Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Week 8 Posts

Tyler, place your initial posts here, and then we will all comment on your topics.

16 comments:

Tyler Owens said...

The title of my book is THE NEW TESTAMENT:ITS BACKGROUND AND MESSAGE. The authors are Thomas D. Lea and David Alan Black. The chapters for the final week are;

23. The Epistle of Jude

24. The Revalation

This week is gonig to be fun.

Tyler

Tyler Owens said...

Chapter twenty three talks about the epistle of Jude. The author claims to be the brother of James. The debate is which James it is. Most scholars don't think that it si the son of Zededee, but James the brother of Jesus. I guess that Jude didn't want his epistle to glorify himself in the fact that he was Jesus' brother, but to glorify Jesus. The book is similar to 2 Peter in that it really warns against false teachers.

Tyler

Dr. Randy Carney said...

The most common view, at least in the past, was that Jude was the brother of James and Jesus.

Tyler Owens said...

One word that I saw a few times in my reading was eschatology. I thought that it meant "belief system" when I firs read it. I had already looked it up in the dictionary before the first posts about being a word detective. It means; a system of doctrines concerning final matters such as death, the judgement, and the future. I will try to use the word detective method from now on.

Tyler

Dr. Randy Carney said...

Tyler, your thoughts about eschatology will work. You thought of "belief system." Did you find a dictionary meaning that was close to yours. If so, what (generally speaking) was it?

Dr. Randy Carney said...

You don't always have to use the method, but I do want us to be familiar with it and have some experience with how it works.

Dr. Randy Carney said...

Duh--Sorry about that question about the dictionary. I see that you already mentioned it in your post. That is what I was talking about. You actually used the method. You guessed what it meant. You were close. Just more general. More clues were the suffix "-ology" which refers to the study of something--like biology which is the study of life. So, eschatology is a belief system that talks about the study of the last days or end times.
That counts for the first exercise.

Pick out another one and do a similar exercise with it.

Tyler Owens said...

Another word that I found early in my course was amanuensis. once again, I looked it up before we started discussing the method of "word detective". I thought that it may have meant someone who wrote the word on paper for the author. When I looked it up, that happened to be what it actually was. Lucky guess. That usually doesn't happen to me that often.

Tyler

Tyler Owens said...

The last chapter is entitled THE REVELATION. It discusses many things about the last book of the Bible. One is the authorship of the letter, most people agree that the Apostle John wrote it, but some think that it may have been another person named John. I disagree with this idea. There are a lot of similar things in Revelation to the gospel of John. This is the only book that has three different genres in it. The opening verse sounds like an apocalypse, it also states that it is a prophesy, but it is written in the form of a letter. There are also four different types of interpretations to the book. They are; preterist, idealist, historicist, and futurist. I would have to say that I am a futurist.

Tyler

Tyler Owens said...

I also wanted to add some more input about the book of Revelation. The book that I am reading discusses the terms premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism. Postmillennialism is the belief that Jesus will return at the end of the millenium. This is not the thousand year reign that we know, but rather a symbol for a period of human progress. Amillenialism is the belief that the thousand year reign is a symbol for Christ's present reign at the right hand of power and the millenium is this period of time when the gospel is spread so freely. Premillennialism is the belif that Jesus will come before the tribulation in the rapture and that the thousand year reign is an actual, physical reign on earth. I have to say that I am a premillenialist.

Tyler

sremery said...

The book of Revelation definitely stands out among the rest of books of the Bible. I haven't really studied a whole lot on the Pre or Post trib. I know I've heard it mentioned a lot. I guess I've always looked at it as something that hasn't happened yet. It can get you in deep thought, I think of God & time, I found C.S. Lewis' thoughts on time interesting in which he said God is present in all time. Meaning he's seeing you born right now, he's seeing you right now reading this, and he's seeing you die right now. I know that might have come from left field but its something that come up in my thinking. Ultimately what I get from Revelation is that you had better be ready now. And I always love hearing the verse where there wont be a need for the Sun, because Jesus will be the light.

Dr. Randy Carney said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr. Randy Carney said...

An amanuensis, based on my memory, was someone like a secretary who wrote down the words for another person. The one doing the dictating was the actual author. Your dictionary definition seemed to match that.

Dr. Randy Carney said...

I just had to correct all the typing errors I saw when this comment published.

While some denominations seem to camp at one or the other view, Free Will Baptists have historically included some amillenialists and some premillenialists. Among premeillenialists, they have included those who held to pre-trib, mid-trib, and post trib views. I don't know if we have any mid-trib people in my congregationl, but I do know we have some who, at least in the past, have held to an amillenial view, some pre-trib, and some post-trib. One of our preachers described himself as a pre-trib hopeful, and a mid-trib believer.
In our church, we respect each other, try to listen to each other and feel free to express our views. I try to look for applications that could come from any of the views, but I try to make sure the applications are also taught by other passages of Scripture besides the Book of Revelation. Others may decide to adamantly present their views, but they would do well to do so with grace and respect for others with whom they might disagree.

Some say they are "pan-millenialists." They think everything will "pan out in the end." That's not really a millenial view, but the idea can remind us of the main thing, which is that Jesus is coming again, and that every believer should be ready.

Tyler Owens said...

Randy- I liked your last post. I think that it is important to study views other than what we might believe. I also think that it is neat that there are so many different opinions even among the same denomination. Some people that I have talked to are afraid of the book of Revelation, but we as Christians should take comfort in the fact that Jesus is coming back. We are united in that fact. Someone once told me that "its alright to disagree, just don't be disagreeable about it". I really try to take that to heart. Even though we may disagree about things, we can't disagree that Jesus is the way, truth, and the life.

Tyler

Dr. Randy Carney said...

Tyler, remember to do the word exercises and to do your course wrap up.

You have done an excellent job so far in this course!