Jbarrax

Sounds like a Marx Brothers movie, but I don't know which one.

HI SUDO! :-) I have the same attitude. I've been through the natural remedies for cancer scene. My older brother died of cancer a few years ago. I sent him some essiac and Rieshi Mushroom, both of which are believed to cure it. He insisted on only using the herbs when he wasn't on chemotherapy or radiation, so it wasn't a valid test of homeopathy. He was diagnosed with about six months to live and lived for four so who knows? Maybe the herbs extended his life, maybe it was the radiation, chemo, etc. What I do know is that the situation in our home has "stuck". That is, the problems have not resurfaced and it's been almost three full months now. If it was an emotional high akin to the revival spectacle you cite above, we'd know by know. And by the way, one of the things I've experienced personally is the elimination of my allergy to animal dander. All my life I've had to wash my hands immediately after petting fur-bearin' varmints before touching my face. If I petted a dog and touched my face, my eyes would get terribly red, sore, and itchy. Not anymore. One EFT session got rid of that. Again, it's been about three months. We have a dog and a guinea pig and I can pet them without worrying about it. Not a big deal, I know, but it is a form of physical deliverance. I also use it instead of sinus headache medicine now. I used to get consistent sinus headaches. In Kentucky, they would require extra strength Advil or Tylenol and immediate bedrest. In Texas, they're much worse (there are a lot of people with severe sinus problems in this area) and could last for days no matter what I did or took. I started to get one a few weeks ago and tapped instead of taking medicine. "Poof" it went away in minutes and stayed gone. I've done the same thing twice since then with the same results. Again, it's not on the same drama scale as being cured of a terminal illness, but it is physical healing without medicine and more effective. So I say, I understand your skepticism, but don't knock it till you've tried it. :-)

Hi. I don't know if it's considered bad taste to resurrect an old thread but I just wanted to comment about EFT. We had an ongoing problem in our family that necessitated psychotherapy, antidepressants, and at least two hospitalizations. It became a crisis a few months ago and we were in dire straits. We of course prayed and spoke in tongues fervently, but nothing seemed to work; including the meds and therapy. A friend of Deb's told her about EFT and gave us the phone number of a local practitioner. To make a long, harrowing story short, we finally got together with him and tried the tapping procedure. It was amazing, astonishing deliverance. Most would call it a miracle. Two EFT sessions obliterated years of deep depression, anxiety, panic attacks and "racing thoughts" (a condition a local psychiatrist had diagnosed as psychosis). Three months later, the deliverance is still in place and there is no trace of the problems that had been so frustrating for so long. It's truly a remarkable process. Having now read the free manual, as well as a related book suggested on the EFT website, I'm inclined to think that perhaps this is what the Bible refers to as laying on of hands. Since this practice is related to accu-puncture, which is an ancient Oriental healing art, I wonder if Jesus and the Apostles didn't do this when they delivered people from physical, emotional, and/or spiritual problems. I won't go into detail about who was delivered from what, but I will add that there are four of us in my family and all of us have used EFT successfully to treat everything from sinus headaches and allergies to the afore-metioned depression and such. I don't really understand it. That is, I understand how it works, but it's so simple that it just doesn't seem to make sense. But work it does. I encourage anyone who's suffering from chronic pains, anxieties, depression, emotional trauma, PTSD, or related problems to seek out an EFT practitioner and give it a try. :) http://www.eftuniverse.com/

