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NASB | Obadiah 1:2 "Behold, I will make you small among the nations; You are greatly despised. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Obadiah 1:2 ¶ "Behold [Edom], I shall [humiliate you and] make you small among the nations; You are greatly despised. [Ezek 35] |
Subject: Does God judge nations directly? |
Bible Note: Hello DocTrinsograce; Please forgive my barging in on this discussion but I would like to add my 1 cent. This is a topic of great interest to me. I agree with much of what you stated. I’ve read many of your posts and have appreciated them greatly. I come to have a lot of respect for your views. “The Bible is a message from God. Many things have happened to human beings since our first parents came into being. Yet, of all those things, God specifically chose only a small set of events to record. I am certain that each of these events actually took place, and yet they reflect the truth on many different levels. A God like ours can arrange these things without any trouble at all. Thus, a statement of Isaiah, for example, can be a message to the people of his own time, to the people of a few generations later, to the people of the time of the Advent, as well as to us today.” About this next one I have a question. ”On the other hand, one has to be careful of not over spiritualizing things. If we don't have the explicit authority from scripture to spiritualize a narrative, we must not presume on the scriptures themselves. We can speculate, as long as we firmly understand that that is what we are doing. Speculation should never be the basis for determining doctrine.” What is “Explicit authority (from scripture) to spiritualize a narrative”? I don’t believe you mean that the scripture has to actually say “It’s OK to spiritualize here” but who determines what can be spiritualized and what cant? If you look in Matt 2:15 “He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON." The context of Hosea 11:1 which Matt quotes is clearly regarding Israel yet Matthew (inspired by the Holy Spirit) spiritualizes it to refer to Jesus. In Gen 22 regarding Abraham sacrificing his son, the real context is God testing Abraham’s faith yet everyone I know spiritualizes this to be a prefiguration or similitude (I love that word “similitude”) of God the Father sacrificing Jesus. Yet I don’t know of any scripture that indicates it can be or has been spiritualized in this way by any of the apostles or disciples. Perhaps you know of one? So who is to determine which scriptures can be spiritualized or interpreted as a prefiguration or similitude? Have you ever given a scripture to a group of people and then asked, ”What this does this scripture mean?” How many different answers did you get? I’ve gotten several. Does it mean there are all wrong? It depends on how the Lord is using that particular scripture to influence that person. I myself have received “revelation” about myself or the way God deals with me or situations from scriptures that are not related to the context of what I was revealed. I do not regard such “revelations” as being the interpretation of the scripture though, just something God is dealing with me personally about nor would I teach it. I would agree with you concerning the example of the preacher you heard. The context of the passage does not lead itself to his conclusion. However, I can not say the Holy spirit has reveal to him something that is not true. The idea that the gospel has been given to the gentiles after the Jews (for the most part) rejected it is solid. It just isn’t supported by the scripture he used. Again the danger would be if he insisted that this was the real context and meaning of that scripture. This is perhaps one of the main reasons churches split. Because someone gets a personal revelation from God from a particular scripture, and instead of taking it as God dealing with something in their own life they claim it as the real interpretation. A “New revelation for the church.” When nobody sees what he sees he leaves trying to take as many with him as possible. Interestingly enough the “New revelation “ usually become the main doctrine of the new church that is established, sometimes to the exclusion of real foundational doctrines. I have no problem with spiritualizing scripture as long as it is being rightly divided, i.e. rightly assigned to “personal revelation” or God dealing with you on a personal level and not to true context and doctrine. I hope I’ve explained myself well enough to be understood. Although I think I confused myself. Blessing to you Aaron |