Quote:
Originally Posted by rayliotta
If I could pipe in here, I get the feeling that what everyone really wants to be able to say is, something like this, Anybody who claims to be "an apostle", surely is not, because a real apostle would never make such a claim about himself.
But, of course, we're kind of stopped in our tracks. Simply because the most famous apostle of them all did boldly, and with certainty, do just that -- he openly declared himself as an apostle.
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We can't be today like they were back 2000 years ago.
I'm not saying mythologies are dead today, but they certainly don't fill human minds like they did back 2000 years ago.
So apostles today can't be what apostles were back then, in Paul's day. Neither can the "signs wonders and miracles" be the same today.
We moderns don't so easily buy into such things, like people did back 2000 years ago.
If someone goes around today claiming signs wonders and miracles, people like James Randi will be on it like white on rice. Randi has a standing million dollar reward to anyone that can prove paranormal phenomena. He's had it for decades, and has busted and exposed fraud of, Christian faith healers left and right, and many others, that make such claims.
And they didn't have James Randi's back 2000 years ago. Their minds were way more superstitious than our minds today.
Examples :
1) Weather. Back 2000 years ago they thought God controlled the weather, and brought rains, floods, and droughts as punishment or reward.
Outside idiots like Michelle Bachmann, we don't believe God controls the weather. Not directly like they did back then (God controls everything in the end). We now know of weather systems. We can track them around the globe. We understand natural dynamics control the weather, not the hand of God. Today only the ignorant believe God directly controls the weather. And believe me, they were ignorant 2000 years ago. 90% couldn't read or write.
2) Earthquakes. Earthquakes are frightening. And they are powerful. So the natural inclination back 2000 years ago would be that they are caused by God. Only God could move the earth they would of course believe.
But today we don't see earthquakes as directly caused by God. We now have satellites tracking movements of the earth surface in inches, trying to predict and warn of earthquakes. We know that earthquakes are caused by shifting of Plate Tectonics.
And the list could go on and on, including the matter of the flat earth and the earth being the center of the universe.
And so too with the meaning of apostle and signs wonders and miracles. They are not going to mean the same thing today as they meant back 2000 years ago.
Try as we may, to put today's world in the same tapestry as back 2000 years ago, it is impossible. Not going to happen.
Today we will see anyone that claims to be an apostle as a possible cult leader, if not a real one.
Why do you think Lee's Recovery movement has been labelled a cult by so many, especially many ex-members of the LRC, who look upon their days in the local church as being in a cult that they came out of?