19 May 08
Originally posted by kiki46So how does that integrity work regarding what Jesus said in Matthew? He seems to be predicting the second coming within 100 years or so. At the very least one can say that is was not unreasonable at all for the disciples to think that was what he was saying. Even the translator of the Good News Bible felt that this was what he was indeed saying and translated this verse accordingly. Therefore , it seems that Jesus could be accused of being , shall we say , incredibly "clumsy" in his words???
All 0f God's plans that are revealed in scripture are meant to be understood by means of the Holy Spirit; but all of God's plans are not revealed. That is where faith in the integrity of God comes in.
20 May 08
Originally posted by kiki46If identity was not a transitive relation, this would simply be bizarre and not contradictory.
The second coming of Christ could have occured in any generation after the cross.They were told to be aware of this and teach it. Christ in His humanity did not know the exact time. In His deity He knows all things as the Father and the Holy Spirit.
20 May 08
As the unique person of the universe Christ retained both human and divine natures without compromise. Prophecy can have both near and far fulfillment. The near fulfillment of Matthew 24 was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. by the Romans. The far fulfillment of this prophecy will occur at the second advent of Christ, time unknown. Christ is God .The Bible is the mind of Christ,1 cor. 2: 16. Christ is not clumsy in word or deed. We are clumsy many times in both interpretation and application.
21 May 08
Originally posted by kiki46This is in error. The 1st Corinthians text does not say the Bible is the mind of Christ. Move back a few verses:
The Bible is the mind of Christ,1 cor. 2: 16.
>> 1st Corinthians 2:12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 13 And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. 14 Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else's scrutiny. 16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
You could move back further still without changing the context. The “mind of Christ” here is the spiritual (“spiritized”?) mind—the mind that is in harmony with and perceives the logos tou theou. And there is no passage (including 2nd Peter 1:20-21 and 2nd timothy 3:14-17) that identifies the logos tou theou with the Bible. To equate God’s logos with the Biblical texts (OT or NT) is an idolatry that the early church was aware of and avoided. One might say that the Biblical texts (properly interpreted) reflect the divine logos, but that is all.
22 May 08
Originally posted by kiki46John 1:1 In [or with or within] the beginning [arche] was thelogos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God. 2. He [or “this/that one”; outos] was in [with/within] the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being [“were begotten”; egeneto] through by/by means of [dia him, and without him not one thing came into being [“was begotten”]. What has come into being 4. in [with/within] him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
John 1: 1-3
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Logos is a word rich in meaning—including “meaning.” Conventionally translated as “word,” it also means principle, pattern, reason, meaning, deliberation, truth—as well as various terms of discourse. In Chinese Bibles it is translated as “Tao”—the Way. An example might be to speak of the logos of the grain of wood in a particular kind of tree: a forester can tell by the grain what kind of tree the wood came from, but the grain of each individual tree is also unique.
Greek Orthodox bishop and theologian John D. Zizioulas writes: “The problem which the use of the term logos as ‘word’ for Christ created in the early church show how dangerous the application to Christology of the notion of ‘word’ as spoken or written can be. As a reaction against Sabelleianism and Arianism, the Fathers were forced to deny entirely any association of these two senses of logos and thus replace definitely the connotation of spoken or written word with that of the person exclusively.” (Being as Communion, p. 190.)
I leave logos untranslated.
