Christianity and the End Times

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That is certainly true of the manchild as I have been saying all along. The question is, how does your interpretation fit with the text? The manchild is not shown as overcoming, the overcomers are not mentioned as being in heaven.

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I think before we go on you should have the guts to unfurl your flag to me.My God is the man Jesus Christ.If God's existence is a fraudulent concept to you, I want you to have the courage to tell me up front.Otherwise you are a monstrous hypocrite to charge ME only with coming with a vested interest in how to interpret Scriptures.DID JESUS RISE FROM THE DEAD ?A Yes or No will do the job. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

That is the true indictment of your Christian Cult of Ignorance. What someone believes is totally irrelevant to a discussion of what the Bible actually says, of what it actually written. You are simply presenting the same utter dishonesty shown in so many popular Bible versions where instead of simply presenting what really is written additional commentary, propaganda and editorializing are added to "explain" the dogma of that particular Chapter of Club Christian is trying to market.Any honest Christian will respond to your inane interrogation by admitting there is absolutely no evidence to support Jesus even living much less rising from the dead.You can believe Jesus lived, died and rose from the dead just like so many other characters found in the Bible stories as well as other myths and folk tales, but an honest Christian would also acknowledge it is simply a personal belief.Determining the topic of this thread though devolves to a discussion of what the Bible actually says (which requires no prior belief position) versus what you try to do, impose your beliefs on the Bible and take passages that might support your desired position out of context and add the commentary from the dogma of your Chapter of Club Christian.You can market.But so far you have not shown any ability or desire to actually address with any honesty what is actually written.

I'm glad you are trying to pin him down about his beliefs. The thing about these guys who know some Bible but don't believe any of it is that they don't know they are interpreting it when they read it, they think whatever they read it to mean is what it means, period, so a believer like me who knows we are to read it all in the context of all the other parts of scripture, is always being called a liar and accused of making stuff up and so on, when the truth is they are missing the whole thing.It so happens that I agree with PaulK on this one about the Manchild. Yes of course we will reign with Him, yes of course believers are part of Him, but just as a matter of fact there is nothing in the account of the Manchild in Revelation 12 that alludes to that fact of our collective identity. The overcomers that follow are not treated as part of Him. This is one of the places where only Jesus Himself alone is being described. Applying other parts of scripture in this case has no warrant, it just isn't there.That's all I want to say though. I hope you can get PaulK to come clean about his assumptions. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thank you Faith for that clarification. So let us have a little further fellowship.

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The overcomers that follow are not treated as part of Him.

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Faith, are you saying that as Christians we are not a part of Christ ?If we are not a part of Christ, why are we called the Body of Christ ? Please notice that 1 Cor. 12:12 speaks of the body of Christ as being THE Christ .Shouldn't Christians stand upon the facts and declare that We are the Body of Christ and are so associated with Him as to be called "the Christ" ? When Saul of Tarsus was oppressing the Christians with jail, persecution, and even death, Jesus stopped him and said to Him - Faith, notice that Jesus didn't say -"Why do you persecute My people" ... though He could have.
He did not say "Why do you persecute My church" ... though He also could have said that.But Christ so utterly identified the saints on earth with Himself the Divine "Me" was inseparable with the believers. Why then should not the overcoming saints be so thoroughly Christ Himself. .. not in His function as Redeemer, but in His being God and man UNITED?Paul never forgot the revelation of the believers being the Christ .
He wrote that we believers, with the apostles are FIRMLY ATTACHED to the anointed One and have been also anointed. We are SO firmly attached to Christ that we are the Body of Christ and ... the Christ.To come into practical experience would be to overcome to realize what we are. Would it not?
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by AdminPhat, : No reason given.Edited by AdminPhat, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : sentence changed arguing that "Me" = "the believers"

Of course, there is no evidence! Were there evidence, everyone would have no choice but to believe. That's why faith is the method used. Again, this is obvious. My personal belief is what I stand on...based on faith. I believe that there is a spiritual war (dueling ideologies) in our culture and I also believe that writers and authors who provide evidence that Jesus never existed..the Bible was changed...or that philosophically, the need for belief in God are mere psychological traits have an ax to grind against placing faith ahead of evidence.Evidence means nothing if contradicted by reality. For a believer, faith itself is our evidence.

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The overcomers that follow are not treated as part of Him.

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In maturity should the believers be seen as a PART of Christ given this promise? Faith, isn't arrival at full maturity utterly united with Christ in being "a full grown man ... the fullness of Christ " ?

A Genetic Fallacy would be for someone to say "It is not true because you WANT it to be true so much."

And everyone should have an axe to grind against placing faith ahead of evidence. Placing faith ahead of evidence is not ignorance but rather willful ignorance at best and utter dishonesty in many cases.Writers & authors do not provide evidence that Jesus never existed and in fact it would be impossible to provide evidence that Jesus never existed but they do, and do rightly, point out that there is no evidence outside the Bible stories that Jesus did exist. You need to re-read that paragraph in the context of your earlier paragraph. There is absolute conclusive evidence that the Bible was changed. One clear example is the long ending of Mark, from 16:9-20 is definitely missing from the earliest known copies of Mark. There is also the fact that the earliest known copies of John do not contain the inserted part between 7:53 and 8:11; some of the most often quoted material from John.

