(March 11, 2015 at 9:39 am)watchamadoodle Wrote:(March 10, 2015 at 11:34 pm)Godschild Wrote: Can I ask why you disagree?My understanding is that early Christians expected the Parousia/Kingdom of Heaven within their lifetimes. One of Paul's letters addresses concerns that Christians who die beforehand would not enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven. The practical concerns of running an human church don't belong. So that alone should make a person suspicious about Matthew 18:21-22 IMO. (I actually became suspicious of those verses when I was a teenager. It didn't sound like Jesus to me.)
Also I have a lot of respect for Geza Vermes, and I was quoting his book. Here is some info on Vermes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9za_Vermes
Paul mistakenly though the Kingdom to come soon, but saw he was wrong. Paul also spoke many times of the resurrection of the dead. The present kingdom is the church, the church is Christ bride and all this is in the NT writings.
As far as Vermes an his writing on the Jewish Jesus, Jesus was born physical a Jew, spiritually He was born a savior for all man kind and spiritually is the concern of all Christians. I can't understand why people want to focus on the physical man and not the savior.
GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
