We went rounds on this several months back. As I recall, you refused to answer my arguments. The subject is the destruction of the temple, not Armageddon.
Puh-lease. I don't "refuse" to answer your arguments; I might not have quoted every single point of your posts, but that is something very different.
The "clairvoyance of the temple's destruction in 70AD" requires several skips of topic in the same passage, without sense, without announcement by Jesus. I don't believe that is the case; I am convinced he talks about the same thing all the way through. Simple as that.
"You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,[d] 44and whoever would be first among you must be slave[e] of all. 45For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
I don't see this necessarily an allusion to death. He talks about his service to God, and that is something he does while he is *alive*, not when he is dead. In my view, "giving his life as a ransom" is meant as *dedicating* his life to serve God, because that's how he makes himself "the last", just as he asks his disciples to do. That's what the whole preceding stuff was about, to teach the disciples how to become great in the Kingdom of God. They wanted a shortcut, and he tells them there's only the hard way of dedicating your life. If Jesus suddenly started talking about his death as a way to become great in the Kingdom, it would defeat the whole purpose of his teaching, because it's something none of the disciples could follow him with.
In general, when it comes to orthodox interpretation, I find that there is quite little value put on an interpretation that produces a consistent message of Jesus. Instead, passages get shredded into subparts that allow the orthodox theology to work.
Why would they have to die with Jesus for the interpretation to remain valid? And I'd say it does refer to his death - notice that his question is clearly a reference to something that he must do. Notice also how Luke 12:50 follows up on this: "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!"
Lol, and that's where you choose to end your reading. It goes on to say
Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 53They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
The distress isn't his death; it's the division he must sow for his mission on Earth.
To elaborate more, I don't think Jesus' death had any significance, and it certainly wasn't in Jesus' "plan" to die. The orthodox attempt to retroject his death into his "grand mission on Earth" is stretched. His teachings talk about the here and now and one's personal lifestyle in preparation for the upheaval. That's what his teachings focus on massively in the gospels. He never says "I need to die for this or that reason", that's all stretched reasoning after the uncomfortable fact that he *did* die.
rumborak
Topic: Kingdom of heaven/Kingdom of God in the four Gospels? (Read 8631 times)
