Quote:
Originally Posted by A little brother
The keywords here are "The Lord does not delay" and your argument was God's return can be delayed. Simple as that.
I am just so tired of the LC usual way of twisting the scripture to support its own argument instead of accepting the plain truth as stated. It was quite like the serpent saying "Did God really say,..." to Eve.
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"the Lord does not delay" is primarily addressed to mockers who said that Jesus was tardy/slack in coming back. So the part you have interpreted as "the Lord does not delay" means "the Lord is not tardy/slack", as it is rendered in a number of Bible versions. It does not mean, that the Lord's return does not depend upon us. Because the second part of the verse says it does.
It's all explained here:
http://biblehub.com/commentaries/2_peter/3-9.htm
I'll start with Ellicott:
By “is not slack is meant “does not delay beyond the time appointed.” There is no dilatoriness; He waits, but is never slow, is never late.
Gill says there was a delay:
some men began to charge God with slackness and dilatoriness; whereas the true reason of the delay of it was, that there might be time for the gathering in of his elect among them by his angels, or apostles and ministers, sent into the several parts of Judea, that so none of them might perish,
So Paul explained that Jesus is not tardy, but is purposefully taking time to come back because he wants to give everyone a chance to repent. In response to the mockers saying Jesus was slack, Paul was saying that there was a good reason for Christ's delay. Whichever way we look at it, Christ was delaying His return so that everyone gets a chance to repent.
Now a prevalent doctrine in Evangelical Christianity is that Christ will not return
until the gospel is preached to the whole world based on Matt 24:14. Many gospel preaching groups are trying their hardest to preach the gospel so that Christ will come back soon. So clearly it is not just the Recovery which believes that Christs return is dependent to some extent on His people.
Also, we have 2 Peter 3:12 which says we can hasten Christ's return.
Unfortunately we cannot discuss this topic without getting into Calvinism. If you are a Calvinist that believes God does everything then I guess there's not much humans can do. But if there is any responsibility on man's part regarding man's repentance or gospel preaching then the simple fact is that Christ's return can be shortened or lengthened by man's actions.
But given God is present in eternity future I am sure that whatever mankind does is already known. So from His point of view, Christ's return is at the perfect time, but from our point of view it looks like a lengthening or a shortening of time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by A little brother
So now there are good early churches and bad early churches? Why then "early" should matter at all? Shouldn't we just be a good church?
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The "early" matters because at that time real churches still existed, you know, before they became sects/denominations.