yaakov117: Daniel, God doesn't kill people. That's bad theology in my opinion. Here's a good sermon about it. http://youtu.be/J8TsP_i-k4g YouTube The Narrow Gate Twisted Scripture - Job (Greg Boyd)
Daniel: yaakov117, yes He does.
yaakov117: I disagree with a lot of the stuff atruechurch states. It seems like Christianity meets militant Islam.
Svarthol: "fundamentalism"Daniel: You disagree with the Bible
Mike: How does he disagree with the Bible? (if he does at all)
yaakov117: I don't. I disagree with your interpretation of the Bible. Also, as I've said before, Jesus is the Word of God. If something in the Bible contradicts the life of Jesus and the example he set, and that something is attributed to God, then we need to dig a little deeper to understand what is being said, Daniel. I am now bracing myself for you to say "you need to repent!"
Ubo: One thing that is interesting is that sola scriptura is never actually called for in the Bible; we are to know the Word of God, and certainly we are told often that reading Scripture is profitable for the soul, but the equation of the Word of God to the Bible that some sects like to make isn't supported by the text.
Svarthol: Everybody interprets the Bible as they read it, and these are unique to each person. As we explore the interpretations of others, our own is influenced and often changes. Different parts of the Bible are understood in different ways, and the connections between various passages are as well.Daniel: nothing i have said contradicts the "example set by Christ."
yaakov117: Christ didn't kill anyone. In fact, he raised them people from the dead and healed their sicknesses. And Christ can only do what he sees his father doing.
Daniel: Christ says He kills. Revelation 2:
23 I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.
yaakov117: Those words are prophecy given through John. Those churches are long gone and Jesus has not returned so we can say with certainty he did not kill anyone mentioned in that passage. Are you going to turn this exchange into a blog post?
Daniel: Christ says He will kill those children, and He cannot lie. i
Svarthol: Where?
Daniel: In the verse I referenced above.
Svarthol: That was John speaking, of a dream. We can't take them as the literal words of Christ, in my opinion. It's symbolic, like Josephs dreams in Genesis. ii
yaakov117: Since we can verify that Christ didn't kill those children by the fact that he has not returned, then that church must have repented.Daniel: Dreams are just as real. You are calling John a liar??
Svarthol: So if i have a dream where Jesus tells me to have a gay orgy, I should? No I'm saying John is recounting a dream he had.
Daniel:
He wouldn't tell you such a thing.iiiyaakov117: No you are confusing the issue, Daniel. Christ did not kill those people, there is no proof that he did, so in order for Christ to not be a liar, that church repented. As Christ knew they would repent upon hearing his words. See how that works?
Daniel: You are adding to the Word; it doesn't say John repented of that statement.
yaakov117: I am saying the church repented! Not John.
Daniel: Such a thing is not recorded in scripture.
Svarthol: I would say the Bible isn't the Word, the message of the Bible, the message of Christ, is the Word.
Daniel: With this logic of yours we can throw out anything we want from the Bible.
yaakov117: It is nowhere recorded that Jesus killed those people, therefore you cannot use that example as Jesus killing someone.
Daniel: Christ says He will kill them.
Svarthol: "Knowledge of the Bible alone doth not a good Christian make."
Daniel: Also, God (who is Christ) kills plenty of people throughout the Bible.
yaakov117: Further more, It has been pointed out to you before that you seem to have a very modern view of the book of Revelation. It is understandable because the book is confusing and most of the context is lost due to 2000 years of time and not understanding the culture. Revelation is absolutely a book of non violence. I suggest you work through this material here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST9BWOSxWtw&list=PL4eShdMjziOvCFCrCCOWSheH7kqQNsUAZ YouTube Woodland Hills A Vision of Beauty
Svarthol: Ahh, here's the crux of the issue I think.Daniel: I don't know that it has been 2000 years. And I'm not interested in videos.
yaakov117: What do you mean? It's a sermon.
Daniel: Yeah, no thanks.
yaakov117: Haha, okay bud.
Daniel: Type it up for me and I'll read it.
yaakov117: When was Christ on earth?
Svarthol: It has. It's been well documented. We use a time measuring system based on the year of Christ's birth, the whole world does now.Daniel: I don't know when, or how long it has been since. It is not "well documented" by the Bible.
yaakov117: So you don't believe it's possible that you misunderstand the context of apocolyptic literature?
