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If you read some history, I remember in history class that the professor said the church's members in those countries where it was established were universally expecting the second coming of Jesus in A.D. 1,000. There are some passages in Revelation that give us the clues about its symbolic...

Rev 20:1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. Rev 20:2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, Rev 20:3 and threw him into the pit, and shut...

You're right, @Lamb, but I'm talking about the preacher's responsibility and task to preach God's Word, Listeners also have a responsibility (Ezekiel 33).

Your first sentence threw me off, @brightfame52. What are you denying and what are you saying? You need to follow Paul's whole argument in this chapter to get his full meaning. Also, you keep saying things about all those "for whom Christ died." Are you saying that Christ died for everyone and...

You say that you have done some reading. I suggest that you read the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. Let some of your ideas change because of the Bible's truths. For example, when you read Job 1 and 2, you discover that God controlled Satan's every move, when the latter had to ask God...

What I'm saying is that the vast variety of people and their needs makes the preacher's task impossible to apply the Word to all the listeners. The listeners must do the application for themselves by seeking the Holy Spirit's filling. Sadly, many don't.

You say that those events haven't happened yet. Maybe, you're right, or we haven't interpreted them correctly. Perhaps, the "1,000 years" don't depict a literal time; 10x10x10 has 10, which is a complete number, just as three is. Revelation is full of symbolic numbers, things, and events. A few...

No, @Frankj, I taught English for 8 years; you have to realize that Jesus' parables are fictional stories told to demonstrate truths, like the short stories or fables you read and learned about in English class. He was telling a story to make a point, not lying. When Jesus talked about the...

In our huge church, the preacher does the impossible task of preaching for new Christians as well as mature Christians. My small group has the latter people. However, he challenges us with God's Word, and I tell my group that we all must apply God's Word for ourselves, because I know as a...

No, @SetFree, he did tell us, but his words are open to interpretations, of which there are five major ones of the Book of Revelation. We need to understand one another, though we disagree, according to the law of love and its explanation of it in the principles of Romans 14

I completely agreed with you until you said that the 1,000 years is yet future. Since Revelation 19 ends with Jesus' second coming, I think that the symbolic 1,000 years is the present age between Jesus' two comings, when Satan is prevented from keeping the gospel from spreading, and that...

I agree with you, @SetFree, that there are a lot of false ideas floating around in churches. When I started looking for churches because my church that I attended for a dozen years didn't really believe in reaching out to unbelievers, my biblical antennae went up when I listened to sermons. The...

During my 66 years of reading and studying God's Word, @SetFree, out of my 82 years, I have learned to interpret the Bible according to its own assumptions and meanings, not by someone else's ideas that he imposes on Scripture. For example, I heard that the idea of the rapture up to heaven was...

Those who truly believe are righteous in God's sight but not perfectly sinless. Satan does miracles too. True believers know the difference between God's miracles and the evil one's miracles. You can't necessarily use Lazarus as an example; he's in a parable, and Jesus tells the story to...

We'll see how the Father fulfills the prophecies unless he calls us home first.

Okay. We can agree to disagree.

As a Reformed Christian, I see that the whole issue of interpretation hinges on the word "foreknew" in Romans 8:29-30: Rom 8:29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Rom 8:30 And...

@Josiah, the way Paul uses the word "justification," especially in Romans, the term comes from the law courts, where a Judge justifies a person by declaring him "not guilty" and he is set free from punishment, as follows: Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Rom...

@Stephen, Matthew omits details and includes others, as all four gospel writers do, because he writes to a different audience from a different viewpoint compared to the other three writers. We can't always tell what those differences are, but his emphases for his Jewish Christian audience are...

It depends on what parts of the Bible you are talking about, @SetFree. When we talk about the teaching and historical passages, our study should come to the same conclusions, and we can learn from each other. However, prophetic passages about the future and unique ones are open to different...