This is probably not the best place to start posting after having been absent for over a year, but I just can't help it. This is, imo, one of those issues that will never get resolved, partly because proponents on each side refuse to respect each other's opinions. I see flaws in the reasoning of the GLBT side and the Fundamentalists. FWIW (not much admittedly) here's the way I see it. I have to agree with those who point out that homosexuality cannot be equated to drinking. Homosexuality is clearly and consistently denounced in the Scripture as sinful. I believe "abomination" is the work used in the OT, which makes it not only sinful but disgustingly so. So for the progressives to accuse those who oppose gay marriage as narrow-minded or backward is unfair. Another pet peeve of mine is the consistent equating of the gay rights movement to the civil rights movement. As an African American and a staunch believer in the inherent rightness of the civil rights movement, I must point out that this is analogy only holds water if you believe that people are born gay or lesbian. I for one, don't believe that. For one there is the whole Anne Heich fiasco. For those who have forgotten Anne, she was Ellen Degeneres' partner when Ellen came out of the closet. In an interview with Oprah, Ellen affirmed she'd always been lesbian, but Anne said she'd been heterosexual until she met Ellen. A short time later, Anne fled their love nest and ran screaming to a guy. She is now once again heterosexual, although probably not mentally or emotionally stable. I forget now where we saw it (I think it's on Web MD), but Deb and I read recently that studies have found that women can switch from heterosexual to lesbian lifestyles and back. If a woman is not in a heterosexual relationship and is living with a particularly close female friend, they may become lovers. When one of them meets a man, it can dissolve. I know people who have gone through this. In short, I don't believe people are not "born" gay. It's a lifestyle choice. On the other hand, people are born African-American, Latino, or Asian. Granting equality for ethnic groups does not automatically mean we should grant equality to gays and lesbians. Insisting that these two principles are the same is not only dishonest, it's offensive to some. On the other hand... I cannot automatically denounce homosexuality because the Bible condemns it. Years of reviewing and reconsidering what we were taught in PFAL and what's in the Bible have brought me to the conclusion that the Bible is not infallible truth. It's truth filtered through flawed human minds. Some of the aspects of that filter are the customs of the Judean and first century Greco-Roman cultures. That's why the Twelve didn't carry out Jesus' Great Commission to preach the gospel to every creature until several decades after Pentecost. They were comfortably Judean and didn't want to sully themselves with the Gentiles. Even after they were reminded of what Jesus had ordered (Acts 15:7-11)most of them stayed in Jerusalem and left the evangelizing to Paul and his associates. But I digress. The point is, I'm not comfortable condemning someone just because the Bible said so. So I respect those Christians who take a more progressive approach to this issue, remembering that we are all sinners saved by grace and that Jesus died for everyone; not just for good, upstanding, straight, righteous folks. If we are all sinners saved by grace and there is none good, not even one, we have little right to condemn a whole class of people because they have a "sinful" lifestyle; especially since Fundamentalist Christians have the same rates of adultery and divorce as everyone else. So I reject the GBLT argument that gay rights are the same as civil rights. But I also reject the Fundamentalist's argument that homosexuality is so sinful that we should universally condemn and reject homosexuals and treat them as inherently inferior. I think the Christian thing to do is to recognize that, even though homosexuality may be wrong and some of us may find it objectionable, we are all flawed and in need of grace and mercy. As such, we are not qualified to deny people the right to live in a private, loving relationship just because we disapprove of their sexual orientation.

Another Spot You raise good points. A lot of debate around the NDE experience centers on the possible affects of anesthesia and drugs. The lack of oxygen to the brain common in flatlined patients is another factor. For these reasons, most M.D.'s are very skeptical about the validity of these apparent otherworldly visits. Atwater's book includes a pretty thorough examination of all of these arguments and possibilities.

Hi Spot/Sunlight. Hope you are well too. :-) Slow down there old friend. I said, "IF demons can cause hallucination...they might be able to convey information..." I'm talking about possiblities, not making declarations of absolute truth. I don't think I accused anyone of being possessed. But if I had, that's not the same as accusing them of being evil. I think the perjorative aspect of that came from its misuse by TWI. Mary Magdalene had seven devils in her but there's nothing in the Scripture that implies that it was because she was evil. In fact, I remember VP teaching in the Advanced Class that Jesus Christ never treated a possessed person as a willful sinner. Too bad the leadership didn't put that into practice and treat people with compassion and grace. But I digress Having a demon invade a perons' mind or body is not necessarily a sign that that individual is morally corrupt, especially if the devil or demon gains access through injury. He or she is merely physically weak. Demons, like natural parasites and predators, look for weaknesses. I believe God made the human mind and body with basic physical and spiritual protections. Our skin protects us from infectious diseases. If your skin is broken, your body can be contaminated by viruses germs, etc. that are otherwise powerless to harm you. Likewise, I believe a normal healthy mind has built in protections. Demons can't just go hopping around jumping in and out of people's minds at will. The person's mind has to be altered or they have to willingly invite the spirit in some way. This is why drugs are often used in witchcraft and why people who experiment with recreational drugs often suffer drastic, permanent changes in personality or temperament. Is all of this in the Scripture? No. Most of what I believe about spirits (devils, demons or whatever you care to call them) is based on my experiences backed by the Scripture and some Way doctrine (with some Derek Prince thrown in for good measure). Because of the lessons learned during the PFAL review (with which you helped, btw), I no longer limit my beliefs to chapter and verse. Some things can be proven from the Scripture, some can't. The Scripture takes both sides of some very important issues. At some point, you have to close the book, open your heart to the Father, ask some questions and trust that He's giving you the right answers. As I said, I may be wrong. But again, I merely posed the possiblity that out of body experiences may be caused by deomonic invasions of an injured person's brain. Peace JerryB Nice perspective Sunesis. :)