Daniel: It is possible.
yaakov117: Okay.
Svarthol: The Bible can't document beyond biblical history.Daniel: It can and does actually. There are things documented that haven't happened yet.
Svarthol: And as far as we know, the ones who decided on the books of the Bible added none of their own content. There are prophecies, sure, but that's not the same as historical documentation.
yaakov117: https://reknew.org/2014/03/how-revelation-uses-violent-images-in-an-anti-violent-way/ Greg Boyd - ReKnew How Revelation Uses Violent Images in an Anti-Violent Way - Greg B... All the violent scenes in Revelation are symbols for the battle of truth and deception. They never involve literal violence. In fact, they symbolize ANTI-VIOLENCE. The ingenious way John helps us get free of deception of trust in violent power is by taking a standard violen...https://reknew.org/2016/05/key-understanding-revelation/ Greg Boyd - ReKnew The Key to Understanding Revelation - Greg Boyd - ReKnew The most important key to interpreting John's violent imagery is found in the heavenly throne room scene in chapters 4-5. (For the first entry in this series on the violence in Revelation, click here.) This throne room represents heaven's perspective on events that are oc...
There's some articles for you.
Svarthol: Some prophecies may have even come to pass, and in that sense, you would be right, it does.
yaakov117: So anyway, does this make the cut for a Daniel blog post? What will the title be? And do I need to take screenshots of this conversation?
Svarthol: I hope it does; the dialectical method is sublime and subtle in it's approach.
Ubo: Are Daniel and Darwin Fish one and the same?
yaakov117: I don't know. Daniel enjoys transcribing conversations and publishing them on his blog.
Daniel: I am not Darwin Fish.
Some articles were offered. Here's the first quoted; my comments unquoted.
How Revelation Uses Violent Images in an Anti-Violent Way:
All the violent scenes in Revelation are symbols for the battle of truth and deception. They never involve literal violence. In fact, they symbolize ANTI-VIOLENCE. The ingenious way John helps us get free of deception of trust in violent power is by taking a standard violent symbol and juxtaposing it with a symbol that undermines its violence and reverses its violent meaning.
So then, is God a liar? He has shown events that have not taken place or will not take place?
An interesting example of this is when John introduces the mysterious 144,000, which represent the army that fights with the Lamb. They are introduced in Revelation 7: 4: iv “Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.”
The 144,000 was a well known Jewish symbol of the army that would accompany the Messiah in a violent uprising against Israel’s foes to restore Israel to its place as a sovereign nation.
Well known by whom? I'm not saying this isn't in the Bible, but where is it mentioned?
But this image of violence gets turned on its head. One example of this is found in Revelation 7:14: v “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
If you read Revelation literally, you have to wonder how washing a robe in blood could make it white. Taken literally its absurd, but interpreted symbolically its profound because this washing of the robes is a Jewish military metaphor.
It may sound absurd, but nothing is impossible with God. vi
To be covered with another’s blood rendered you ceremonially unclean, so when Jewish warriors came back from battle covered with the blood of their enemies, they had to go through a purification bathing process before they could reenter society. Instead of washing OFF the blood of foes to become clean, these warriors are made clean by being washed IN blood – and it’s the blood of the one they followed into battle!
Many scholars believe John is not simply saying their sins are washed away by the blood of the lamb, though that is of course true. He is also saying that this army wears white linen because they shared in the blood of the Lamb.
They were willing to suffer with Christ. As it says in chapter 14, this 144,000 was willing to “follow the lamb wherever he goes,” even to the cross. While the standard image of the army of 144,000 following their messiah into battle was based on Babylon’s sword power, John has turned it on its head to communicate slain lamb power — the power of self-sacrificial love.
We are indeed part of an army, but not one that wins by shedding blood: we win by shedding our blood, just as Jesus did.
Christ literally shed blood. He didn't symbolically die. His blood was literally shed. What's more, Revelation doesn't command us to go and shed blood today; it describes a literal war that will take place in the future, and when that time comes, it will be obvious to all vii that it is the thing to do.
Here's the next article quoted; my comments unquoted.
The Key to Understanding Revelation:
The most important key to interpreting John’s violent imagery is found in the heavenly throne room scene in chapters 4-5. (For the first entry in this series on the violence in Revelation, click here.) This throne room represents heaven’s perspective on events that are occurring on earth, which is contrasted throughout Revelation with the false perspective of the “inhabitants of the earth” (8:13; viii 11:10; ix 13:8, x 12, xi 14; xii 17:2 xiii). The only real battle that is waged throughout Revelation is a battle between truth and deception. It is, more specifically, a battle between the truth that the Lamb’s slaughtering was victorious and the lie that it was the Lamb’s defeat.
