Is time on our side?

[marineimaging]

Can anyone find and show scripture that explicitly states it is important for man (me/you) to apply an absolute concern for TIME in relation to our studies and reading the Word of God? The wife and I were discussing TIME this morning as it relates to "One day is as a thousand years to the Lord", "Absent the body, present with the Lord" and then when Jesus called Lazarus from the grave he said to "Come out..." Not down from heaven. While those relate to understanding where you are when in the physical sense, what I mean is that while these ideas of time are important to understanding the relationship between God and man, is there any scripture that clearly points toward us needing to fully understand TIME as it relates to our duty to Christ? I told her that as far as I was concerned, when you die it doesn't matter if your spirit immediately slips out of your body and appears next to Christ, or if you lie in the last state of natural being (the grave, ashes, at the bottom of an ocean or on the highest mountain as your former body turns to dust) for 10,000 years fully unaware of time and then you awake next to Christ. In either sense time does not impact your salvation. It does not affect your being in the spirited sense. It does not lessen nor extend eternity. Love is not lost nor gained. What was there in the beginning will still be there today, tomorrow, and forever. Yet, I have seen churches torn apart because of such matters. Issues I consider trivial in the scope of understanding that we are to put on the breastplate, take up the shield and sword, and go forth making believers of men. To be fishers of men. To do what we are instructed while we are alive and not to worry about the grave. So, do you know of any scripture that makes TIME an integral part of our worship and where we have a duty to understand it fully?

 

[Lightsway]

Yes .
Perhaps not as would be imagined though .
Time as it relates to you . in completion .
Not as you so much c
Relate to it.

In the beginning of the book , time is taken apart in eden .

In revelation , it is repaired and the temple is restored as heaven.

Time itself was of gods plan .

We could as easily lose the term time.

In the beginning , and in the end times.

That many will not understand this or know of when even debating , does not matter.

The way is what matters as it is what will reveal what has stood it's test.

 

[Little Lantern]

One verse that comes to mind is Ephesians 5:16.

 

[com7fy8]

"See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil." (Ephesians 5:15-16)

I get, with this, that we need to make the most of the time we have, now. With God, we can make His use of any thing, at all. What happens after we die will not effect what we do, now. Also . . . if a person were to be unconscious after he or she has died, until Jesus resurrects us all in the Rapture . . . while the person were to be not conscious, he or she would not know the difference, about how long he or she has been dead.

It is like how if you go under anesthesia. They put the mask on and the next thing is you are waking up and someone is talking with you. You have no way of knowing how much time has passed.

So, whether we die and see Jesus instantly or after thousands of years, we won't know the difference while we have passed instantly or have been unconscious a while.

But in Revelation, we see how those souls were under the altar in Heaven. They did talk and receive communication. But I see they didn't have their new bodies, yet. But if we have Jesus formed in us as our new inner Person > Galatians 4:19 < I see it is likely that our Father will not put His own Son to sleep for thousands of years, in us. But we might be like the conscious souls under the altar, though waiting for the resurrection of our bodies during the Rapture.

So, most of all, make God's use of our time now. Do what He has us doing, and trust Him for howsoever He pleases to use any situation for His good . . . like how Joseph was with God > Genesis 37-50 < and God used Joseph's situation for God's all-loving result . . . not only for helping Joseph.

I think we have too many people who are focusing only or mainly on what God's grace has for them, themselves. But God is all-loving; so if we are with God, we are getting more and more into all-loving activity, with His all-loving results.

 

[Halbhh]

So, do you know of any scripture that makes TIME an integral part of our worship and where we have a duty to understand it fully?

Updated -- it came to me really we need not only verse 24-27 in Matthew chapter 7 about knowing Him/getting ready/being prepared, but it's helpful to us to get more verses even on that part, starting at verse 21 instead. All sorts of proof to men or ourselves that we are Christian are not enough! Instead we must listen to His Words and put them into practice.