LOL Well I guess you're right Irish. I demons can cause a hallucination resulting in someone believing they were in heaven, they might be able convey information to someone's brain during trauma convincing them that they travelled out of their body.

Sorry to hear about your injury, but I'm glad you made it through. :-) There are examples of people having out of body experiences without being unconscious. That's a fairly common experience. more common that is, than the whole tunnel of light phenomenon. And that's one of the most challenging areas (the out of body experience that is) Some people have them and travel to other rooms and see people they've never met. When they return to their bodies, they are able to identify those people by name, heving never met them. This happened to my brother during his seizure. He floated up into a corner of the room near the ceiling and saw the paramedics working on him. He knew them all although he hadn't been introduced to them. When the seizure ended, he "came to" and thanked them all by name. He said they were a little freaked out by it. That type of experience is, imho, the most resistant to refutation. I don't see how a devil spirit could fake that and there are many examples like that involving extrasensory perception while the "soul" is displaced. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it seems that in these extreme situations of danger or injury (most commonly injury) the soul and body connection gets temporarily disrupted and the soul is able to perceive things the body cannot.

I don't know about the babies accomplishing its life's work in utero. I thnk that's quite a stretch. But I do believe that people have a purpose to achieve. Then again, the Bible speaks of "the elect" who are called according to God's purpose. So perhaps only the elect have a purpose and the rest don't. That would explain why some people die young or in childhood and some are miraculously spared. Of course, not all of us accomplish our God given purpose. We can get off track by disobience, as Israel did in Canaan. But again, I digress. Righto. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me. Spirits are said to inhabit certain places (like a haunted house). It seems logical to me that if NDE's are caused by spirits being able to manipulate injured brains during physical trauma, that would explain why people who have NDE's in a certain locale would have the same one. They are all in the same theatre, so they get to see the same act, so to speak. This would also explain why the vast majority of NDE's do not support the idea that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, THE way, the truth, etc. Most people who have vivid or prolonged NDE's come away with a sense that we are all destined for heaven. I'm not saying that's untrue. Maybe the Universalists are correct and Jesus has already redeemed everyone. But most of the Scripture doesn't seem to support that idea. And Atwater's findings about the effects of injuring or stimulating the Sylvan Fissure would explain how spirits are able to create these illusions. They know the wiring and what switches to throw. I'm not saying that's what I believe, but I tend to lean in that direction. I've never seen a ghost or an alien. I have had experiences that I attribute to devil spirits, but haven't seen an apparition of any kind.

