by BurnTheShips 100 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Perry:
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
It would best that we agree to disagree. I appreciate and even respect your faith. However, IMHO, since those who profess to have this indwelling often have significantly different ideas on Scripture, how much value can this really have? To the individual with the Spirit, I can see how this is a huge deal and it's convincing. To the outside observer, however, it's all very confusing.
BTS,
What did Jesus believe about the story of Jonah? His sentiments in this regard were emphatically stated.
Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, a greater than Jonah is here (Matthew 12:38-41).
Quite clearly, Jesus accepted the story of Jonah as an accurate description of a real, historical event. He included not only the fact that Jonah spent three days in the belly of the fish, but also affirmed that the city of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah. If the story of Jonah were simply an allegory or myth, Jesus’ entire point about being in the belly of the Earth for as long as Jonah was in the belly of the fish would be weakened to the point of ridiculousness. For, if Jonah wasn’t ever really in the belly of the fish, then what would that say about the Son of Man actually being in the belly of the Earth?
See what happens when we question whether or not God means what he says and says what he means? We always turn him into a liar and his "lies" lead to other "lies" of God.
Accepting the testimony of Jesus Christ further demands that the global Flood of Noah be taken as a literal, historic event. The Lord Himself addressed the topic of the great Flood in Luke 17:26-30 (cf. Matthew 24:39) when He drew the following parallel:
And as it came to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all: after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed (emp. added).
The Lord depicted an impending doom that was to befall the Jews of His day who would not heed the Word of God. For the purpose of this article, however, note the context in which Jesus discussed the Flood destruction of Genesis 6-8. He placed the Flood alongside the destruction of Sodom, and He also placed it alongside the destruction of the ungodly at His Second Coming. John Whitcomb correctly noted that the word “all” must refer to the totality of people on the entire Earth in Noah’s day, and in Sodom during Lot’s time. Jesus’ argument would be weakened considerably if some of the people on the Earth, besides Noah’s family, escaped the Flood, or if certain Sodomites survived the fiery destruction sent from Heaven (1973, pp. 21-22). It is evident from the text that Jesus affirmed that the same number of ungodly sinners who escaped the Flood will be the same number of disobedient people who escape destruction at His Second Coming—none. From His remarks, one can clearly see that Jesus accepted the Genesis account of a global flood as a historical fact.
The sayings of Jesus contain numerous references to some of the Old Testament’s most extraordinary events. A person cannot consistently maintain a belief in Jesus and His teachings, while denying the details of the accounts that He endorsed as factual. The testimony of Jesus and the factual accuracy of the stories He commended stand together.
Let God be found true though every man a liar. Go ahead and believe what you want to about Jesus, BTS. I've had it with people's interpretations.
Allegories and legends are teaching tools. The Jewish Midrash, and Mishnah, Talmud etc. should be studied at some point by anyone interested in comparative studies of the NT and Western/Eastern Christianty to see where they stepped off the proverbial end of the Dock.
Of course our former religion the Witnesses along with Fundamentalists and extreme Muslims take as literal stories and legends from the Jewish culture meant as allegory with the use of hyperbole.
The Age of Enlightenment is decades away for these groups. Thank god for a little self actualization to help us kick start the new life.
Again, Perry, let's stay on topic. We aren't discussing Jesus, or Jonah. We are discussing the Flood.
John Whitcomb correctly noted that the word “all” must refer to the totality of people on the entire Earth in Noah’s day
What was the date of the Flood, Perry?
Whitcomb's interpretation is pointless....
Unless it was hundreds of thousands of years ago, there were already humans on every continent by 4500 BC. We have physical evidence. In 4500 BC, only a global flood could have wiped out the entire human race.
So how can the Genesis account of the Flood be historically true?
It isn't.
Let God be found true though every man a liar.
The Flood story isn't about historical truth, it is about moral truth.
Go ahead and believe what you want to about Jesus, BTS.
Again, you dodge and change the subject.
I've had it with people's interpretations.
You have your own subjective interpretation of Scripture. Your interpretation has not been informed in a vacuum, you have built on the interpretation of other people, as your own copied text demonstrates. Unless written in machine code, reading is interpretation.
BTS
BTS
What are you trying to accomplish by attacking a fellow christian concerning the story of a global flood?
I am not attacking Perry, I am helping him understand that his views on the Flood are wrong.
BTS
Good on yer, Burn.
I do love it when posters are brought back on track, and not allowed to deflect an argument. (I have been pulled up short before, so I am humbled enough to try not to do it.)
Dear Perry seems a little like a JW in his methods, bless him.
When will people stop trying to make the Bible stories literal ? The Jewish scholars and divines of the past,and present do not do this,and it is their scripture after all.
The only way to read most of the Hebrew Bible is as allegory, it even hints at this itself, in the many times it says something like "are not all the things about ......... written in the Book of the Kings ?"
In other words, if you want history, go elsewhere.
The attempt to take it all, or nearly all, as literal is a fairly recent thing, since the Reformation, and frankly the attempts at this with the Flood story show that it is not a good method of exegesis.
BTS
John Calvin forced his literalist views of Genesis on Europe rejecting Origen's more jewish understanding that Genesis was to be read as allegory.
