In the grand scheme of the biblical story,
The apostles spoke and wrote as they did, and asked the question they did, because they knew nothing of Church eras. But the greater question we never asked, and that is, did Christ?Christ is still waiting, and has been waiting for thousands of years. Sixty-five years waiting to find out about Church eras is a kind of a short wait. He said 2,000 years ago, He didn’t know when the Kingdom would begin. He’s still waiting. Now, we could suppose, I guess, at some point along the line the Father told Him…if the Father knows.
What will happen if you rely upon
Dave Pack, Bob Thiel, Gerald Weston and Gerald Flurry
to tell you when Jesus is returning.
The reason Jesus has been clueless on Church eras is because they don't exist and the Letters to the Seven Churches of Revelation are not and never were meant to be taken as such. It's all made up with hunt and peck through history "facts" to fill in the story one wants to tell with imaginary connections and playdough.
ReplyDeleteThe Book of Revelation, as all prophetic rants are meant for the people of the time in which they are given. They are for near future "we hope so"s. No one is encouraged or inspired by something being long into the future and not for them.
And as with any number of major prophecies uttered by the major prophets, they simply did not happen ever as pre-dicted. They also aren't types or dual. That's also just made up to keep things that should have been long forgotten going for the next generation to assure their followers means them, which it doesn't either.
Without prophecy falsely so called, the COGs would have no foundation and it's wood, hay and stubble.
Bob Thiel makes a fool out of himself every time there is a change of President and writes amazingly stupid and merely empty speculative ideas about why there is prophetic significance to this next guy, when there also is not.
sad... :) (I learned that from our glorious POTUS)
PS I seriously doubt that even a glorified Jesus could sit around "waiting eagerly" for anything for 2000 years asking, "Now Dad....Is it now... Huh? Can I go now? Puuuuulease!!!!!! I'm bored!"
ReplyDeleteHeaven was invented I'm sure to take the angst out of waiting for the Second Coming and being able to check in immediately upon death, no waiting.
After HWA decided the letters to the churches were actually "eras", well whaddyaknow, he managed to find the church *he* founded as being the "era" with only good things said about it (Smyrna isn't specifically criticized but is described as being poor and afflicted which didn't fit HWAs style).
ReplyDeleteAnd also it made the brethren feel good to believe that we were the "good church era".
Why do so many people waste their time waiting for the return of Jesus when there is no historical evidence that Jesus ever existed in the first place?
ReplyDeleteOver at The Painful Truth, we covered the discussion of church eras back in October 2012, pointing out that it was NOT an original idea of Herbert Armstrong (did he have ANY?), but it was of Ellen G. White.
ReplyDeleteThe reason that Christ has not returned is because God the Father hasn't told him yet when he's supposed to and God doesn't know, since Herbert Armstrong neglected to tell God before he died and now it's too late.
It's a Catch-22: Herbert Armstrong didn't tell God when the return of Christ was to be, Herbert died, God could ask him if he were to be resurrected, but Herbert Armstrong won't be resurrected before Christ's return.
So God is stuck, Jesus can't return and God doesn't know how He can solve the problem without breaking something.
Ed wrote:
ReplyDelete"when there is no historical evidence that Jesus ever existed in the first place?"
It seems rather difficult to believe that a personage would be invented out of whole cloth a mere 40 yrs after his purported death, when people would still be alive to be able to say yay or nay.
And add to that the fact that the majority of scholars certainly accept that he existed as a person.
Not to mention Occam's razor, that the simplest explanation (that someone lived, taught, trained disciples and got executed (not the resurrection part of course)) that explains the evidence is most likely... Otherwise things get rather complicated, you have to have numerous people claiming to have met and talked with him (unless the disciples are also fictitious...), probably a greater feat than people of that time would tend to be able to muster.
All true observations, Michael.
DeleteOne of the aspects of Armstrongism that I left behind was the propensity to use conspiracy theories to rationalize and explain things that could otherwise not be understood. Without realizing it, some people who have left Armstrongism apparently still find the use of conspiracy theories to be logical, plausable, and acceptable. Only, instead of Simon Magus corrupting early Christians and morphing them into the Catholic Church, they turn instead towards an even more massive conspiracy theory that has the Catholic Church actually inventing Jesus.
Gotta go with the majority of historians on this one. What an individual chooses to do from that point is highly variable.
BB
It's amazing how powerless God is these days, in the face of the Armstrongists.
ReplyDeleteEd....shush! lol That's too much to contemplate here
ReplyDeleteByker Bob wrote:
ReplyDelete"Without realizing it, some people who have left Armstrongism apparently still find the use of conspiracy theories to be logical, plausable, and acceptable."
I suppose that's true, given that we were taught week after week how Satan was the god of this world truly running things behind the scenes. The ultimate conspiracy?
Not to say that conspiracies never take place of course, just that there's no need to invoke one if it can be otherwise explained.
(And the sad state of the world is easily attributable to human greed and selfishness, no need to invoke a Satan pulling the strings)
Armstrongism predicted that there was a specific time for Jesus to return, in spite of the fact that Jesus Himself said that even He did not know. Who amongst us would suppose that Jesus would be unfamiliar with basic math, if math were the governing factor? What we witness instead, is that God is pragmatic rather than arbitrary. The return of Jesus is based on a point being reached where completely irredeemable conditions exist, not upon a time-space continuum which bounds humanity, but does not apply to members of the deity.
ReplyDeleteArmstrongism always preached about these irredeemable circumstances, but rather than observe them as they progressed in a natural course, they attempted to make them fit some math, or a fixed timeline. This error (?) is what gave Armstrongism its sense of urgency or hook, its ability to manipulate.
BB
One of the silliest remarks I've read about ministerial excuses was that God had to change the time for Christ's return because HWA had figured it out...
ReplyDeleteJesus obviously read PCG and RCG lit on how it all will be
ReplyDeleteironic post considering this is the eve of the biblical new year (jerusalem time), and will be exactly 3 1/2 years from the time i suspect Christ will Return...
ReplyDelete"waste their time waiting for the return of Jesus" someone wrote? We are not to be passively waiting, but using our gifts, fulfilling the great commission. Waiting does not suggest being passive, wasting our lives.
ReplyDelete