Not angry, annoyed!
And I've responded directly to every single word, sentence by sentence with direct and substantive counter argument that have almost universally been completely ignored by you!
If you want to get me angry, just continue down the road of hypocrisy and we'll get there quickly.
Who cares what "it looks from my viewpoint"?
The entire discussion is all still here for the whole world to read, T6. Just go back and read it again and see if even you can think that you're the one being more responsive.
No, He absolutely cannot! Not and continue to be the consistent God that He has been since eternity past.
Do you really not think through the things you say at all?
If God could just arbitrarily interchange apostles for no reason at all, as your hypothesis suggests, then on what basis would any of the Twelve Apostles trust God to keep His promises toward them about anything else? If the Twelve can't trust God then why can you?
God is not arbitrary, T6! He does things for a reason. Your grasping at theological straws is devastating not just to your own doctrinal coherence but to the coherence of the entire Christian faith!
Look, it's pretty clear who's being emotional here and it isn't me. This example proves MY POINT, not yours and all it takes to see it is a little bit of knowledge about biblical history.
It isn't just Dan that's missing from the Revelation list, Ephraim is missing as well (See the list of the tribes given in Numbers 1).
Both the tribe of Dan and the tribe of Ephraim were removed because they rebelled against God and worshiped idols.
Judges 18:30 Then the children of Dan set up for themselves the carved image; and Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land. 31 So they set up for themselves Micah’s carved image which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.
Hosea 4:17 “Ephraim is joined to idols,
Let him alone.
Indeed, the entire nation of Israel would have been completely wiped totally out except for Moses because of idolatry if not for Moses talking God out of it.
Exodus 32: 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.”
11 Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: “Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14 So the Lord repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
And indeed, it is because of unbelief that God cut Israel off (Romans 11:20 and elsewhere) and did not give them their kingdom shortly after the ascension of Jesus Christ. Paul cites Jeremiah 18 as the principle by which God decided to cut off Israel. Jeremiah 18 may, in fact, be the single most important chapter in the whole bible. Here's the primary point the chapter makes...
Jeremiah 18: 7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.
Now what's the point of having gone through all that?
The point is that GOD DOES THINGS FOR A REASON!!!! Which has been my point all along.
God did not simply decide for some arbitrary reason to drop the tribe of Dan and replace it with Menasseh. HE DID NOT DO THAT! Dan would still be a tribe of Israel today if they had obeyed God and not rebelled and worshiped idols.
Which of the Twelve Apostle rebelled against God, T6? There was one! It was Judas Iscariot. The response to which was "Let another take his office.", which was done. The remaining eleven apostles which had been given authority by Jesus Himself to act in His absence even to the point of forgiving and/or the retention of sins (John 20:21-23) and they, after much prayer chose two and cast lots (Proverbs 18:18) to see which of those two God approved. The lot fell to Matthias. His validity as one of the Twelve as further confirmed on the Day of Pentecost when
all Twelve were filled by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4).
Now, which of those twelve fell into disbelief, T6? Because if you want to think you have biblical support for one of them being replaced by Paul then that's the case you're going to have to make. Otherwise, you're just blowing smoke and grasping at any theological straw you can find in order to maintain the biblically baseless idea that there are thirteen men who's names are going to be on the twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem and thirteen men sitting on twelve thrones ruling over it.
The Twelve apostles are still apostles, T6. I don't understand what you're asking me here.
Israel has (to this day) twelve and only twelve apostles. Paul is not, nor has he ever been, nor will he ever be, an apostle to the nation of Israel. He is the singular and only apostle to the Body of Christ.
So there are a total of thirteen apostles but it isn't a single group of thirteen, it is one group of twelve and a separate "group" of one. It isn't 12 plus 1, it's 12 and 1.
Further, Israel's calling is Earthly while ours is Heavenly. It is Israel that will inherit the New Earth and the TWELVE apostles will rule over the TWELVE tribes of Israel, which will clearly be reestablished, from the New Jerusalem which will have each of their names on one of the twelve foundations of the city.
But it was Israel that came first, not the Body. The same Christ saves both Jew and Gentile and whether one was saved under this dispensation or the previous one, we are all members of the household of God of which Christ is the chief cornerstone. Paul isn't saying that we've all been made member of the nation of Israel, which is the only point I can imagine you're attempting to imply here. On the contrary, it's the Jews who have been made like Gentiles who now all have the same opportunity for membership in that household. There is now no longer any advantage to being an Israelite. There is no longer any corporate relationship with God available through the nation of Israel. Now that relationship is available to all by grace through faith in Christ.
