{"id":7460,"date":"2025-05-17T15:13:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T20:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/?p=7460"},"modified":"2025-05-17T15:13:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T20:13:35","slug":"end-times-teaching-one-more-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/?p=7460","title":{"rendered":"END-TIMES TEACHING ? &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; ONE MORE TIME"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m observing emphasis on avoiding trouble of the end times competing with evangelism to save people from hell.<br>So, I repeat warnings about some things I see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Honestly, I&#8217;m getting weary, even angry, over the super-learned teachers with every detail answer to every question, claiming it&#8217;s all so simple, with a verse for every detail&#8212;&#8220;just like this&#8221;.<br>So, where does that leave the rest of us who don&#8217;t get that &#8216;degree&#8217; of &#8216;education&#8217; ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Verses quoted&#8212;where do they come from ?, context ?&#8212;teachers don&#8217;t have time (or don&#8217;t want to waste time) to explain how each verse&#8217;s <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">context<\/span> fits the(ir) big picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How could I start from scratch&#8212;with my Bible only, explaining itself&#8212;to arrive at the same conclusions, same specifics, same detailed time-line, same answers for everything ?<br>How much study on my own would it take (overwhelming, insurmountable) ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is everyone like me to be left with limited options about teaching on end-times ?<br>People are going to take one of these:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; Pick a leader\/teacher (from the assortment out there that have each of their end-times time-lines nailed down) that sounds good, sounds like he might be right, sounds like he knows more than I can ever learn from my own Bible study, that gives me a clear picture to hold on to&#8212;because &#8216;Lord Knows&#8217; how scary and complicated things are getting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>OR,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; (less likely) Diligently, fervently read my Bible (disengaging what I&#8217;ve heard from high education, from logic combined with Scripture, from frequent &#8220;I think&#8221; included, from &#8220;It&#8217;s simple, this way&#8221;), until I&#8217;m satisfied.<br>Satisfied that I have answers from my own study.<br>Satisfied that it&#8217;s okay to have remaining questions unanswered ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>OR,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212; (more likely) &#8216;Check out&#8217;, get off the frenzied bandwagon of saturated talk that everybody&#8217;s supposed to be on because the end is near.<br>The excitement is wearing off, wearing down, losing my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The &#8216;answer for every question&#8217; scholars sure sound like it&#8217;s not okay, or not necessary, to still have questions&#8212;just ask them, and they&#8217;ll tell you.<br>Example:  Descriptions of our roles on earth, with unimaginable detail&#8212;after it&#8217;s all over from the bad stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>+ <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Logic<\/span><br>I hear basic premises about rapture, etc., using logic to determine the way it has to be.<br>Just listening, I&#8217;m not so sure, with just the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>+ <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Rationale<\/span><br>Reasoning seems pervasive, using verses to say it must mean this, and then building on that assumption to figure out everything else.<br>Building on . . ., building on . . ., rushing on to boatloads of exciting details, without taking <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">time<\/span> on the foundation&#8212;time to let the Bible itself carry its own weight.<br>Seems to me the interpretations outweigh the Bible&#8212;<br>Is that not true for most listeners ?<br>Following the teacher seems more important than &#8220;searching the Scriptures daily to see if those things were so, that were taught them.&#8221;<br>Seems it&#8217;s not kosher, polite, respectful, acceptable, . . ., to question the teacher who &#8216;obviously&#8217; knows much more than the rest of us.<br>What if the teacher is not as right as he appears or claims ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>+ <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">I think<\/span><br>Almost unnoticed in much end-time teaching is the frequent use of &#8220;I think&#8221; in answering questions.<br>At least they&#8217;re being a little honest, but the typical listener caught up in the scholarly answers does not pause to reflect and question, because he might miss something if he stops to think.<br>Most teaching proceeds with such a rapid pace, that listeners can&#8217;t stop to ask questions (by design perhaps, for that reason ?).<br>What a far cry from Billy Graham sounding out, &#8220;The Bible Says&#8221; over and over and over.<br>THAT GAVE HIS MESSAGE POWER ! ! !<br>Graham never said, &#8220;I think&#8221; in his messages&#8212;that weakens and dilutes what anyone has to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>+ <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Consensus of theologians<\/span><br>If you have the clear authority of the Word of God behind you, you don&#8217;t have to refer to what most theologians say.<br>When does opinion of man, even a majority, ever validate a message from the Bible ?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m observing emphasis on avoiding trouble of the end times competing with evangelism to save people from hell.So, I repeat warnings about some things I see. Honestly, I&#8217;m getting weary, even angry, over the super-learned teachers with every detail answer to every question, claiming it&#8217;s all so simple, with a verse for every detail&#8212;&#8220;just like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,7,9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","category-faith_based","category-inspire_lifter","category-political-cultural","category-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7461,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460\/revisions\/7461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}