How do preachers or teachers explain this?
- Thread starter Godsgood
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Why? Where are we told in the Bible that part of knowing the "real Jesus" is seeing things like a world-wide flood, Israel being rescued from Egypt, David committing adultery with Bathsheba and causing her husband Uriah to be killed, are still happening in 2026? The apostles told the jailer how to be saved: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" is what Acts 16:31 says, not Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that everything recording as happening in the Old Testament is still happening today and you will be saved."
Yes, He compared His Second Coming to the Flood. He didn't say that the Flood is still happening.
It doesn't contradict those verses at all to say that the events recorded in the Old Testament are not happening today. The Ecclesiastes verse says:
NKJV Ecc 1:9 That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.
To interpret that as meaning that every event recorded in the Old Testament is still happening today is just wrong. Certainly people are still committing adultery and murder, as David did, but David is not still committing adultery with Bathsheba or murdering Uriah. Solomon is not still building a temple. Samson is not still posing a riddle about honeycomb in a lion's carcass.
Matthew 2w4:25 says:
NKJV Mat 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.
It is about God's words never passing away, not about the things recorded in God's written word continuing to happen.
I am not depending on my own understanding. The very fact that I have not drowned, even though I am not in a literal ark, proves that a word-wide flood is not still happening today. Besides, after the Flood recorded in Genesis, we are told that the Flood ended, and God promised that He would not flood the whole world again:
NKJV Gen 8:13 And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, that the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and indeed the surface of the ground was dry.
Gen 9:11 Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
Saying as you do, that a world-wide flood is happening today, is accusing God of breaking His promises.
That is true for us, but for first century Jews, "hate" was sometimes used to mean "love less." If Jesus had meant that His followers were literally to hate their parents, that would go against the commandment to honour one's parents, and anyway Jesus taught His followers to love even their enemies, so why would He tell them to hate heir parents? Do we read of Him hating Mary, and His foster-father Joseph? Of course not.
I have answered why I do so above.
To say that Ecclesiastes 1:9 and Matthew 24:35 mean that the Children of Israel are still being rescued from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt is wrong. Is Pharaoh still ruling Egypt? Are Israelites still salves there, being forced to make bricks without straw? Are their male babies still being killed in Egypt? Of course not. These things do have spiritual lessons to teach us. But that doesn't mean that the actual things themselves are still happening.
Yes, the Lord does know what is in my heart better than I know it myself, because He knows all things.
Some things happen only once.
Who should we believe? You, who say that there are things that happen only once? Or God, who says that everything is merely repeated and that there is nothing new under the sun?
ECCLESIASTES 1:9
That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
Anyone who does not know the one true God cannot testify to the truth of Ecclesiastes 1:9. Instead, they are contradicting what God has said.
Is Pharaoh still ruling Egypt?
YES!
Are Israelites still salves there, being forced to make bricks without straw?
YES!
Are their male babies still being killed in Egypt? Of course not
YES!
These things do have spiritual lessons to teach us. But that doesn't mean that the actual things themselves are still happening.
You yourself said that what God teaches is spiritual. That means it involves things that cannot be seen by the naked eye.
But because your understanding of God’s word is literal rather than spiritual, you cannot see what we who know the one true God can see.
We who have come to know the one true God when the example we saw before us appeared to us to be white, but God said that it was black, we believed Him because we know that the Lord speaks the truth (John 14:6). So we humbled ourselves before Him. And when He saw our humility, He revealed the truth to us. Thus, what we saw as white turned out to be black after all. So we asked Him for mercy and gave thanks.
That is also what we did when we read Luke 14:26.
We humbled ourselves before Him once again, and when He saw our humility, He revealed to us who the father, mother, wife, children, brother, and sister are whom we should hate.
And we saw the truth that we really must reject them in order to follow the Lord Jesus.
So once again, we asked Him for mercy and gave thanks to Him.
Therefore, to this day, we continue to hate them so that we may continue to follow the Lord Jesus.
Luke 14:26 and Matthew 10:37 are not the same commandment.
It is not possible to fulfill Matthew 10:37 and say that doing so is the fulfillment of Luke 14:26.
We who have come to know the one true God and have been enlightened by His words have fulfilled both of the Lord’s different commandments.
You yourself also said that God knows everything.
Therefore, He already knew back then that in our generation, the meanings of “hate” and “love” would be opposite.
So it cannot be that “hate” meant “love less” to the Jews.
Therefore, we who have been enlightened by God’s word testify that God’s word in the past is also God’s word today (Ecclesiastes 1:9 & Matthew 24:35).
You say that you do not depend on your own understanding.
But when it comes to the promise of the Lord God in Gen 9:11, it is clear that you do depend on your own understanding.
That is why you interpret it in a literal sense.
And because you cannot see what we see, your seemingly clear understanding contradicts Ecclesiastes 1:9 and Matthew 24:35.
If you cannot fulfill Luke 14:26 through hatred, then it is also impossible for you to fulfill John 6:51, 55, and 56.
How will you eat the flesh of the Lord and drink His blood so that you may be saved?
JOHN 6:51, 55 & 56
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
Either you are delusional, or you have been deceived. Maybe some of each.
That is not so. I can see spiritual lessons from things like the Flood, and from God saving the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. But that does not mean that the Flood is still happening or that the Children on Israel are still in slavery in Egypt. And I do know the one true God.
Praise God, He does "wait to see our humility" before He reveals Himself to us. Paul reminded the Ephesian Christians that before God saved them, they were "dead in trespasses and sins." If God had waited for them to show humility, He would still be waiting:
NKJV Eph 2:1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
Eph 2:2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
Eph 2:3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
Eph 2:5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Eph 2:6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Eph 2:7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
Eph 2:9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Eph 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Please stop using that phrase, "We who have come to know the one true God." It makes it sound as though you are making the judgement that others of us are not even Christians. That surely cannot be right.
So please tell me, why does Hebrew and Greek have to conform with English usage? Jesus told His followers to love their enemies. He Himself as a Child was subject to Mary and Joseph; He didn't hate them:
NKJV Luk 2:51 Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart.
Yes, I also have been (and continue to be) enlightened by God's word, which I agree is still God's word today. When have I said anything different?
But much of the Bible is literal. God literally created the earth, sun, moon, stars, animals, birds, fish, mankind, etc. He literally sent a world-wide flood, which killed all humans and animals not with Noah on the ark. He literally sent His only begotten Son to be born of a virgin, and to die literally on a literal cross, and literally rise again. I wonder what Noah though God meant by His words in Genesis 9:11:
NKJV Gen 9:11 Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
Do you really believe that God did not establish a literal covenant with Noah, or that God did not literally mean that there wuld never again be a flood to destroy the earth?
Understanding that verse as literally true does not in any way contradict Ecclesiastes 1:9 and Matthew 24:35.
If Luke 14:26 really meant that Christians have to hate their parents and spouses, how do you believe a Christian can obey words found elsewhere in God's word? For example:
NKJV Mat 19:19 'HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER,' and, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "
NKJV Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,
As for feeding on Jesus Christ, John is not suggesting some form of cannibalism, but feeding spiritually on Christ, and benefitting from His wounded body and shed blood.