Time is Different?

I’m glad someone mentioned this one;


I’ll let SufferingServant answer this one – he’s done so much more Bible study than I have 🙂
The way I look at it is that in God’s time, his time span is different to ours. To us, a day is a long time (depending on what day of the week it is!) but to him it is but a milli-blip in eternity. So ‘soon’ to him could be ‘quite a long time’ for us. Does that make sense?

That may be true indeed – but if it is then it throws a question over Genesis. Bible study that I’ve indulged in recently is claiming that God created the earth in 7 literal days. The Young Earth theorists have us believe that the planet is not 2 billion years old but in fact closer to 6000 years old.

So which is it?

But let’s say both are correct – the teachings of Paul (and incidentally James) both disagree starkly with Jesus Himself, who stated that only the Father knows the time of his return. Are we to believe that The Father, who would not tell even the Son when he would return, should have changed his mind and told Paul and James – and then done so ambiguously?

Seems to me that Paul and James should have stuck to the story. Then we would not even be going over this.

Is not one of the tests of false prophets to examine what they say and see if it came true? In this case, it definitely did not.

This leads me back to where I was the other week. I can believe in Jesus, and I can accept the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John because they were there and were re-counting what Jesus had done. I am very very doubtful about Paul, and even the other apostles books. After all, in the first four books the apostles are always getting told off by Jesus for getting things wrong. Did they suddenly start getting them right when they wrote their letters? I doubt it. Count how many times Jesus said ‘Get away from me Satan’ to the apostles and see what I mean. But I’d like to be shown where I’ve gone wrong 🙂

4 comments

  1. I’ll let SufferingServant answer this one – he’s done so much more Bible study than I have 🙂

    The way I look at it is that in God’s time, his time span is different to ours. To us, a day is a long time (depending on what day of the week it is!) but to him it is but a milli-blip in eternity. So ‘soon’ to him could be ‘quite a long time’ for us. Does that make sense?

  2. I had one of my professors explain to our class that the return of Christ wouldn’t be an actual return of the person, but rather an evolution of mankind into a world of Christ-like people, where our concerns and attentions would be on caring for each other, and we would shun the selfishness that is so much a part of the human nature. He explained that this "return of Christ" would be thousands of years in the future, and that the apostles proclamations were intended to be in reference to generations rather than days, weeks or years.

    I had to wonder at that, as a generation is averaged to be 40 years, so a few generations would be 120 to 200 years.

    Still, the message makes more sense in reference to generations rather shorter spans of time.

    Alli

  3. Now that is something else I struggle to comprehend, too – the creation of the earth and all in it in 6 literal days (the 7th being the day of rest). Is it 24 literal hours our time or God’s time? I await with interest to hear what our other scholars have found 🙂

    Sometimes the easiest thing for me day to day is to just accept Christ and God and trust in our salvation. That will give us the peace to live out the rest of our lives here in a better way. After all, it won’t be until we actually die when we find out the truth one way or the other.

    Have you read Revelations yet? That was written by Paul too, he was supposedly taken up to heaven and saw the end days and came back to write about it. It is a matter of debate where we are up to in the end times.

    Another debate is the view of end times – futurist or historic. Futurist being that we are taken away to the new heaven and earth. Historic being that we are left behind ‘as in the days of Noah’ (remember he and his family and select animals survived while everyone else on the earth perished).

    There is a series of ‘fictional’ books being written by a couple of Christian scholars (La Hayes and Jenkins if I’m correct) called ‘Left Behind’ about what will happen in the end times which will give you something else to think about altogether!

    I’m sorry if I gave you another headache 🙂

  4. I struggle too at times when it comes to reading the Bible. I have to remember that the other "books" of the Bible are being written with regard to what is happening at the time and not what was happening during Jesus’s life time.

    LOL@ your addendum – you mean people really want you to help them?

    Have a great day!

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