|
|
Post by Admin on Jan 10, 2019 14:32:03 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jan 10, 2019 14:32:49 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jan 10, 2019 14:40:46 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jan 10, 2019 14:40:58 GMT -5
Vv
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jan 10, 2019 14:41:09 GMT -5
RESPONSE
First notice Paul did not say "in heaven" or "in existence" (which would cover all creation) he said "UNDER the heavens". If we, as seems reasonable, take "the heavens" to refer to God's abode, where God lives with his son Jesus and all the angels, then "under the heavens" would simply mean "on earth" (for heaven is frequently depicted in depicted as being "up" or "above/over" the earth). The expression would seem to be the equivalent of "under the sun", as used frequently by the writer of Ecclesiastes. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, referring to the latter expression, states "The phrase itself seems to signify simply "on this earth" (see especially Eccl 7:20, Eccl 8:16, Eccl 11:2)"
Matthew Poole's Commentary explains Paul's word in the following terms " the faithful apostles, according to the commission of Christ, had promulgated to every creature beneath the heavens, i.e. every rational creature here below, i.e. to all men, collectively, or nations in the world, as Colossians 1:6 Matthew 28:19 Mark 16:15. Creature with the Hebrews doth eminently signify man, [...]. In the original it is, in all the creature; and so it may be, in all the world, (creature being sometimes used for the system of the world, Romans 8:19-21), in opposition to Judea, i.e. in those other parts of the earth which the Greeks and Romans knew to be then inhabited"
QUESTION Was Paul claiming that every individual person had received a personal testimony?
No, Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible explains "This must be understood not of every individual creature, even human and rational, that was then, or had been in, the world; but that it had been, and was preached far and near, in all places all over the world, to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews; who are sometimes styled "every creature", "the creature", "the whole creation", "all men", (see Mark 16:15 Titus 2:11) [...] the sound of all the apostles went into all the earth, and their words to the end of the world"{end quote} In other words Paul's statement is not to be taken literally, as if meaning that every person alive on earth under heaven was being personally reached. It meant that the preaching of the good news was being pushed to all quarters of the inhabited earth under heaven and that all human creatures or groups of human society at the time, without regard for language, color, race or nationality, were being given the opportunity to hear the Kingdom message.
QUESTION: Does the fact that at Paul claimed that this had been accomplished prior to his writing imply that it started before the people in question were born?
No. As has been stated, this preaching work was conducted "under" heaven not "in" heaven and therefore would concern people hearing the good news for the first time while living on this planet earth. Further if Paul was writing around 60 CE (during his first imprisonment in Rome), then he would naturally be refering to the accomplishments of the first century preachers prior to that year. Was such a thing possible? Could the gospel have spread throughout the known world in just 30 years?
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary and points out {quote} "Pliny, not many years subsequently, in his famous letter to the Emperor Trajan [Epistles, Book X., Epistle 97], writes, "Many of every age, rank, and sex, are being brought to trial. For the contagion of that superstition [Christianity] has spread over not only cities, but villages and the country."
Regarding the speed of the initiative, Professor J. W. Thompson pointed out: “Christianity had spread with remarkable rapidity over the Roman world. By the year 100 probably every province that bordered the Mediterranean had a Christian community within it, and in many provinces there were several congregations. The vertical expansion upward from the lowly classes who had been its first converts into the upper strata of Roman society seems also to have been rapid.”—History of the Middle Ages, p. 22.
CONCLUSION Given the above, there seems no reason to conclude that Paul was saying anything other than that at the time of his writing, the good news had been preached in all the (the known) world. There is absolutely no explicit or implicit indication that the above imposes any kind of pre-existent life for the recipients of that message.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 10, 2019 21:11:03 GMT -5
<< Theocratic Unity [INDEX] >>"For then I will change the language of the peoples to a pure language,
So that all of them may call on the name of Jehovah,To serve him shoulder to shoulder.’" - Zeph. 3:9
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 10, 2019 21:16:50 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jun 15, 2019 17:53:27 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 2, 2019 15:35:28 GMT -5
Gv
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 2, 2019 15:37:57 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 2, 2019 15:38:25 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 2, 2019 15:47:45 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 2, 2019 15:48:00 GMT -5
Gv
|
|