WS: I think we're talking about a little of everything. Personally, I don't give it much thought anymore. I had a fear of death a few years ago, but I reminded myself that I have eternal life and holy spirit and that, if I go early, God will take good care of my wife and kids. So now I really dont' care. I really don't want to edure a long, debilitating illness and definitely don't want to suffer alzheirmer's. That's hell on earth imo. I intend to make a living will that states that if I ever start losing my faculties, I am to be euthanized in four weeks or less (Let the minutes reflect...) When the mind goes, what's the friggin point? But I digress. I would like for my life to accomplish something, but I don't fear dying or death itself. If I had to go before I felt like I had accomplished what I'm here for, I'd be overwhelmed with sadness too. If I can get to the point where I feel like my work is done, I'll go quietly, with at least a little curiosity about what comes next. Irish: The book is the most comprehensive, and most objective presentation of the NDE experience out there. Most authors who have a near death experience become evangelists for the idea that death is not an enemy and they attach themselves to the New Age community. Atwater was raised by a police detective who trained her as a child to be keenly observant and inquisititve. She takes the same mindset regarding the near death experience and considers every plausible explanation (except possibly demonic deception; can't remember if she tackles that one). She postulated that some of what people experience, specifically the golden colors commonly reported) are the result of chemical changes in the brain caused by lack of oxygen or physical trauma. There is a part of the brain called (if I remember correctly) the Sylvan Fissure that is known to produce similar colors when damaged. Her theory is that perhaps trauma to the Sylvan Fissure causes people to see heavenly golden hues and some of the light shows reported. That may be the changed in brain structure the synopsis referred to. Speaking of evidence....one of the things I found fascinating is the fact that there was a nursing home in which several people had near death experiences. Not only were all of them negative and frightening, they were all the same. If these experiences were actually a trip the the next life, why would a bunch of people with nothing more in common than their age and current residence have identical experiences in the afterlife? She also investigated and reported on an incident in which two young people suffered a whitewater rafting accident in which both nearly drowned. They were not married, not related, and had very little in common. They both had NDE's and they were identical. Again, people from disparate backgrounds had identical near death experiences. Now what would cause that? I can think of one explanation that all of us would find familiar, but some would reject. any guesses?

Here's a synopsis of the book from Barnes & Noble.com

Good questions Irish. Actually, I've done a lot of reading on this subject (about six books so far) and the idea that everyone who has a near death experience sees the same thing (the tunnel of light) is misgiven. Actually only a small percentage (about 1/5 if I remember correctly) of those who have an NDE experience the tunnel effect or see a bright light. More common is the out of body experience where a person is aware of leaving his or her body (this happened to my brother during one of his seizures early in his illness). Some leave their body for just a moment and some leave for what seems like an extended period of time and travel around the area. Actually there isn't a single common experience that people can point to as being universal. And some people have very negative NDE's. Some have claimed to go down to hell and have seen Lucifer, (documented in Raymond Moody's famous book Life after Life) some have seen crowds of dead, naked people looking like prisoners in a Nazi death camp, some have felt themselves being pulled downward as if by invisible claws pulling the soul from the body. Most are positive, but one fascinating book I read took the position that those who have a negative NDE are discouraged from talking about it, so their numbers are underrepresented. That book has a lot of fascinating insights. It was written by a woman named P.M.H. Atwater. It's called Beyond the Light. What isn't being said about the Near Death Experience. It's out of print, but can be purchased at http://www.alibris.com If you don't read any other book about Life after death, you should read this one.

Thanks JJ.

Hi Bliss. Well this is entirely rhetorical so it's not worth arguing about. But... if everything was hunky dorey all the time... if we got what we prayed for all the time and got healed on a regular basis et al, we would be doing some awesome outreach eh what?. The gospel would spread like wildfire because the benefits of salvation would be so obvious that everyone would aknowledge the power of the risen Christ and every sane, humble person would be drawn to Christ. I guess that's what it was like in Jerusalem for a few years after Pentecost (when people got healed simply by being touched by Peter's shadow). Where can we sign up for that? Peace JerryB

