Sorry for the delay but I've been away for a while.
Fleshly Israel? Is that a biblical term? If so, I'm pretty sure I missed it.
I use the term to consolidate what Paul is talking about. He is the one who brings up flesh not I. He is clearly making a distinction between children of flesh and children of promise.
Rom. 9:6
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
What do you understand his point to be?
It is interesting to note, however, that the Law is all about the flesh and the "cutting off" of its desires. It has nothing to do with what you're getting at but you'd probable find a study of the phrase "cut off" or "cutting off" to be illuminating.
Sure it can mean that but it also applies to people being “cut off”.
Gen. 17:14
Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Physical nation of Israel was a shadow like the law? I base it on what makes someone a Jew. What to you makes someone a Jew?
The addition of the phrase "I understand" in that sentence gets right to the crux of what we are discussing. What you understand (or don't) is not relevant to what is actually said. This is a major pillar upon which the Mid-Acts system is based. We do NOT formulate our doctrine and then attempt to make sense of the bible in that context. It is quite the other way around. We let the bible say what it says whenever possible. (The phrase "whenever possible" is required because there are passages that are intentionally and clearly figurative or generalizations or some other form of speech that is not intended to be taken literally.)
The reason I say “I understand” is because we read the same bible yet understand it differently. I usually say “my current understanding” because it can and has changed as I’m sure yours has. I don’t see how anyone can say they understand perfectly what the bible is telling us. You say you “let the bible say what it says whenever possible”, I do the same yet we see still see it differently. We both can’t be right, either one or both of us doesn’t really understand what the bible is telling us. That’s why I’m on here, to see if I’m missing something.
As for Jeremiah 18, it couldn't be any clearer. God Himself states that if He makes a promise (or a threat) and circumstances change, He reserves the right to not do what He said He would do. It's as clear as can be and God has, in fact, done precisely that on more than one occasion.
I agree God has changed his mind but not with prophecy. If a prophecy doesn’t come true, that prophet is false.
Duet. 18:21
And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously.
Also, when God does change his mind, he lets us know. I believe he is omniscient and knows exactly what will happen so he never really changes his mind. I believe it's just earthly terms that we can understand to describe something we cannot understand.
He promised to drive out all of Israel's enemies (all the different "ites") but He didn't do it.
It was conditional.
Deut. 11:22
For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, 23 then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.
He prophesied through Jonah the destruction of Nineveh and then, when they repented, God changed His mind and didn't destroy them as He said. A result, by the way, that Jonah anticipated to the point that he refused to go to Nineveh until God forced him and then he was still angry with God afterward. (How Calvinism survives even a cursory reading of the book of Jonah, I'll never know. But that's a different thread!)
I understand that to be a warning and not a prophecy.
The point here being that Jeremiah 18 means exactly what it seems to mean, your understanding of it not withstanding, and Romans 9 is Paul telling everyone that Israel got the Jeremiah 18 treatment and deserved it.
They did deserve it.
The bible never taught anyone that they would be saved on the basis of their birth as a Jew.
I agree not just by their birth. God set the Jews apart as his people and they were born into it. In the OT there were his people (Jews) and everyone else (Gentiles). That was a shadow of what we have in Christ. Christians and everyone else.
There is not one single syllable of anything Jesus said to anyone that was not what every saved Jew in history believed and practiced.
It looks to me like Jesus took the law to a new level.
Matt. 5: 27
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Jews did not practice stoning a man because he lusted in his heart, only if he committed the act.
The only thing new was that Jesus was the Messiah and that He would die on the cross.
Baptism for the repentance of sins was new.
I mean, that is what you're saying, isn't it? Israel wasn't cut off, it was just morphed into the church.
That is exactly what I’m saying. Jesus said before being rejected by the Jews he was going to build his church.
That choice being to preserve a fully harmonious New Testament with a single group of believers all teaching the same thing rather than choosing to take the bible for what it plainly states and configuring a doctrine around that principle. You cannot do both.
I do take it for what if plainly states.
So, you already cannot answer why the Twelve (and God) forced the believers in Jerusalem to sell their possessions and give all the money to the Twelve.
They were not forced. There was/is no command to do so but they willingly did it as they saw Christians in need. Peter makes it clear that Ananias and Sapphira’s land was theirs to do with as they pleased,Acts 5:4.
And you cannot give a cojent theory as to why Paul was given his gospel by revelation and was then told by God to go explain that gospel to the Twelve.
I don’t see it as Paul explained the gospel to the 12. He went to the 12 to be sure he was correct and
lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain. He's not saying the 12 were possibly running in vain but himself.
Why is it more preferable to preserve a fully monolithic New Testament with a single group of believers all teaching the same thing over and above the plain reading of the text?
That is what the plain reading says. Here the Corinthians were converted by Peter, Apollos and Paul yet Paul tells them to be of the same mind and same judgment.
1 Cor. 1:10
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”
I haven’t seen any proof that Peter and Paul converted Christians any differently. They preached Christ and baptized the believers into one body. That one body(church) was created at the cross, Eph. 2:16.
As always, I look forward to your comments.
