My words are in Blue, theirs are in Red.
3-4-2013
____,
I am ever willing to consider, and or re-consider things. In the mean-time, here are some thoughts, in red, after each part of your letter to me, off the top of my head…
Postscript: By the time I got around to sending you this analysis of your words, I was able to listen to both of those audios you attached. Admittedly, I found holes in every one of his points. I have often enjoyed what those of the Acts 28 Perspective have had to say about various topics, but I have yet to run into a persuasive presentation of their Acts 28 position. Over the next few weeks or so, I will set out some time to lay out why I disagree.
Hi, Danoh!
Thanks for writing! How have you been? I've been good as I'm retired now but busier than ever and one of the things I've been doing is studying the Bible even harder and I have switched my dispensational position to Acts 28 as the dividing line between Israel's program and our Mystery program. A Bible teacher - Scott Mitchell - started teaching that he could find the Mystery in the OT and that Paul constantly says what he preached was nothing more than what the OT prophets had said would come! Even though Scott remains Acts 9! I tried to disprove that because Eph. 3:9 says our Mystery gospel was "hid in God" "not made known" "unsearchable" etc. You know that! Well, I Googled and the first thing that came up was the claims of Acts 28! Because Scott is right – the gospel and message Paul preached during the Acts period anyway IS able to be traced back to the OT prophets and Paul quotes from them constantly in the Acts epistles! The reason for that, the Acts 28 believers say, is that Paul was preaching the kingdom still at hand during that time and when Israel did not accept her Messiah, she was formally set aside at Acts 28:28. Read it, doesn't it sound more like the REAL setting aside of Israel than some guess that it happened in Acts 7? The preaching of Jesus Christ, that he paid the full penalty for the sins of the world at the cross and that God's righteousness is imputed to all who believe that is the "mystery" of Paul's gospel as stated in Romans 16:25-26 ("by the scriptures of the prophets"). It was prophesied but simply not widely known or understood.
You say you googled. Well, that might be an indicator that you were unsure as to how to study out on your own what you sought answers to.
One problem with your take on Romans 16:26, is it, in light of Romans 9-11, declares this gospel is for the obedience of faith among all nations outside of Israel’s fall, and that is not the gospel of the kingdom prophesied by Isaiah. The Prophetic is that the Gentiles will come to Israel’s light. As the Lord noted in Mark; let the children [Israel] first be filled,” Mark 7:27. And in Luke 13:8, the Lord had added a year for Israel to get right after the Father’s forgiveness per the Lord’s “Father forgive them, for they now not what they do,” Luke 23:24. Peter offers that in Acts 3.
Israel resisted the Holy Spirit’s continuance of “all that that Jesus began both to do and teach,” Acts 1:1; through the Twelve and the “Little Flock,”Hebrews 2. With that resistance, He, through Stephan, concluded that nation uncircumcised in heart and ears at Acts 7, per Matthew 12:31, 32, and within that year the Lord had added. In other words, Acts 28 is far too many years too late: Israel was concluded in uncircumcision at Acts 7.
Three times in Acts, Paul announces this to that nation. At Acts 13:45, Israel again is depicted “contradicting and blaspheming,” at which point Paul makes known why he had preached to them – that it had been necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to,” them, verse 46. This is a pronouncement of what God has already concluded, for He three times announces that through this odd, out of nowhere, new, completely unexpected, one Apostle too many for Israel’s kingdom Program, for his is a provoking to jealousy ministry, Romans 11:13, during that time when Israel was diminishing away. In this, being that Romans 1-3 are a history of what happened both to the Gentiles and to Israel that they were now both uncircumcision, Romans 1:16,’s “to the Jew first,” is a history, and not a declaration of Paul’s Acts ministry. He went to Israel per his words to Peter in his very first Epistle; Galatians 2:7-9, that his ministry was to the heathen [which included uncircumcised in heart Israel] Romans 2:24-29.
He preaches their prophets – concerning Jesus – as a witness against them; as to why God has turned from that nation corporately: his ministry being an every – individual – man ministry.
You have to consider that Acts is a record of Israel’s fall, and salvation transitionally going to the Gentiles, by, as God had, planned, another gospel. You also have to consider that God had not needed another Apostle if He was still promoting the gospel of the kingdom: the Twelve having been endued with more than adequate power from on High to fulfill their commission. He had told them in Matthew 10 that they would not complete their commission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel before His return.