Irish. HiHowAreYa. The color tag is printing because you have the brackets reversed. They should be .burgundy?... Paul's references to dying daily are part of a rather complex tapestry of verses about death and batptism. In Romans 6 & 7 he wrote that we are "buried with him (Jesus, not Paul) by baptism into death" and that our old man was crucified with Christ. Baptism is not a wet ritual, it's a spiritual identification by which the results of someone else's deeds are imputed to another person. Israel was baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea despite the fact that they crossed on dry land. The nation of Israel was populated by rank unbelievers--stiffnecked in heart. But because Moses believed, they were all delivered from the nasty, evil, smelly, Egyptians. Likewise we are indentified with Christ and we receive the benefits of his death. Those include the remission of sin of course, but saying the old man is dead takes that a step farther and implies that our sin nature itself died with Christ, thus enabling us to do what was not possible before, and what is not possible without Christ--to walk by the spirit and fulfill the righteousness of the Law. Some might argue that experience dictates that it is NOT possible to walk thusly because everybody sins. And I would say that is because we still carry the lusts of the flesh, not because the old man and its sin nature are not deceased. And we'd veer wildly off topic, the thread would be highjacked for days on end, leftovers would get cold, football games would go unwatched, and chaos would result. So we won't go there. As for physical death, I still believe it is an enemy. Having lost my beloved big brother to cancer last year has certainly reinforced that belief, but I think preachers who say death is not an enemy are misrepresenting the Scripture in favor of Christian tradition. If death is not an enemy, why did Jesus raise the dead? Why didn't he comfort the anguished father (Matthew 9:18 - 26) by telling him she was in heaven? If your child is ill and on her deathbed, isn't it selfish to try to save her or to mourn her passing? Why not celebrate and congratulate her for going to be with Jesus before you? You see, it becomes a little absurd when we take the traditional creed to its logical application. But as Bliss says, we don't really know. Personally, I think God wants to keep it that way. After all, if He wanted us to know what death is like, there would be eyewitness accounts in the Bible. Jesus and Lazarus both died and lived to tell about it, but said not one word about what they experienced or didn't experience. I thnk that's significant. It could mean that the Old Testament verses about death being a complete lack of consciousness are true and Lazarus and Jesus had nothing to report. The fact that the disciples apparently never even asked them about it may indicate that they all had the same understanding and would have thought of it as a lucirous question. Or it may be that those who pass that way and come back have to sign a gag order. Maybe God wants to keep us focused on living for Christ and leave the details of what happens next to Him. And that's okay with me.

Bride, Larry, I think the Biblical understanding of whether or not a Christian minister should live like a rich man is best understood by looking at the new Testament, not the Old Testament. Comparing a modern minister to King Solomon makes much less sense than comparing them to Paul, Peter et al. Paul wrote to the Church to follow his example. According to I Corinthians 10: 32 - 11:1, part of being a follower of Paul is living humbly so as to avoid offending people and impeding the work of the Gospel. This is where Joyce Meyer and her ilk are erring. By appearing to seek profit, they are giving offence to the Gentiles. Bride, you seem to think that ministers are not responsible for how the secular world judges them. That's not in keeping with Paul's example or advice. And again, in Philippians, Paul made a distinction between his example of humility and those who used their ministries as an excuse to obtain worldly wealth. It's pretty clear that people who want to live acccording to the Biblical standards of a Christian minister are not supposed to enrich themselves with private mansions, yachts, guest houses, enormous salaries, etc. Paul said that these people were enemies of the cross of Christ. What is the message of the cross, Bride? Humility! Christ, God's only begotten son, the Prince of all creation allowed himself to be publicly humiliated so that we could be redeemed and saved. That''s the theme of the entire epistle of Philippians, by the way. Esteem others better than yourselves. Serve! Those who refused to humble themselves in service to God's people are enemies of the cross. Their god is their belly. That means they live primarily to serve their own personal needs. Their god is their belly, they mind earthly things. Now admittedly, it doesn't say explicitly that it's talking about having lots of money. But can you convince the average person that a minister who lives in a mansion, drives big, fancy cars, and commands a salary more than ten times the average income of her contributors is not minding "earthly things"? I don't think so. It's offensive to most people and therefore, it impedes the work of the gospel and should be stopped. And, just in case there's any doubt that Paul's example was to live on sparse means in order to further the gospel, look at II Corinthians 6:1 -10. If Joyce wants to be a minister according to God's Word, she needs to appear to be an average person living on what she needs, not a rich corporate businesswoman, or King Solomon. Here again is Pauls' example.

Quite bizarre. I do keep a Sprint PCS phone just above my speakers, but it's almost always turned off. Don't remember now if it was turned on that evening or now. I suppose I could conduct an experiment and turn it on and set it next to the speakers and see what happens. I tried that Filehippo spyware software and I'm not convinced that's good anti-spyware. It claimed that I had over 1,500 spyware infections on my pc. But most of them were pc games pre-installed by HP on the computer. I don''t think those are legitimate security threats. I ran Ad-Aware again and found a few trackers, but nothing serious. Anyway, the dial tones stopped and haven't resumed. Maybe the NSA got their survelillance software working quietly again the way it's supposed to. :-)

