Quote:
Originally Posted by Nell
Revelation 1:3
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
Significance to your living today aside, hearing the words of prophecy is hardly a dead horse, since we are charged to read and hear the words and keep these words ...why? "...for the time is at hand". If you listen to the news today, why not listen to the words of the prophets? Their message seems to be a “heads up"!
Nell
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An exercise in missing the point.
I did not say that I have no desire to read it. Or hear it. Or that anyone else should do neither. I said that reading it with a decoder ring — any decoder ring — to figure out the details of what all those types and figures mean is an exercise in missing the point.
I find it interesting that there is no charge to figure out who the sheep and the goats are. And it would appear that we are not put in charge of separating sheep from goats. That is God's job. I realize that if it is as simple as seeing fluffy, wooly sheep and relatively lean, scruffy, horned goats, then we could do it. But the clear distinction must not be so obvious because we don't just separate ourselves. Or help God with the task.
Not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Revelation is a complex view of both the "long game" and the "end game" in terms that are designed to keep us alert. Not for the purpose of giving us a chance to make an A+ in metaphor deciphering, but for the purpose of ensuring we are ready when our time comes. That may be at the actual end-times (whenever that happens) or when each of us dies in whatever way we leave this sphere.
And being ready is not about knowing the apocryphal prophecies found in Revelation, but in being spurred on to live the life we have been reborn to live. And Revelation is part of what spurs us on. Not the timing of the "rapture" or the position on figurative v literal understanding of things, but the realization that there is a cosmic war that is going on and will go on until it is all over and that we have a choice where we will ultimately find ourselves in that war.
And what we can do about it is to go back to the roots of our calling and live this life with the next in mind.