This is for the frauds and the socially autistic who keep posting redundant thread after thread against MAD.
Put up or shut up.
Don't just attack MAD. Name a positive alternative. Don't be vague. Be specific. Identify by name (because they all have names or can be otherwise classified under known systems) the approach to Bible understanding that YOU believe should be adopted as true, and why.
If you don't name a specific one as an alternative to MAD, then you got nothing. You're just a fraud and a troll or a fool, whoever you are.
Name: Biblical Christianity (do you really have to have a man-made label? If so try "Apostolic Christianity", interpreted as followers of what "began with the Lord [Christianity], and was confirmed unto us by those that heard Him [Apostolic, meaning the 12 plus Paul]).
Summary: God, who (mostly) dealt exclusively with Israel before coming as a man, came and allowed Israel to reject Him as a nation, so that all would equally need Grace in God's eyes.
As they were rejecting Him, He was dying as a sacrifice for all nations. When He said "it is finished", the vail separating the presence of a Holy God from common man was supernaturally torn from top to bottom by an earthquake, signifying that God's honoring of a physical temple and the Old Covenant had ceased, and a new covenant was ushered in. This new, "last will and testament" of Jesus enabled all who embraced the gospel to be saved.
Three days after dying Jesus rose victorious over death. He spent the next 40 days with his chosen Apostles, instructing them about what to do after his ascension, and instructing them to take the Gospel message to all nations. The message they were to take was the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. It was teaching obedience and the proper response to the Gospel: dying to our former lusts (repentance), identifying with His burial (water baptism), and the infilling of the Holy Ghost as a separate experience from believing (resurrection power). From that conversion experience, it was about "walking in the Spirit", and not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.
This message was preached by Peter, Philip, Paul, and the other Christians.
Acts was also a huge transition period. Jesus had told them that there were things He couldn't share with his disciples when He was here, but told them that the Spirit would reveal things to them.
That is exactly what happened in Acts 10, when God opened the door of salvation through Peter's ministry. The Spirit revealed to Peter that the Gentiles could be "fellow heirs" of salvation, and that He had "purified their hearts by faith". Paul directly referred to Peter's revelation as a mystery, when he said in Ephesians 3:5-6:
Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets BY THE SPIRIT; That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel
There was some pushback from some converted Pharisees, who wanted the Gentiles to follow the law of Moses, but Peter, Paul, James, and the other Apostles shot that down. Many Jewish Christians continued to keep aspects of the law (feast days, dietary laws, etc), and the Apostles taught that was fine, only for the believers to not demand that of others, and to not trust in that for their salvation.
The book of Acts, start to finish, was written to show how we are to be the church. God, who does not include stories in scripture without distinct purpose, includes 4 very detailed stories in the book: the conversion stories of the Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles and believers with only partial knowledge of truth. The testimonies span from the first of the book to the latter part, and involve the ministries of Peter, Philip and Paul. In each case, the message and experience was the same: the proper response, if we are to believe and accept the Gospel, is repentance, baptism in Jesus' name, and the infilling of the Holy Ghost with visible, external evidence, followed by walking with God.
The command to saints is the same now as then: love God with all of our hearts, and love our fellow man as we love ourselves. When everything we do is driven by a love for God and others, we don't walk in the flesh, but in the Spirit. We reject carnal desires, and seek the things that are above. We keep our flesh in subjection, and work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, realizing we can become castaways if we don't.
We are waiting for the return of Jesus, when we'll be caught up to meet Him. There are still prophecies to be fulfilled. God is currently operating under the new covenant (read as "his last will and testament, whereby his death 'willed' to us eternal life"). There will be a time when he deals again with Israel as a nation, but they will only be saved if they accept the same work of Calvary that reconciled the current church back to God.
Sorry for the long-winded answer, but I think I brushed across the highlights.
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