No. Though there are some things very good for us to be aware of, for moments when we might wonder why we have to wait so long (to us), such as that for the Lord a thousand years are but like a day. Also, it's good to know that through Christ we can endure all things, and not to forget that. There is so much good for us to learn, but nothing key to salvation we must know about time in particular that I know of, except in a tangential way at times. The thing that comes to mind is Christ warning us to be ready! The ten virgins, where 5 were ready, and 5 were not.... That parable echoes others, and it's at the beginning of Matthew chapter 25, but one could start reading in the chapter before, 24, at verse 36. (What is the 'oil', what does verse 12 mean? It's precisely like in Matthew chapter 7, verses 21-27.)

 

[~Anastasia~]

Can anyone find and show scripture that explicitly states it is important for man (me/you) to apply an absolute concern for TIME in relation to our studies and reading the Word of God? The wife and I were discussing TIME this morning as it relates to "One day is as a thousand years to the Lord", "Absent the body, present with the Lord" and then when Jesus called Lazarus from the grave he said to "Come out..." Not down from heaven. While those relate to understanding where you are when in the physical sense, what I mean is that while these ideas of time are important to understanding the relationship between God and man, is there any scripture that clearly points toward us needing to fully understand TIME as it relates to our duty to Christ? I told her that as far as I was concerned, when you die it doesn't matter if your spirit immediately slips out of your body and appears next to Christ, or if you lie in the last state of natural being (the grave, ashes, at the bottom of an ocean or on the highest mountain as your former body turns to dust) for 10,000 years fully unaware of time and then you awake next to Christ. In either sense time does not impact your salvation. It does not affect your being in the spirited sense. It does not lessen nor extend eternity. Love is not lost nor gained. What was there in the beginning will still be there today, tomorrow, and forever. Yet, I have seen churches torn apart because of such matters. Issues I consider trivial in the scope of understanding that we are to put on the breastplate, take up the shield and sword, and go forth making believers of men. To be fishers of men. To do what we are instructed while we are alive and not to worry about the grave. So, do you know of any scripture that makes TIME an integral part of our worship and where we have a duty to understand it fully?

Since you asked in Traditional Theology ... there are different kinds of time, represented by two different words in Scripture.

But as it relates to Orthodox theology we understand that there is a chronos (χρόνος) time that is the time that passes, time in which we live our lives. There is another time - kairos (καιρός) - which is a sort of moment in time, as touching eternity, in which God acts. It is within kairos that the Liturgy connects to the worship in heaven. At every meeting in our particular church we sing "Today is the beginning of our salvation" in a hymn about the annunciation (because our local church is named for the annunciation). But events in "God's time" when He works our salvation are always present, in a sense, because God is outside of time. It is how we can participate.

How we spend our chronos time is how we live our lives, and makes us whatever we become, so it is important to orient that time towards God in some degree.

I know that's not what you're asking really. But that is the only Traditional teaching about time I am aware of.

You seem to be asking about soul sleep, which is a modern theology and was not a teaching of the early Church.

If you want to get hypothetical, no, in a selfish sense it would not matter to each individual's salvation whether they themselves simply slept. But that's not how it is. After all, we are surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses, and who knows but maybe my great-grandma, who pretty much prayed all us grandchildren to faith anyway, isn't right now with Christ still asking His blessings on us. Love doesn't end.

As for splitting up churches, schism was regarded as a very great sin in the early Church and often there were great efforts to prevent it. After all, disunity is a great sin. But people who find themselves in many denominations today inherit a history of ongoing reform, which I'm sure usually has good motives but has produced a shattering of Christianity as a result.

You might prefer this to be moved to General Theology if it wasn't the traditional understanding you wished to discuss?

 

[Lightsway]

Revelation was written for those it concerns .
The rest ponder.
Hence why it says let who has an ear to hear hear.
It does concern everyone and yet to try unravel it for those who it concerns only yields confusion with intermittent moments of clarity.
It would be better for many to leave it alone almost completely. Or to approach it openly without guessing.

They are like pieces trying to be made to fit ,
Yet there are those who are doing the works within the stories as they are read .

" yes as others yield the fruit".