Your desire for consistent translation of words is logical but unworkable. Think of how complex language is. If we limit each word to only one meaning, we'll need to quadruple our vocabularies. In English, we have the word close. What does that mean? Simple you say. Close means in proximity to, the opposite of far. No wait a minute. Close means to seal, the opposite of open. Same word; two completely different meanings. They're even pronounced differently. The meaning of the word "close" is determined by its context. If you see it in a sentence, the surrounding words tell you which usage you're reading and supply the understanding. There are words like this in most languages and we process all of this information contextually as we read. The Bible is no different. Words like pistis, pneuma, and pros, are used many times and the meaning must be determined in part by the context. Cases and tenses can also add clues to interpretation. The work of the translator is to bring the complexities of communication intact from one language into another. Im not a translator of course, but I imagine it's no easy task. The passage of almost two milennia and the possible changes that can occur as cultural information is lost only complicates he issue. This issue of limited vocabulary having to convey complex and varied meanings is further complicated when primitive languages are used to communicate experiences not common to those cultures. Take for instance, the record of the transfiguration on the mount. We read in Mark that Jesus "And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them". The word "fuller" is translated from the Greek word gnapheus. In modern English, "fuller" is an adjective sometimes used as a comparative word connoting degrees of completeness or capacity. (You ate seven slices of pizza so you're fuller than I). The usage in Mark is obviously a noun because of its context, but we in this era have lost the meaning of what a fuller is because we don't have any fullers around anymore. They have gone the way of the milkman, the iceman, and the green grocer. We can still understand the phrase "as no fuller on earth can white them" because it follows the phrase "shining, exceeding white as snow. But if that verse simply said, "his raiment became as no fuller on earth can white them", we'd be pretty close to clueless. So when you look at Biblical words, you have to consider the context, not just the Greek or Aramaic. Weirwille touched on this in Piffle when he taught about "bible kinds of faith" and listed nine usages of the word pneuma (which he plagiarized from E.W. Bullinger). The problem is not that translators are trying to control what we believe. they're simply trying to understand the original communication which was presented in various contexts determined in part by the culture of that era and communicate that to us in the context and culture of our era. Peace JerryB

Hi Tom, Cman. Yes I have DSL filters on all the phones. I'll recheck and make sure someone hasn't removed one of them. I tried to run Ad-Aware right after the tones began and it crashed. Not a good sign. I'll try the other one.

I have just heard an odd noise from my pc speaker. It sounds like a touchtone phone being dialed very rapidly. Ten tones (two groups of five tones in about 2 seconds) come through my pc speaker. The first time it happened, the pc was turned off. It's happened twice more in the past few minutes. Is this the sound of someone hacking into my pc or am I just having auditory hallucinations? I just switched my broadband internet service from cable to Verizon DSL last week, but this is the first time I've heard this. It seems to be happening every five minutes. Any clues?

Thanks Bliss. I've bookmarked the Preterist debate website and intend to study it in the days to come. I still have lots of questions about this topic and Im not really expecting to find a single theology that pulls all the Scriptural threads together into a tidy package.

Quite right Carl. If we are living in the "thousand year" kingdom, the parousia is postmillenial. The obvious problem there is that the Kingdom began well over 1,000 years ago. I don't think its much of a stretch to interpret the phrase a thousand years as a figure of speech referring to a very, very long time. It may be two, three, or ten thousand years before the time of this age if fulfilled.

