Originally Posted by
dwashbur
I missed that one, apparently. But also, I've been a Lutheran and I know that most of them simply reject dispensationalism.
The main reason I haven't tried to answer your questions to date is because they tend to be departures from the topic at hand. I have mentioned that many times.
And now, I'm really not comfortable talking advanced theology because I'm going to feel like I'm bringing a billy club to a pillow fight. You asked what I have? I have a range of knowledge such that I can dialogue with just about any Christian tradition, in their own jargon and on their own level. I can do that because I'm intimately familiar with their views and theological distinctions.
I have never deliberately engaged in a "put down" with you. When I point out something erroneous, you seem to take it that way. I don't go after people unless I'm teasing. I go after viewpoints, because the goal is to determine what is the most consistently biblical. In this instance, I mentioned that you have a huge lack of knowledge, and now I understand why it's so difficult to dialogue with you and why we so often end up talking right past each other. I don't like that, I like being on even terms. All this time, I thought that even despite all my training etc. we were fairly close to even terms. Learning that we're not is most distressing.
I'd love to help you with this, but there's no way to do such a thing in a forum like this. You keep asking me about Romans vs. Matthew 25; there is no answer that will fit on AMHD or FB or any other such forum, because those things are bound up, defined and expanded by a vast array of other passages and factors. I haven't answered because it's impossible to do it in a few words. I've presented some things based on Kingdom theology and some other approaches, and I always wondered why you didn't respond to those.
Now I get it: much of the time I've been talking past you. I apologize for that, too. I wish I had known this a few years ago, because yes, it makes me feel like a bully. I don't like that feeling.
I can make you one promise: from here forward I will do my best to, as Walter Martin used to say, "Get the hay down out of the loft onto the barn floor where the cows can get at it." (No, I'm not calling you a cow.) In other words, I'll do my best to avoid Scholarese* and stick to English. I'll do my best to help you understand the other views. If you stay dispensational, cool. But at least you'll be doing it from a standpoint of thorough knowledge.
There is nothing shameful or "put down" about the word "ignorance." It means "lack of knowledge." Nothing more. It means someone doesn't know something. If they've never been taught it or exposed to it, then obviously they're not going to know it. Hence, they have ignorance on the subject. It's not a value judgment. It never has been, the word doesn't carry those connotations. It means "lacking knowledge." Part of my mission on Earth is to help people overcome that. Including you. I call you Sis because you're special to me. And I want to help you grow in knowledge. That's the bottom line.
*Scholarese, n. A dialect that consists entirely of multiverbal circumlocutions ane polysyllabic sentence units.
