12th Meeting Discussion Continued.

I have been quoting the words of Jesus lately; and I have been thinking maybe I should talk a little about the differences in the teachings of Paul and of Jesus.

When Saul/Paul had his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus; something happened to Saul to make him become Paul. Lets look at this a little more closely. When Saul became Paul, he did not throw out everything he learned about the Old Testament. It was this knowledge of the Old Testament that helped him witness to the Greeks. The Greeks had access to the Old Testament Scriptures written in Greek in the form of the Septuagint authorized by Alexander the Great 323 B.C. It is this form of the Old Testament that Paul quotes from most.

Paul's letters to the Thessalonians were written from Corinth after Paul had taught in Thessalonica. Why would Paul write letters to the Thessalonians after he had taught there? The answer is that they did not understand what Paul had taught them. The first letter was to correct their misunderstanding that when Jesus comes only the alive in Christ will be caught up.
Notice no mention of when this would take place. Paul continues by saying that the dead in Christ or believers would rise first and then the alive in Christ. Paul thought that this letter made all the corrections; then Paul hears from Timothy that they still have not got it right. This was the reason for the second letter. Paul had to write the second letter because they now believed the persecution they were going through had to be the time of the tribulation; so they stopped working and went to the hills around the city to wait for the Return of Jesus Christ. Paul then tried to explain to them how the tribulation would be much worse than what they are going through now.

Jesus taught that the student is never above the teacher; I don't think Paul ever forgot this. This brings us up to the question, did Jesus ever say anything about end times? The answer is of course the Olivet Discourse, and several parables. I mentioned one in my discussion of Revelation chapter 14. The parable of the 10 virgins is another of these teachings on end times.

Do you remember the Road to Emmaus? Jesus appeared to two of his disciples on the road, they did not recognize Him, and He opened the Scriptures to them starting with Moses and all the prophets explaining to them how they witnessed about Him. Which scriptures did Jesus use? The New Testament as we know it was yet to be written at this time.

The Old Testament Prophets taught on the great and terrible Day of the Lord. I remember reading this as a young boy and wondered how one day could be both great and terrible. As I kept on reading the Bible and growing up I came to realize that depending where you stand on that day determines which it is, either great or terrible.

You notice on the right hand side of my blog are Bible verses, soon to grow. These are there for a reason, to remind me what is right and what is not. Jesus said "I came not to do away with the law and the prophets, but to fulfill. Every yot and tiddle every dot of the "i" and every cross of the "t" will be fulfilled." I believe that the Bible can never mean what it never meant. I stole this from Gordon Fee and his book "Reading the Bible for all its worth". This book is worth its place in your bookcase.

I believe that you have to know all the signs, before you can have an understanding of how it will go. "Trust and Obey" and "God is still on the Throne".