Another fact is that just about all you find in Paul’s Prison Epistles is found in his earlier writings. And he bases the gifts in Ephesians 4, on a prophetic “he saith,” Scripture. What are we to make of that?
Romans 15, for example contains much that is in Ephesians. By the way, 15: 1-12, are a reference to the mercy upon the Gentiles of Romans 11, with the mystery, not of Israel’s fall, but of God doing something without that nation – and that was not prophesied. In light of both what God had desired of Israel as a channel of His blessing upon the Gentiles, and their all day [one year] gainsaying, or, resistance against the Holy Spirit’s ministry, Romans 10:18-21, in light of that, Romans 15:13 declares “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy in believing,” not through Israel’s rise [Romans 15:8-12], “but rather, through their fall,” Romans 11:11 – is in light of that that Paul declares, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy in believing, that ye might abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.” This passage’s hope, and joy, and abounding is pure Ephesians, as well as 1 Timothy 3:16’s “mystery of godliness… justified in the Spirit,” and Romans 6:4’s, 8:11’s, and Ephesians 2:5’s “quickened us together with Christ,” by the Spirit.
While I am at it, take Galatians 3:8’s, “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen,” etc. The Acts 28 reasoning of that passage is off. As with the fact that the Mystery of 1 Corinthians 2 and Ephesians 2, was made possible during an event that took place when – at the Cross - during the Prophetic Program, God had established a means, back in Genesis, by which He would make the Mystery possible, with His having imputed righteousness’ unto Abram when He was what then - a Gentile – in uncircumcision, Romans 4 - and this is not the gospel of the kingdom!
After Israel was set aside and Paul was in prison, he apparently received another revelation of a new mystery that had been kept secret since before the world began, that all men can be saved by that same gospel but that they will receive all spiritual blessings (and not the kingdom in the land of Israel like "Abraham's seed" will get) and are already seated in heavenly places in Christ because our destination is heaven's glory, not a kingdom on earth, amen?
The tough part is that 1 Thess. 4 and 1 Cor. 15 are not talking about the rapture or catching away to heaven of the church which is his body (us), but are speaking of the second coming to the earth of Christ where he will catch up the remnant believers at the end of the tribulation and keep them safe as he returns them to the earth with him. Our "blessed hope" is the "appearing of Jesus Christ" when we will appear with him in glory. Ephesians, Colossians, Titus, etc. Acts 28 is divided as to when that appearing will be or when we will assume that position in the highest heaven, but I tend to believe we will be taken there one way or the other, alive or resurrected, BEFORE the beginning of the tribulation to avoid there being 2 gospels on the earth at once, amen?
The Acts 28 Perspective forces this forcing of things in that way. Study out God’s protection during the Tribulation and what you find is that His keeping those saints from that hour is during that hour, as He punishes unbelievers with the rod of the Anti-Christ during that time, at the same time He allows the waters to become deadly, and allows these saints being able to drink any deadly thing, feed them daily bread, deliver them from being tempted to take the Mark of the Beast, and so on. Acts 28ers are confusing His chastisement of Israel towards refining them as silver, with His vengeance upon the disobedient.
So only Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon are "our" epistles. Only they speak of the revelation of the mystery hid in God until it was revealed to Paul in prison. Our salvation doctrine of grace through faith without works is found in Romans however because that salvation does not change. Righteousness by faith was prophesied in the OT (Habbakuk, Genesis, Isaiah, etc.) for Jews - and Gentiles! If you read the Acts period epistles you will see some Jewish ordinances sprinkled in there even for the Gentiles who believed Paul's gospel. The Gentiles were just "graffed in" to Israel's olive tree, remember; they just partook of Israel's spiritual blessings under the new covenant. Ephesians truth is that we have blessings of our own, very different - spiritual - blessings and a calling to heavenly places. The Gentiles in Acts were going to inherit the kingdom by becoming Abraham's seed heirs, remember (Galatians 3)? What was Abraham's inheritance but the land and a great nation?
No, 1 Cor. 2 speaks of “the hidden wisdom of God, which He ordained before the world unto our glory.”
