- Jul 30, 2004
- 4,620
- 982
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Republican
Consider this:Defenders of modern Millennialism often claim this was the view of the Early Church Fathers. I think it was not taught by any of them.
I consider the writings of an Early Church Father to not teach modern Millennialism if any of these are true:
--The start date already passed
--It's based on 6,000 years of human history (which, in 2017, is provably false)
--If you teach their full view in a Church teaching modern Millennialism, people would be very uncomfortable (because it diverges significantly)
I define modern Millennialism as a yet-future 1,000 year time period.
I propose we use the term Chiliasm interchangeably with Millennialism, but distinguish between older views and the modern views.
I propose we limit the discussion to Early Church Fathers up to Augustine.
The implicit assumption (which I just made explicit) is that if the Early Church Fathers didn't teach it, it came from another source; perhaps the Bible.
I ask y'all to provide quotations as needed; the shorter the better.
Also, please consider making short focused posts. Reply multiple times to a post if there are multiple points, once for each point. I don't know about you, but I often don't read long posts or long paragraphs; too taxing on my puny brain.
“And do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven." Matt. 23:9
Who cares about early Church Fathers? I don't, I care about what the Bible says. It clearly says we don't need teachers, we have the Holy Spirit. They are not "Fathers" of the Church and whoever gave them that title is mistaken. We have ONE FATHER in Heaven. He is the only Father. Human teachers err and as many doctrines of theology exist, there are differences in interpretations.
I read commentaries like anyone else, but they are not without errors. We need only to rely on the Holy Spirit to teach us the truth. Unfortunately, when these scholars were taught by the Holy Spirit, the truth they learned was sometimes corrupted, it was filtered through preconceived human understandings, reason, etc. We can only have faith in the scriptures, they were not corrupted. Besides, I believe we know and understand much more about the WORD then these so called early Church fathers.
Upvote
0