But God didn't cut ALL of Israel off. He didn't cut off those who believed. The Twelve and their followers who were saved under the "Kingdom Gospel" (i.e. the dispensation of law) remained under that dispensational program until their physical death, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Rom. 11:29 also 1 Corinthians 7:17-20). And so, for a time, there were two groups of believers. One was ministered to from Jerusalem while Paul went to the whole rest of the world.
Galatians 2:9 9 and when James, Peter, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
I've done far more than that and you know it. I've made directly relevant and substantively biblical arguments throughout. NONE of which you have responded to in any meaningful way except to suggest that God could just arbitrarily drop one apostle for another.
Which I have given, repeatedly.
No, I do not call it proof-texting.
Good grief! How many times do you want me to repeat the fact that I do not have any problem with someone having a proof text for some position they hold? That is not the point! The point is that you CANNOT BUILD A
DOCTRINAL SYSTEM BASED ON PROOF-TEXTING!
Do you remember when I mentioned (probably on a different thread) how just about all the books you'll find on any number of different theological subjects will basically have the same format, regardless of which side of the issue the book is intended to support? If you have two books about eternal security, for example, one arguing for it and the other against it, both books will have roughly the same format. Each will spend 80% of it's pages focusing on it's collection of proof texts while the last portion of the book (usually past what most readers will make it through) is spent explaining how the problem texts don't mean what they seem to mean. That is the way 90+% of the Christian world does their theology. They take a subject, look up all the relevant biblical material and pick a side to take literally and a side to explain away. This bottom up approach (i.e. forming a big picture based on a collection of details) is what they do! That's what you do! Whether you think that's what you do or not, this thread alone is proof enough that it is what you do.
In other words, you have no over-arching premise that has been intentionally thought through and understood which informs your reading of scripture and your understanding of doctrine as a whole. You simply have a collection of doctrines that you hold to and you have learned how those specific doctrines are defended. But there's no thread that runs through and holds them all together as a cohesive integrated whole.
And please understand that that is not said to be insulting. I was in that exact place for decades! I totally loved God and was totally saved and a totally legitimate member of the Body of Christ who loved the bible and read it all the time and did bible studies and watched Christian television and wanted constantly to better understand God and His word. And I'm absolutely convinced that all of that is just as true of you as it was of me when I thought the way you do now.
What I was always doing was looking for a better, more complete and eloquent way of understanding
individual doctrines. In other words, given a particular doctrine, my position on that doctrine would have been whichever position I had heard the best argument for up to that point in my life. And while I held to some doctrines more strongly than others, I wasn't married to any particular side of any disputable issue. If you could present to me an argument that I found more compelling, it was time for me to change my doctrine and I did so.
When I was young that translated into my holding all kinds of what I now know to have been crazy positions on all sorts of things. I remember a time when nearly all of my end times doctrines were informed almost exclusively by The World Wide Church of God, which aired a television show on TBN back in the 80s. I had no particular affinity for the WWCG nor for anything else I saw on TBN but the point is that they made an argument and it was a darned good one at that, I might add. I also remember a little booklet I read called "88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be in 1988" and I believed
every single word of it! I had joined the Army after high school and was in basic training during Rosh Hash-Ana (Sept. 1988) and FULLY expected not to make it to graduation. You want to talk about having my faith shaken! Holy smokes! Of course, I know now that
ALL 88 reasons were flatly wrong! Image that! Writing a book with 88 reasons for something where you get 100% of those reasons wrong. That's the power of paradigm and of proof-texting!
Reason, that's were!
Scripture is useless without reason! You can get everything from Southern Baptist doctrine to Catholicism to Branch Davidianism and everything in between from scripture if you do not use sound reason and employ proper hermeneutical principles and a top down (i.e. from the big picture down to the details) approach to the reading and interpretation of the bible.
Further, as I've tried and tried to explain to you, our disagreement is not based on bible verses anyway. Every bible verse you quote in support of your doctrine is actually in support of mine! I do NOT have problem texts! You think I do but that's because you read them from within your theological paradigm!