This is a fascinating topic. One of the biggest turnarounds in my perspective on the Bible happened a few years ago when I began to read the Scripture from the perspective of its original audience, as Steve has done (Welcome SteveIam). My conclusion was similar. Much of the NT is based on the belief and expectation that Jesus would return for THEM. The verses cited in Matthew 24 and Revelation chapter one are some of the clearest, but this thread runs throughout the NT, even the Pauline epistles. Romans chapter 1:18 for example, says "For the wrath of God is reaveled from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness." Not the wrath of God shall be revealed, he said IS revealed. Paul believed that God's wrath and judgement were either ongoing or imminent. This belief is also the undercurrent of Romans 8:13, which doesn't hold true to fact unless one views it as a statement made in anticipation of Christ's speedy return. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye, through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Now if we think of this as TWI and most Fundies do and read ourselves and our times into this verse, it is simply not true. We know PLENTY of people, some in our former associaton who lived after the flesh and are still foggin' the mirror. And there are those who lived godly lives and are deceased. So the verse, as written, cannot be believed literally. But if we remember 1:18, and consider the possiblitiy that Paul was expecting Christ to return any day and wipe out the unbelieving and evil and save the just, a whole new meaning surfaces. I think Paul wrote this verse believing that Jesus would come back and judge the Church and the world and only spare the righteous. The same connotation can be clearly seen in throughout the book of Hebrews, beginning in chapter 2 ("How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"). Here are a few snippets. Hebrews 10:23 - 31 speaks in strong language of judgment on God's people for failing to believe until the end. The end was expected and referred to as visibly imminent. Sobering stuff. This is not the cheery hopeful expecation we learned in TWITville, in which everybody gets eternal rewards. The exhortation to hold on for a promised deliverance becomes moe intense in the following verses. Again, the context is an expectation that Christ would return quickly, "in a little while". "He...will not tarry". And when he arrives, those who didn't live righteously right up until the end are not going to be greeted with open arms and Cheezits. "Draw back unto perdition" connotes a failure of faithfulness resulting in destruction. The context sets this in contrast to the following phrase referring to believing and salvation. The phrase "...believe to the saving of the soul" implies that salvation is achieved not by believing one time, but believing for a lifetime. I know this contradicts what we were taught about salvation by grace and all that, but these verses must be in here for a reason. I have grappled with them for several years and the most logical conclusion seems to me that the NT writers expected a speedy return of Christ, resulting in salvation for the faithful and judgment for the unfaithful. I don't know much about preterism, but I can see the foundation of it in passages like these. This of course raises a ginormous doctrinal dilemma. If these Apostles and Prophets were right, Jesus should have been here years ago, centuries ago, milennia ago! So I guess the preterists assume that the Apostles were right and Jesus really did come back and judge the earth. He just decided not to stick around. While I can see the basis for the doctrine, I find hard to believe that Jesus Christ has already come back and judged the earth, in fulfilment of all the prophecies of the book of Revelation. If that is the case, and this belief is based on an acceptance of these Biblical prophecies as sound and true, then we are to assume that we are living either in the thousand year Kingdom or the new heaven and earth wherein dwelleth righteouosness. I cannot accept the latter, but the former is possible. I Corinthians 15 speaks of the Kingdom of Christ as a heavenly one, not an earthly kingdom. This of course agrees with Jesus' testimony before the Pilate and the High Priest that his kingdom was not of this world. A comparative reading of Acts 2:30-35 and I Corinthians 15: 23 - 28 indicates that the promised reign of the Messiah began with the Ascension and will continue, not as a period of perfect peace on earth, as Revelation predicts, but a time of struggle during which the Lord's enemies will be eventually vanquished. "Until I make thy foes thy footstool" means 'until I defeat your enemies and humble them under your feet. So according to Peter's interpretation of David's prophecy, when Jesus Christ was taken up into heaven, God seated him at the right hand of his throne (witnessed by Stephen just before he was martyred). Christ is to remain there, seated at God's right hand until God defeats his enemies. Again, this implies that the advent of the Kingdom of Christ did not automatically defeat the evil and banish wickedness from the land, as we have been lead to believe. Rather it is the beginning of a struggle, the END of which, will bring the end of evil on the earth. I Corinthians 15:24 - 28 is more specific about this chain of events. katargeo is most often translated "destroy", "do away with" or "abolish". To put down rule in this passage does not mean to lay down as one lays down a hat on a bed. The end comes when the Father has abolished all rule and authority and power that is in oppositon to the Kingdom of His Son! So putting I Corinthians and Acts together seems to tell us that the Kingdom of Christ is not the earthly kingdom of Revelaton, but a heavenly Kingdom given to him by God Almighty who is working to subdue its enemies. When those enemies are put down, Jesus Kingdom will come to an end and he will turn the throne over to God himself. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. This is the most intriguing aspect of this interpretation. Rather than looking forward to the return of Christ to abolish death, these passages indicate that it will be the opposite. The abolition of death is what will trigger the end of Christ's Kingdom and the end of this age. Then comes the gathering together. Putting the gathering together after the end of the struggles between God and Satan (the enemies of the Kingdom) also clears up some apparent contradictions between the chronologies of I Corinthians 15 and I thessalonians 4 and 5, but that's a topic for another thread. Peace y'all JerryB