Partial Rapture And Dispensational Punishment

[aron]

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Originally Posted by OBW

...it would seem that the more important thing to note is that the goal of all of such references is to move those who might appear to be falling toward the wrong end of the parables/metaphors to take corrective action. In other words, no matter what might actually be, the choice is to move in the right direction — either because you just are, or because you are chided into action due to concerns about the alternatives..

It seems this way to me as well. The "this means that" and "it is so clear" schools of thought have a place, but it's more circumscribed than they might wish. The only hard-and-fast is to confess Jesus, love one's fellow (in deed and not merely in word), and keep oneself unstained by the world. All that seems abundantly clear.

What confuses and discourages the youngsters is when they feel impressed upon to swallow wholecloth a system of thought that's fraying at the edges. So they either shrug and say, "Well, I guess it's a thousand years of darkness for me, then" or they reject God in toto, associating it with these unending veils of entanglement.

When really the charge all along was to love. Believe, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.