Southernscotty said in post #28:
[Re: The Tribulation]
. . . the Holy Spirit will not be restraining evil at this time
Are you thinking of:
2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth [Greek: katecho: holds down] will let [hold down], until he be taken out of the way.
The restrainer of the future Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8) could be a powerful, good angel, like the one who will restrain Satan himself at Jesus Christ's future, Second Coming (Revelation 20:1-3). The restrainer cannot be God's Holy Spirit, because in the future the restrainer will be removed (2 Thessalonians 2:7b), while the Holy Spirit can never be removed, because He is always omnipresent (Psalms 139:7-10). Similarly, the restrainer cannot be the Church, or the Holy Spirit in the Church, because the Church will not be removed (John 17:15,20, Proverbs 10:30). And there are no Christians outside of the Church (Ephesians 4:4-5); and no one can be a Christian without the Spirit (Romans 8:9); and the Antichrist will be allowed to physically overcome Christians in every nation (Revelation 13:7-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6, Matthew 24:9-13), just as, for example, the Roman emperors and Satan were allowed to physically overcome some Christians in the first century AD (e.g. Revelation 2:10). Also, Mark 13:11b expressly shows that the Holy Spirit will still be with Christians during the future Tribulation.
Also, the Tribulation passage of Revelation 14:12-13 is the same idea as 1 Thessalonians 5:10-11, meaning that obedient Christians can have the comfort of God's Holy Spirit at any time (John 14:15-17), in any tribulation (2 Corinthians 1:4-7), no matter whether they live or die.
*******
Southernscotty said in post #44:
Rightly dividing the Word is dividing what and to whom it is written.
2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
This refers to how the Bible was originally written down in manuscripts which had no spaces between the words, no punctuation, and no distinguishing capitalization or non-capitalization. That is, it was just an unbroken stream of upper or lower-case letters. So, for example, Genesis 1:6-7 would have looked like this:
andgodsaidlettherebeafirmamentinthemidstofthewaters
andletitdividethewatersfromthewatersandgodmadethefir
mamentanddividedthewaterswhichwereunderthefirmam
entfromthewaterswhichwereabovethefirmamentanditw
This meant that those who studied the Bible (2 Timothy 2:15a) had to rightly divide between the words to arrive at the correct meaning. So, in the example above, if one mistakenly divided: "watersandletitdividethewaters" into the words: "water: sand, let it divide the waters", one would come away with the mistaken idea that Genesis 1:6-7 refers to God creating sand bars, instead of Him creating the atmosphere (the firmament, the first heaven, in which the birds fly: Genesis 1:20b) to hold water up in the air (such as in rain clouds), above and separate from the water in the ocean.
Southernscotty said in post #44:
Paul is the apostle to us gentiles as he brings the mystery gospel- Eph 3
Regarding Ephesians 3:4, note that it is the same "mystery" as in Romans 16:25-26 and Colossians 1:26, which is "made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets" (Romans 16:26). For example, Isaiah 49:6 and Isaiah 42:6 foretold that Jesus Christ's Gospel of the New Covenant (Matthew 26:28; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4), made only with Israel (Jeremiah 31:31-34), would save both Jewish and Gentile Christians (Acts 26:22-23, Luke 24:46-47). The New Covenant includes Gentile Christians by grafting them into Israel (Romans 11:17,24, Ephesians 2:12,19, Galatians 3:29, John 10:16). Isaiah 49:6b started to be fulfilled at Jesus Christ's first coming (Luke 2:32, Acts 26:23), and His sending forth of His apostles to the Gentiles (Acts 13:47, Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 26:17-18, Acts 22:21).
Also, the apostle Paul quotes four Old Testament verses in Romans 15:9-12 which foretold the salvation of Gentiles (2 Samuel 22:50/Psalms 18:49, Deuteronomy 32:43, Psalms 117:1, Isaiah 11:10). And God chose the apostle
Peter to be the first apostle to take Jesus Christ's Gospel of salvation to Gentiles (Acts 15:7, Acts 10:34-48), to make Gentile Christians partakers of the Jews' spiritual things (Romans 15:27, John 4:22b), just as the apostle Paul sometimes preached the Gospel to Jews (Acts 13:16-41).
This mystery (Ephesians 3:4) is also explained in Ephesians 3:6, which means that Gentile Christians become fellowheirs with Jewish (Israelite) Christians, and of the same body as Israel, and partakers of God's promise in Jesus Christ made to Israel. Both Jews and Gentiles are saved by believing the same Gospel (Romans 1:16). And this Gospel of Jesus Christ includes His suffering and dying for our sins, and His physical resurrection (Matthew 20:18-19, Matthew 20:28, Matthew 26:28). And this Gospel, which is the same as the apostle Paul's in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, was explained to the apostle Peter (and to the other apostles) directly by Jesus Christ before the time of Peter's preaching in Acts (Luke 24:44-49). So the apostle Peter's subsequent preaching during the time of Acts would have included this Gospel, just as his writings did (1 Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 3:18). Just because Acts does not record the apostle Peter preaching this at the time of Acts does not mean that he did not. For Acts is not an exhaustive record of every word which was preached by Peter (or the other apostles) during that period of time.