No, Matthew and Mark did not express their opinions but they were not there at the time Jesus gave his discourse either. That was my point. If Paul wasn't with Jesus at the time and you are saying that he was expressing a hope rather than a certainty based on inspiration then where is the inspiration for any person who was not privy to personal experience but yet are classified as part of the cannon?
Matthew and Mark had reliable sources for what Jesus said (they both were close to Peter, for example, who heard the discourse). One may question their competence to write history accurately or honestly, but that is not even remotely related to the question of whether Paul’s private desire (like that of Christians in every age), in the absence of any relevant information from Christ about it, might have included the mistaken hope of Christ's coming and the end of the cosmos in his lifetime.
No, Paul does not need to say he was inspired, but Christianity says he was.
So if “Christianity” (whatever we may be calling by that name) says that Mary was a perpetual virgin, would you believe it, in the absence of scriptural verification? Are we now Roman Catholics, who allow something called “Christianity” (i.e., church tradition) to be our guide, rather than scripture?
Even if we allow that Paul was inspired (even though he may not have known it…but then, how would
we know it?), this “inspiration” (whatever it was) was apparently not of a type such as would prevent him from making personal errors (1 Cor.1:14-16). Is it your opinion that Paul was an infallible human being, or was it only when he wrote
ex cathedra? Your belief seems to require one or the other of these options. Can you provide a scriptural case for either of them?
Surely you are left without any help or comfort if you cannot trust Paul to have been inspired.
There is no reason to believe that the Thessalonians (or any other recipients of Paul’s letters) regarded his letters as “inspired.” Does this mean that they could derive no comfort from them? Have you never received comfort or encouragement from an “uninspired” book or preacher? Wouldn't it be enough to know that the writer is telling the truth? Why does he have to be inspired as well? It is true that a prophet (that is not what Paul ever claimed to be)
does speak to the encouragement of men (1 Cor.14:3), but must a man be a prophet in order to encourage others?
What then are we to do if we say that inspiration is only as deep as we receive it? Likewise where do we get off calling the Bible God's word?
I don’t know what is meant by saying “inspiration is only as deep as we receive it,” since I did not say anything like that. I would say that inspiration should not be attributed where it is not even claimed.
The Bible does not call itself “word of God” in any passage that comes to my mind (I sought for such a passage once, unsuccessfully). Christ is the Word of God. The Bible is God’s communication to us through prophets, Christ and apostles. That is good enough for me. God has communicated His mind through prophets, who speak under inspiration (by definition), and through apostles, who speak with divine sanction (also by definition), and must therefore be heeded, whether inspired or not.
[The Thessalonians] surely must have been rescued in some way from the wrath to come since Paul said they were to be. How that happened I can only guess. I guess…they were able to avoid the tribulation of those days in some way or another.
In formal logic, this is what is called
begging the question. It is a classic fallacy, wherein one presupposes, as a part of his argument, the truth of the point under dispute.
My time is too valuable to keep going back and forth on these points. I think it is obvious (and surely you know it is) that the Greeks were not endangered by the Roman invasion of Israel, and if they had been, there is no sense in which becoming Christians would have made them immune to that danger.
Am I too assume that you think that they were not the intended receipients of the assurance? Here is what I see is going on in the futurist thinking. Since the partial preteterist futurist cannot take the words and the audience relevance throughout the Scriptures as being intended for the generation 2000 years ago then that person must substitute the logic and even flow of NT Scripture for a presupposition invented to secure that position taken.
On the day of judgment, some will face the wrath of God, and others will not. The first-century Thessalonian Christians, as well as every persevering Christian who has ever lived since them, including ourselves, have been delivered from that wrath to come by Jesus Christ.
I wrote:
1. If Paul died before AD 70, was he in error when he included himself in the reference to those who will be alive at the coming of Christ?
To which you replied:
Not in the sense that you may mean it. Paul did not know the day or the hour of that time but he did know it was going on in part. The man of lawlessness was known in that day and the persecution of the saints was underway. Paul understood his own life was going to be taken but there is no indication as to it not being by the time of the fall of Jerusalem.
So, if Paul did not know whether he would live to see the fall of Jerusalem, but talked as if he would (in 1 Thess.4), you would not say he was mistaken in his expectation? Then why would he be any more mistaken if he believed he might live to see the end of the cosmos, but similarly didn’t? My point is, regardless which of these two events he might have anticipated himself living to see, he did not live to see either of them. Why would the case of his statement about Timothy remaining pure until the appearing of Christ pose a different kind of case?
Your argument assumes the following—
a) Paul could not be mistaken;
b) Paul assured Timothy that he would live to see the appearing (second coming) of Jesus;
c) Timothy did not live to see some event that remains future in our time;
d) Therefore, Paul was talking about AD 70.
