Originally posted by 3 Resurrections
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I've been sewing ever since I was a little kid some 50 years ago. But my interest in sewing has paled in comparison to my interest in Bible studies and conversations about it with others, regardless of what denomination they come from. You struck a chord of memory when you mentioned you and your husband saying the sinner's prayer multiple times just to make sure that you avoided hell or the misfortune of being left behind. This also used to be my same panicked response to the premil-disp. training I grew up with as a child. As a very young Christian, there was a lot of fear and plenty of doubt as to whether I had said the right words or was sincere enough in my repentance to avoid hell or being "left behind". This past fear of what I once thought were apocalyptic disasters coming in my future is something that I have been so thankful to have laid aside after studying eschatology and discovering the preterist perspective in scripture. There's so much more peace and confidence now in God's ultimate plans for His kingdom in this world that I wouldn't trade for anything. And like you, I have nothing but gratitude for the scripture my parents saturated us with from the time we were able to read, and the pastors I have listened to, even though I have used that very same familiarity with the scripture to come to some opposite conclusions by now.
The Southern Baptist church I was attending with my husband for 16 years had never seriously addressed the eschatology issue. So, twelve years ago, I began the most intensive Bible study on my own that I had ever done in my life, which has continued to this day. I begged God to show me the answers to my questions that no preacher had ever been able to convincingly deliver a message on. My husband loaned me his Interlinear version and his Septuagint (which I never gave back to him!). Just looking at word studies in the original languages opened up the scriptures to me as I had never seen them before in all my years of Christian schooling and listening to sermons from my childhood. God's promise is very real that you will find Him if you seek for Him with all your heart.
The first Preterist I ever encountered twelve years ago was Dr. Kenneth Gentry's doctoral dissertation "Before Jerusalem Fell", which jogged my thinking in that direction. But there are a few mistakes in the positions he takes that I have recognized since reading that book for the first time. His dating for Revelation is a few years too late (which is really no later than early AD 60), and he misses who the restrainer of the Antichrist is (the high priest Ananias ben Nebedeus), as well as the identity of the Antichrist (the Zealot Menahem), and the two witnesses (the former high priests Joshua ben Gamaliel and Ananus ben Annas), and he misses the past millennium dates (from 968/967 BC - AD 33) and the fact that there are not just two Beasts in Revelation, but THREE of them, as well as THREE bodily resurrection events (AD 33, AD 70, AD 3033). Fortunately, Dr. Gentry does recognize that the "kings of the earth" in Revelation's prophecies are the high priests of the land of Israel; a fact which dates the fulfillment of those prophecies to a time when the Israelite high priesthood still existed (before the end of AD 70).
The current result of twelve years of study on eschatology for me is a sort of patchwork quilt based on bits of truth gleaned from all the various eschatology camps. As you can imagine, insults and scorn consequently tend to come from all directions, since they all find something to criticize. I'm used to it by now, even from my husband who regards me as a traitorous heretic with perverse doctrines. Paul probably said it best when he wrote to the Roman believers, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own Master he stands or falls", and "let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind". That is all any one of us can do, really.
The Southern Baptist church I was attending with my husband for 16 years had never seriously addressed the eschatology issue. So, twelve years ago, I began the most intensive Bible study on my own that I had ever done in my life, which has continued to this day. I begged God to show me the answers to my questions that no preacher had ever been able to convincingly deliver a message on. My husband loaned me his Interlinear version and his Septuagint (which I never gave back to him!). Just looking at word studies in the original languages opened up the scriptures to me as I had never seen them before in all my years of Christian schooling and listening to sermons from my childhood. God's promise is very real that you will find Him if you seek for Him with all your heart.
The first Preterist I ever encountered twelve years ago was Dr. Kenneth Gentry's doctoral dissertation "Before Jerusalem Fell", which jogged my thinking in that direction. But there are a few mistakes in the positions he takes that I have recognized since reading that book for the first time. His dating for Revelation is a few years too late (which is really no later than early AD 60), and he misses who the restrainer of the Antichrist is (the high priest Ananias ben Nebedeus), as well as the identity of the Antichrist (the Zealot Menahem), and the two witnesses (the former high priests Joshua ben Gamaliel and Ananus ben Annas), and he misses the past millennium dates (from 968/967 BC - AD 33) and the fact that there are not just two Beasts in Revelation, but THREE of them, as well as THREE bodily resurrection events (AD 33, AD 70, AD 3033). Fortunately, Dr. Gentry does recognize that the "kings of the earth" in Revelation's prophecies are the high priests of the land of Israel; a fact which dates the fulfillment of those prophecies to a time when the Israelite high priesthood still existed (before the end of AD 70).
The current result of twelve years of study on eschatology for me is a sort of patchwork quilt based on bits of truth gleaned from all the various eschatology camps. As you can imagine, insults and scorn consequently tend to come from all directions, since they all find something to criticize. I'm used to it by now, even from my husband who regards me as a traitorous heretic with perverse doctrines. Paul probably said it best when he wrote to the Roman believers, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own Master he stands or falls", and "let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind". That is all any one of us can do, really.
They hold to the preterist view. This has been so difficult to get my head around what they believe in the Bible and what they don't. What they will amen and what they won't.
This affects fellowship because they are so easy to love, yet because of their view that we are living in the millennial reign of Christ, they have to in some way see the rest of us Christians as being uninformed to the point of being duped?
~From my understanding, and off the top of my head, the millennial reign of Christ is:
~A literal reign of the Lord Jesus Christ from the physical Jerusalem on the seat of David (having entered through the Eastern Gate) after landing with His physical feet on the ground (Mount of Olives) upon His return. (Second Coming).
~A time of peace and prosperity for the whole world, with the Lord Jesus Christ ruling and reigning with a rod of iron.
~Jeremiah speaking about in those days (in the days of the millennial reign of Christ) people would live long and strong. A person dying at the age of 120 would be considered a mere child.
~World war 1 and 2 and the Holocaust surely make whatever regional war in Jerusalem look like a side show? Iow it has never been a time of tribulation such as never was no nor ever shall be.
~Every eye would have seen the coming of the Lord in the clouds of glory, all the graves of the Christians would have opened.
~Several other scriptures, the unholy ungodly ugly world we are living in, the knowledge explosion of the past 120 years and many other things not coming to mind now, all cause me to reject the preterist view.
The only 2 things that feed into the preterist view for me are:
~The Lord coming for a spotless Bride (not sure that can be said for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ today but I do not know.
~Scriptures saying the Lord's return was soon, imminent, implying in the lifetimes of the writers of the NT.
I suppose my greatest objection to the preterist view is that it has only been revealed to a very fringe group of Christians and this causes loss of fellowship throughout the greater body of Christ.
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