Again, is God a liar? When He says that people will marvel at the beast being raised from the dead, is He not describing a literal miracle?
John invites us to see the truth by allowing us to witness the drama that is unfolding in the heavenly throne room. Here we find a mysterious sealed scroll, which contains the secret that Revelation unveils. The drama of this scene reaches a pinnacle when someone raises the question: “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” (5:2 xiv). John weeps when no one is found worthy (5:4 xv). How long before we learn the secret of the role that Jesus’ martyrdom plays in God’s victory over evil?
The answer is finally brought forth when John hears “one of the elders” in the throne room declare that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed,” and he is therefore worthy “to open the scroll and its seven seals” (5:3-5 xvi). This image represents the kind of enemy-slaying Messiah most first century Jews had been hoping for. But, surprisingly enough, when John looks to see this mighty messianic Lion, he instead beholds a little lamb that had already been slaughtered (5:6 xvii)!
Yes, John is saying, the Lion of the tribe of Judah has “triumphed,” but he triumphed not by violently slaying his enemies: he triumphed by becoming a slain little Lamb who offered up his life on behalf of his enemies. And yes, Jesus wages war with the aggression of a Lion, but the power that he aggressively wields is the Lamb-like power of self-sacrificial love that was perfectly manifested on the cross. In this way, John has transformed an image of power and domination into an image of vulnerability and nonviolence.
Indeed, when Christ was on the cross, He was not being violent. That doesn't mean He hasn't been violent in the past, or that He won't be violent in the future. In fact, Christ who is God has killed many people all throughout the old testament, and is said to kill many more in the times that are to come; xviii even bringing His saints with Him to help in the literal killing. xix
It is hard to overstate the importance of this remarkable symbolic transformation for our interpretation of Revelation. John’s transformation of the Lion of Judah into the sacrificial Lamb constitutes the climactic turn that anchors most of John’s other symbolic reversals. Once the Lion has been revealed to be the Lamb, we never again find Christ referred to as a Lion, though he’s referred to as the Lamb twenty-seven more times. Indeed, it is not an overstatement to say that the rest of the book of Revelation is simply an unfolding of the Lamb-like victory revealed in Revelation 5 and depicted (from a different angle) in Revelation 12. The remainder of Revelation, in other words, is an apocalyptic-like expression of the heavenly truth — spoken against all lies to the contrary — that by means of Jesus’ sacrificial death and the faithfulness of his followers, the “kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah” (11:15 xx).
Who is to say that a lamb cannot be violent?
- Titus 1:
2 in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began,
- Genesis 37:
5 Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; and they hated him even more. 6 So he said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed: 7 There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.”
8 And his brothers said to him, “Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
9 Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.”
10 So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” 11 And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
Darwin: I would suggest not answering like that. God told Abram to sacrifice his son.
- Revelation 7:
4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed:
- Revelation 7:
14 And I said to him, “Sir, you know.”
So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
- Luke 1:
37 For with God nothing will be impossible.”
- Revelation 1:
7 Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.
- Revelation 8:
13 And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, “Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!”
- Revelation 11:
10 And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.
- Revelation 13:
8 All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
- Revelation 13:
12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
- Revelation 13:
14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.
- Revelation 17:
2 with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.”
- Revelation 5:
2 Then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?”
- Revelation 5:
4 So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it.
- Revelation 5:
3 And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll, or to look at it.
4 So I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll, or to look at it. 5 But one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.”
- Revelation 5:
6 And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
- Jeremiah 25:
33 And at that day the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They shall not be lamented, or gathered, or buried; they shall become refuse on the ground.
- Psalm 149:
6 Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
And a two-edged sword in their hand,
7 To execute vengeance on the nations,
And punishments on the peoples;
8 To bind their kings with chains,
And their nobles with fetters of iron;
9 To execute on them the written judgment—
This honor have all His saints.Praise the Lord!
- Revelation 11:
15 Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”
[...] read what the Bible says. Nice chatting, God Bless. You Think You're Saved, But You're Not! ↩Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand. ↩As if to say sarcastically, "yeah right." ↩Job 1: 21 And he [...]