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53 And every man went unto his own house.

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8 Jesus went abunto the mount of Olives. 2 And bearly in the morning he came again bcinto the temple, and all the people came unto him; and che sat down, and taught them. 3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such eshould be stoned: but what sayest thou? 6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, llet him first cast a stone at her. 8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

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There is also the additional absolute evidence that there is no such thing as "The Bible" but rather a whole family of Canons ranging from Bibles that contain only the first five books to ones with over eighty books.When you add in the absolute evidence found in the Bible itself of multiple distinct and mutually exclusive accounts of the same event it is clear that the Bible evolved, that it and the stories in it did change over time.There is no better description of willful ignorance than being unimpressed with evidence.

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I'm glad you are trying to pin him down about his beliefs. The thing about these guys who know some Bible but don't believe any of it is that they don't know they are interpreting it when they read it, they think whatever they read it to mean is what it means, period, so a believer like me who knows we are to read it all in the context of all the other parts of scripture, is always being called a liar and accused of making stuff up and so on, when the truth is they are missing the whole thing.

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I understand that this is public forum and everyone has a right to participate.There is no qualification that one be a believing Christian to study the Bible.But as a Christian I also am aware of wolves in sheeps clothing - secretive enemies of the message who wish to be covert about their destructive motives to faith.He says I just want there to be a pre-tribulation rapture so badly that I count it as true. That is a genetic fallacy. And I have the right to ask him."If you ARE an Atheist do you also want Genesis 1:1 to not be true " "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" If so I have a right to realize that his "understanding" of the whole rest of the Bible will be influenced by his desire that there is no God.I don't know what he has to lose by being honest about his inability to take the Bible seriously, unless he wants to be a kind of "wolf in sheep's clothing."
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I must admit that it is refreshing to go over the Second Coming of Christ and the changing of the age with more of a emphasis on the Overcomers.I am not finding it easy to just drop the matter of the overcomers as the man-child.Some of you never heard this before, have you ?

As an honest Christian I understand that the statement "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" is factually wrong. In fact both of the creation myths found in Genesis are factually wrong and simply the result of the ignorance of the authors.It is not a matter of what anyone wants but rather a conclusion based on all of the evidence available.

I respect that Faith doesn't want to say any more at this time about something.
Excuse me though for using her comment as a taking off point of something I want to talk about.

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The overcomers that follow are not treated as part of Him.

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The Bible that I am studying says that the people who are JOINED to the Lord Jesus are one spirit with Him. That should mean that one part of the Christian's being is the Lord Jesus.
And it means that part of the Lord Jesus's being in the Christian.He who is JOINED to the Lord Jesus, is in a relationship in which the Holy Spirit Who is God and the human spirit who is ie. me, have been mingled together to unite into ONE SPIRIT.The Holy Spirit Who is God remains God and the human spirit which is human remains human. But the two become one spirit .We Christians are FIRMLY ATTACHED. And God has given to those FIRMLY ATTACHED to Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit as a seal, pledge, foretaste of a fuller taste to come, a down payment (so to speak) and a guarantee of our inheritance. Joined to the Lord, Firmly attached
. No wonder those inheriting these truths would be depicted as a strong man-child in the whole woman of God's entire elect.

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As an honest Christian I understand that the statement "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" is factually wrong.

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Please publish your formula or observed evidence proving scientifically beyond any shadow of doubt that God did not create the heavens and the earth in the beginning.In your next post please. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

LOLClassic example of your utter dishonesty. The earth is younger than much of the rest of this universe.But wait, there is more to the creation myths than just Gen 1:1.Genesis 1 goes on to talk about other stuff getting created and almost all of the things specified are factually wrong.Even the heavens (something for which there is no evidence but let's pretend it refers to the visible objects seen at night from Earth) did not exist at the beginning but rather evolved over time.No honest person can take Gen 1:1 as being literally or factually true.

I see your point but in my opinion, you are too skeptical of faith. You have seen behind the curtain, and you don't trust humans in general who ignore evidence. We are all palming some pea, according to you. Who the heck are we palming it from? Ourselves??When I say that I ignore evidence, I mean that it is asserted facts that I choose to give no weight to. Richard Carrier comes to mind. He is smug. I refuse to consider his arguments because they trash my beliefs while providing no hope for a better alternative Why tell a kid that Santa is not real when YOU can be Santa to them? ringo may have a point in that the message is more important than the messenger. I hate how he rhetorically asks why we even need Jesus, however. Same with you. Tales told around a campfire my ass. You say that if Faiths God existed the proper response would be to simply laugh at Him. Well, I say that if ringos or even YOUR God existed, I would likely punch Him in the chops! It's much the same way I feel about that annoying Dr.Phil.