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10 Responses to Feedback

1. steven zabroski says:

   April 15, 2005 at 6:43 am

   David, Thank you so much, May God’s Grace and Mercy be absorbed into your heart.
   A soldier in Iraq

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2. Kevin says:

   May 17, 2006 at 9:04 pm

   Email from Jason about my article.

   You mentioned the contradiction from Mark and Luke about Jesus telling one gtoup that there would be no sign and another group, basically, that HE was who they were looking for.

   And there’s the important difference. To compare the two sections is both brilliant and necessary, but you seem to have missed the point. In Mark, the Pharisees send someone to question Jesus to trick him. This person has NO FAITH in Jesus as the Messiah. What Jesus is saying is that God is not going to come down from Heaven and announce to all who don’t believe, “Hey, I AM real! Believe!” But John the Baptist’s followers in Luke HAVE FAITH. They’ve stepped out in faith, believing that this man could be the Messiah. Jesus’ reply to them is a confirmation of their faith. It’s like the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2:6-7, about a Godly wisdom, “not the wisdom of this age, or the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. (7) No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom…” meaning that it is only revelaed to those who have put their faith in Jesus.
   Becuase the point of our being here is to choose to love God, through Christ, by FAITH. This is what separates us from the angels: FAITH.

   So, I guess I should expect a retraction, then?

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3. Kevin says:

   May 17, 2006 at 9:06 pm

   My reply to Jason:

   I can hardly be expected to retract what I didn’t say. “Contradiction” is your word not mine. It does not appear on my page.

   The word I used was “contrast”, which simply says to look at one in the light of the other. The point is not that the two scriptures contradict each other (they don’t) but that one could be considered a source for the other.

   In your analysis, you explain the difference between the two scriptures being two different audiences. It’s certainly reasonable to understand different things being said in different contexts. But here the context is identical. Let me quote the scriptures:

   (Mark 8:12 NASB) And sighing deeply in His spirit, He said^, “Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.”

   (Luke 11:29 NASB) And as the crowds were increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah.

   Jesus is not speaking about the faithful in Luke 11.

   Now what is perhaps more interesting is to contrast Matthew and Luke in their longer context:

   (Luke 11:29-32 NASB) And as the crowds were increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah. {30} “For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation. {31} “The Queen of the South shall rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. {32} “The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

   (Mat 12:39-41 NASB) But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; {40} for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. {41} “The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

   Luke understands repentance to be the sign of Jonah, where Matthew has found significance in the three-day ordeal of Jonah in the whale in the added quotation (in caps) from the Old Testament. (Personally, I find the Matthew insertion rather awkward. Rather than explaining the sign of Jonah, Matthew comes up with two of them. If Matthew was first, perhaps Luke felt the same way I did when he edited it out.)

   I believe that the early Christian community, under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, grew in understanding of who Jesus was, and that they used the occasion of a historical discourse of Jesus to insert things they knew Jesus would have said into what he actually said. This is not contradiction or forgery; it is inspired interpretation.

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4. Kevin says:

   May 17, 2006 at 9:48 pm

   Second reply to Jason:

   OK, I see what you mean now. I wrote my article many years ago and it’s not all that clear there at the end.

   Yes, you might argue that John is not an evolutionary understanding of Jesus, but a saying in a different context. Indeed we are making much the same argument, that the sayings are for different people. It’s just that my different people are from a different time, and it’s the disciples of John, not Jesus who are doing the talking.

   It’s really important to compare the way Jesus appears in John vs Mark. Jesus in Mark keeps his identity a secret and only teaches in parables. In John Jesus must be proclaimed openly and he speaks in complex theological discourses. I think that there is much to be learned by comparing the Gospels and trying to understand why they are different.

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5. cheryl says:

   February 25, 2007 at 10:49 pm

   I had a read of the Jonah story and alot about all the different things it ment and none come close to what I think it is about.
   On day five god made the great sea creatures like the one said to have swallowed Jonah, but, on day six god gave us dominion over everything but.I beleive that Jesus was put in the villains grave till it was safe to move him and the villain was put in the tomb.
   I have been unable to find out who was or could have been responsible for the other two bodies.
   just a thought from Cheryl

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6. Kevin says:

   February 27, 2007 at 2:01 pm

   Cheryl:
   What two bodies?
   Kevin

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7. cheryl says:

   March 8, 2007 at 8:53 pm

   the other two guys that were hung with Jesus on the day. there is no information that I have been able to find that says who would have seen to them.

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8. Kevin says:

   August 13, 2008 at 9:45 pm

   I presume the Romans were responsible for all three.

   Now that I think of it, I have heard the Romans left unclaimed bodies out for the dogs to eat.

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9. TRUTH says:

   December 24, 2008 at 9:10 pm

   MERRY CHRISTMAS Kevin

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10. Kevin says:

    December 25, 2008 at 1:01 am

    Merry Christmas, Truth.

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