Now, I know that you aren't convinced that what I just said is true but just for a moment, suppose that it is and then tell me how I'm supposed to proceed down a path where I defend what you see as problem texts for me and proof texts for you? How could that possibly be profitable? It would be like describing the color blue by pointing at the sky on a cloudy day! It doesn't work!
Imagine for a moment that the shoe was on the other foot here. Imagine, for example, that you were trying to convince a Branch Davidian that David Koresh was not any sort of Messiah. Those folks believe that (to this day) and they can argue with you until you're blue in the face and dead as a hammer without hardly stopping to take a breath between quoting bible verses. David Koresh had whole books of the bible memorized and every word he'd read to his followers was filtered through their twisted paradigm filter and was turned into something that fully supported their doctrine. There was/is no way you could ever convince any of them that they've got one syllable of their doctrine wrong by quoting bible verses to them. All you'd do is cement them further into their delusion.
Now that's an extreme example that doesn't fit exactly because those folks aren't at all worried about being rational. They have no problem with redefining common words (not the least of which is the word "Messiah", by the way.) as well as loading passages up with meaning that the text itself cannot support. Neither of us are in that kind of boat but the point is simply that you cannot just ignore the paradigm through which the scripture is being understood and think that quoting a passage of scripture aught to be enough to persuade someone away from their doctrine. It's far more complicated than that.
And so, to reiterate once again, I have no problem with having passages of scripture to support one's doctrine - quite the contrary. It's simply that I know from experience that to focus on proof-texts is fruitless at best and counter productive at worst.
What's there to assume?
That's what it says, isn't it? Was there another "handwriting of requirements" that I haven't heard about besides the Ten Commandments and the Law of Moses?
Wow! The power of paradigm is utterly insurmountable except by God Himself!
The question isn't why he would have baptized (which I've explained already) but why he existed at all (i.e. as an apostle)?!
If what you claim is true and Paul preached the same message as Peter, which it flatly isn't, why in the world did God need Paul at all?
Why was Paul taught what he repeatedly referred to as "my gospel" (Romans 2:16; Romans 16:25; I Tim. 1:11 & 2 Tim. 2:8) by direct divine revelation? (Gal. 1:12; 2 Cor. 12:7; Eph. 3:3)
Why, if he was preaching the same thing, was he sent, again by divine revelation, to explain what he was preaching to the Twelve? (Gal. 2:2)
Why, if he was preaching the same thing as Peter, did he have to get in Peter's face about the gospel? (Gal. 2:11)
Why, if Paul was preaching the same thing as Peter, does Peter say that some things that Paul teaches are "hard to understand"? (2 Peter 3:16)
Where, besides Paul, do we read anything like "If you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing."? (Gal. 5:2)
Where did Peter ever say anything resembling "in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything"? (Gal. 5:6 & Gal. 6:15)
Was it Paul's followers who Luke, in the book of Acts, records as being "zealous for the law" or was that Jewish believers that followed James and the Twelve? (Acts 21)
There are whole denominations that ignore Paul almost entirely! Go to a Seventh Day Adventist church and see how often they preach from the Pauline Epistles. It happens but not very often. Go to a church were modern Messianic Jews congregate. You'll likely not hear a syllable of Paul's writings in one of those churches if you attended for a month of Sundays. In fact, many of them don't even consider Paul to be a valid apostle and think that his writings are a deception. Then, of course, there are those on the opposite side of that spectrum and think that the book of James is invalid and shouldn't have been included in the bible because they can't reconcile it with - who? - Peter? - no, not Peter and not John either! - it's Paul that they can't reconciled with the plain reading of book of James.
But you somehow think that Paul's writing are just more of the same thing that exists in the Gospels, Acts and the writings of Peter, James and John. And I'm here to tell you that the only reason your brain is telling you that is because of your doctrine which you bring to the reading of scripture.
Clete
P.S. Note that I quote the bible using the New King James almost exclusively but when I quoted Exodus 32 and Jeremiah 18 I changed the word "relent" to "repent". The translators of pretty much all of the English versions of the bible, including the New King James, were pretty much all Calvinists and even though the word in the original language (
nacham - Strong's H5162) means "repent", the Calvinist translators just could not bring themselves to translate it that way so they used "relent" instead. The King James uses "repent" but I like using the New King James because it is far easier to read. So I just change the word 'relent' to 'repent'.