And no, per Romans 11, what has been grafted in is the offer of opportunity to come to the blessing of the Gentiles; the very opportunity that will be cut off when the Gentiles, rather than fear, once more reach the height of their high-mindedness. The Body being the channel through which that blessing is being offered, as Israel was cut off from being the channel of blessing of their program. It is the opportunity to get saved through Paul’s “now is the day at hand” gospel that has been grafted in.
I know this is a lot to hit you with but I saw the truth of it instantly upon examination! I'm learning a lot from Brian Kelson of Bibleunderstanding.com. He and his wife are very nice and gracious and will talk on the phone at length about this if you want: _-___-___-____. He has an Australian accent. His videos and audios are very informative. He along with most Acts 28ers have some difficult side issues like soul sleep, extinction, etc., but I just put them on a shelf because I really don't know what God is doing about that stuff, do you?
This is due to their failure to study out how the spirit, soul and body function, together with their conclusion that where many of the passages on that are found are supposedly kingdom ground. Again, Acts was not written to establish Mystery truth, Paul’s writings were. Acts is a history, per Romans 11:11, 12 of Israel’s fall, after their stumble at Calvary, and of their subsequent diminishing away to where God leaves them by Acts 28.
E. W. Bullinger ("Witness of the Stars," "Number in Scripture") lived at the turn of the last century and was a well-known Bible scholar and writer who was pretty much Mid Acts his whole adult life and then 4 years before he died, he was introduced to Acts 28 by Charles Welch and he immediately saw the truth of it too! he had to recant all of his prior works and wrote a few things after that and I'll attach one of them for you. It's just terrific!
And then, what is Bullinger observed doing in his writings after that – twisting passages so they now line up with his new position, together with attempting to explain away passages as not belong in Scripture! In this, I was not surprised that the person on those two audios you sent me would resort to whatever translation better suited his points...
Two scriptures I found interesting: Acts 26:22 and Acts 26:16. Acts 26:22 has Paul saying he had not preached anything the prophets didn't say up to that point and that's AFTER he wrote Romans! Acts 26:16 has a final line that seems to indicate that Christ had told Paul he would give him a second commission at a future time!
That is because He had preached the resurrected Lord had been Israel’s Messiah, both as a proof, as well as, as a witness against that nation, which is exactly what you first preach to a Jew, even today, before you go into the salvation, let alone, touch on the Mystery. Compare Acts 17, with 1 Thessalonians 2 –and you might also note that throughout his Acts Epistles Paul is constantly dealing with both Jew and Gentile issues. This is one, of other reasons why he quotes their writings to them, as in Romans 7, and in Romans 9-11, for example.
If Acts 28:23 is kingdom gospel, then so is 28:28, as would be 2 Timothy 2:8, which is Romans 1:2.
Again, such is not a problem when you consider that Paul is a new Apostle, one too many if he was preaching the gospel of the kingdom. He was not. Rather, he was proving to Israel that He Whom they had first, crucified, then, continued to reject after His having prayed the Father for their forgiveness, had been their Messiah – but Paul is doing so from his Romans 2, and 9-11 perspective – that Israel has been concluded by God in Uncircumcision. Again, Romans 1:16’s “to the Jew first,” then, is in light of Acts 13:46’s “should first have been spoken to you but.” And that is in light of Romans 9-11’s fall of Israel.
There is just so much that the Acts 28 position does not consider. For example, it is obvious from most of Paul’s first Epistle; Galatians, that he had preached the truth of Romans to the Galatians before he’d even written said truths. In other words, his preaching of many of the themes his writings only later laid out in writing, had obviously been preached by him in their fullness before said writings.
This really all boils down to HOW we study. For example, the scope of Philippians 1:10’s “that ye may approve things that are excellent,” gives it the sense that it is not referring to rightly dividing between things that differ in the Word, as the passage has been interpreted by some, but rather, to doing so between those things which might make for their love with one another to abound more and more, [as with Romans 15] and those that might not make for that. Just goes to show how people will make of a passage what it is not talking about.
Of course, you'll want to check this out for yourself and I'll respect whatever you decide. My blog is in private status right now while I fix it up. I can set it up so it's open to you if you ask. A good first step would be to listen to the first two audios listed on Brian's audio page:
Paul's Gospel in Acts 9 & 13 1 2
Love always in Christ, the Head of the church which is his body,
_____
Likewise ____, I remain yours in Him, just as I remain open minded.