless of our beliefs are assigned the job of being good stewards of our planet and all life on it, in preparation for the time when time as we know it ends and a great re-creation, whatever that looks like, begins.Jesus was anything but a false prophet. A prophet isn't one who accurately and supernaturally predicts the future, (although in some cases in the OT that was a part of it), but one who accurately reveals the nature of God and His desires for us to the world. That is very much an open question. Personally I think it is unlikely that is the case. If it had been written after the fact you would think they would have been more accurate. As He says in Matthew 24 :2

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2 And He said to them, "Do you not see all these things ? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down."

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We know that at least a small part was left standing. If it had been written after 70 AD it is unlikely that they would record something that wasn't obviously correct. Jesus was essentially using a bit of hyperbole in making the point that the Romans were thoroughly destructive.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

That is "A" question but it isn't "THE" question that is being dealt with in these passages. The Christian narratives are largely all about return from exile. The disciples viewed that as being redeemed from exile under the Romans. Jesus understood that and made the point that the revolutionary route would only lead to ruin, which in the end it did. I should at some point state in here that I am not a theologian and I don't want you to think, that I think that what I'm saying is absolutely the final answer to all of this. I have read a lot of literature on the subject and I am only expressing my views on what this means.I see this passage as talking about the world in exile. Sure there is so much of this world that is good and beautiful, but we are still in a world that suffers under tyranny and oppression. We live in a world that is still by and large obsessed with money and power. In the grand narrative, at the end of the age, at the end of time as we know it, there will be justice.I think that this is an example of Hebrew apocalyptic writing. Jesus will come in glory, but what does it mean by glory. Glory does not mean power as we normally think of it. Jesus' glory is His love, kindness, justice, humility, forgiveness etc. This is the Messiah, the King who insisted on washing His disciple’s feet. It is the Messiah that rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. It is the Messiah who conquered death, not by a show of power but through humble submission to His enemies.So yes, I do think that this is an end times view of things which gives the basis on which the world is to be judged. Do we love and serve our neighbour, or do we love and serve our self?Like it says in Isaiah, the lion will eat straw and the wolf will lie down with the lamb.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Hi Eric Yes. I would add though that what His return will look like is an unknown. The whole thing about returning on a cloud etc is once again Jewish apocalyptic writing. A recent front page headline in Scientific American was this: "Hidden Worlds of Dark Matter - An Entire Universe May be Woven Silently With Our Own". The writer obviously had something different that this in mind, but that is how I see Heaven - God's dimension or universe which is where Jesus reigns from. It is all around us but unperceived.So in that sense Jesus has never actually left. However the Bible talks about the "New Heavens and New Earth". Paul writes this in his letter to the Ephesians:

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9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

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If you like it is also talked about in Isaiah 65 & 66 as well as Revelation 21. We will have resurrected bodies living in a recreated Heaven and Earth, and where I'm going to all the lectures to finally get my head around all of this. The idea of coming on clouds etc is once again Jewish writing which refers back to Daniel 7 for its inspiration. Who knows what it will look like, whether there will be some cataclysmic event or just a silent recreation of all things. Beats me, and although it's of interest it doesn't really matter anyway. None of us have any control over it. All we can control is our own lives so I don't see a lot of point in getting to wound up about it.I have to run but I’ll get back to your second question later.Cheers

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Once again it is my contention that this isn't about what happens at the end of time but about Jesus' political message and what will happen if they don't turn from their violent revolutionary ways.Let's look at the verse that you quoted in context with your verse being the last one.

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20 "When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. 22 For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. 23 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. 24 They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. 25 "There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26 Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. 27 At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

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We can see that he is referring to earthly armies. There would also be no point in fleeing to the mountains if time was coming to an end, but there would be if you were trying to escape Roman soldiers.Again let's go back to Daniel 7 to which Jesus was referring.

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13 "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

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This then is referring to the kingdom that we talked about in this thread. Jesus was establishing His kingdom here on Earth, a kingdom that He intends to be characterized by its love, peace, truth, forgiveness, mercy, kindness etc.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.