I am saying that the same line of reasoning would be equally valid if Paul’s name was put in the place of Timothy’s. However, since Paul did not live to see AD 70, Paul would be equally wrong if he affirmed that he would see either the fall of Jerusalem (your thesis) or the end of the cosmos (my thesis).
Thus both of our theses make Paul out to be mistaken—unless we omit point #b, as my position does. If Paul did not mean to affirm that either he nor Timothy would
necessarily live to see the event referenced, then he would not be vulnerable to the above criticism—but then, in such a case, neither would he provide any fodder for your thesis. This is my assertion. Paul was not making a guaranteed prediction, but expressing a hope that he, Timothy, and all Christians of all times can cherish.
I wrote:
2. What was there about AD 70 that made that event a significant date for Timothy to endure until in keeping himself pure?
We are not told, are we? But we are told that trials had come to the Church as a result of the evil influences around them. This allows little room to believe that these things were not taking place in their day. Verse after verse we find that Paul wrote concerning those things his readers were either about to face or had been facing.
Yes, he often did. But what Paul may
often have discussed need not be his subject in any particular discussion in question. Exegesis—not presupposition—must decide, case-by-case. The fact is (and I believe you would easily admit it, if you had no theological qualms about its implications) that there is no imaginable reason why Timothy should be exhorted to be pure only until AD 70. Whatever reasons there may be to remain pure would equally exist before and after that date. There is no use arguing otherwise. A shoehorn does not belong in the exegete's tool kit.
(1 Thessalonians 2:19) 19 For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming?
What is Paul saying here? Isn't Paul giving absolute assurance to those Thssalonians that there hope is in Christ Whom they will soon be standing in the presence of at His coming? It has to do with a promise of His coming.
Where does it say that they will “soon” be standing before Christ at His coming? Paul makes no suggestion of it here. Paul's statement would be true (and has always been regarded as true by Christians) regardless how distant the time of Christ’s coming might be. At Christ’s coming, whenever that may be, Paul will exult before God in the fruit of his efforts in Thessalonika. This is what he says, and it has no bearing on the question at issue in this thread—other than to undermine your position. After all, in what respect would Paul be especially gratified before God about his labors in Thessalonika in the year AD 70? By the way, if he was in fact referring to AD 70 as the time in which he would experience this joy, he was wrong again—since he died before then and did not have any special joy, more than at any other day after his death, when Jerusalem went down.
In [2 Thessalonians 1:6-10] we see several things(1) Relief for believers, (2) punishment for those causing affliction, (3) Christ's second coming with angels, and (4) Judgment. Paul says that these believers will experience relief when Christ is revealed. If Christ still hasn't returned then what good is this promised relief to the first century Thessalonians? Also, compare this verse to Matthew 16:27-28.
I do not have any assurance that Christ will come in my lifetime, yet I am encouraged by these verses. Why would it be otherwise for believers in the first century?
(Matthew 16:27-28) 27 "For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS. 28 "Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom."
I have written on this more than once, elsewhere on this forum.
A new question:
Jesus taught the parable of the tares and explained the event that would take place at the end of the age. The parable is found in Matthew 13 and is in part given here:
40 Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
Full-preterists notice that this is exactly the same discription of what we are told was to happen at the end of the age when the Son of Man will judge the nations which Jesus spoke of saying in Matthew 25:
31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy[c] angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.
I find many different judgment acts of God, against many nations, in various generations, described in near-identical language in the Old Testament (e.g., see the oracles against seven different nations in Amos 1-2, where in every instance, he says "I will send fire upon the wall of...and devour its palaces"). Why would God, in the New Testament, suddenly change His literary habits and switch over to a wooden and unwarranted narrowness in His use of common judgment language—resticting it, in every case, to a single event?
The reasoning defect that both futurists and full-preterists exhibit in their exegesis, is the inability to take passages case-by-case, in context, and to see that not every judgment passage is about the second coming (in the case of futurists) or about AD 70 (in the case of full-preterists).
During this same discourse Jesus was answering the question put to Him by 4 Disciples present with Him when they asked, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
My question is how is it that the partial preterist does not link these three passages together as being one and the same age and event?
Matthew 13, maybe. Maybe not. The jury is still out on that passage for me.
As for the other two, I am not of the opinion that “the end of the age,” (Matthew 24:3) is necessarily the same event as that described in Matthew 25. You may not find my reasons compelling, but you have certainly heard me say that I think the Olivet Discourse combines two different discourses, about two different events.
I do not find your challenges
challenging. In embracing full-preterism, I think, you have hitched your wagon to a dead horse. Unless you can recognize this, and admit it, I don’t think you will get very far down the road we are all seeking to travel toward the correct understanding of scripture.
