This has been a fun summer but I'm not sure what I accomplished. I've had a blast with blogging and blog-hopping. I have gotten into discussions that have stirred up my study habits from long ago. I have spent alot of time visiting with Morgan {hour long conversations as she drives to and from Taproot theater.}and blogging with her. I think alot of time has been spent just in life... doing dishes, clothes, watering the lawn, playing with kids and making meals. No major sewing projects, no vacations, no other milestones accomplished. But I have studied in areas that have been very challenging, I have repainted the dirty parts of my walls, I have found new blogging friends and new places to be encouraged. And I think I have grown closer to God due to all of this. Pretty fun stuff!
Me *julie* at  # 12:03 AM

~Eschatology~ A few definitions for words that came up in a recent discussion on eschatology at The Thinklings.

Agnostic: An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time {http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-text/Russell/agnostic.htm}

Amillennialist [ also termed nunc-millennialism or inaugurated millennialism ]: This group believes that the Kingdom of God was inaugurated at Christ's resurrection (hence the term "inaugurated millennialism") at which point he gained victory over both Satan and the Curse. Christ is even now reigning (hence the term "nunc-millennialism" - nunc means "now") at the right hand of the Father over His church. After this present age has ended, Christ will return and immediately usher the church into their eternal state after judging the wicked. The term "amillennialism" is actually a misnomer for it implies that Revelation 20:1-6 is ignored; in fact, the amillennialist's hermeneutic interprets it (and in fact, much of apocalyptic literature) non-literally.{http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/mill.html#conc}amillenialists believe that there is not a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ, and no seven year great tribulation... that in general they believe Revelation is talking about the Roman Empire... Amillennialists read the millennium as symbolic also, but are typified by their denial of a present or future millennium -hence the term "A-millennialism". Amillennialism is the eschatological view that does not read the millennium spoken of in Revelation as literal or futuristic. Nearly all of the early church fathers were amillennialists of one sort or another.


Arminian: These five proposed, known as the Arminian Articlesanti-Calvinist corrections are summarized below:
1.God has decreed to save through Jesus Christ, out of the fallen and sinful human race, those foreknown by him who through the grace of the Holy Spirit believe in Christ; but God leaves in sin those foreseen, who are incorrigible and unbelieving (Election conditioned upon foreknowledge).

2. Christ's death was suffered on behalf of all men, but God elects for salvation only those who believe in Christ (Atonement is a universal moral influence).

3. Freedom of will is man's natural state, not a spiritual gift - and thus free will was not lost in the Fall. The grace of Christ works upon all men to influence them for good, but only those who freely choose to agree with grace by faith and repentance are given new spiritual power to make effectual the good they otherwise impotently intend (Free will and partial depravity).

4. The grace of God works for good in all men, and brings about newness of life through faith. But grace can be resisted even by the regenerate (Resistible grace).

5. Those who are incorporated into Christ by a true faith have power given them through the assisting grace of the Holy Spirit, sufficient to enable them to persevere in the faith. But it is possible for a believer to fall from grace. {http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminianism}

Calvinist: Calvinism is often identified in the popular mind, with the "five points of the doctrines of grace", remembered by the English acronym: TULIP.

1. Total Depravity
All men are guilty in God's sight, and undeserving of life. [See Genesis 3, Romans 3:10-18]
2. Unconditional Election:
Election means "choice". God's choice from eternity, of who he will bring to himself, is not based on foreseen virtue, merit or faith in the persons he chooses but rather, is unconditionally grounded in his own mercy. [Romans 9, Ephesians 1:3-5]
3. Limited Atonement:
Also called "definite atonement" meaning that, Christ's death actually takes away the penalty of sins committed by those upon whom God has chosen to have mercy. It is "limited" then, to taking away the sins of the elect. [John 10:14-15 & 26-28]
4. Irresistible Grace:
The saving grace of God is not resistible. Those who obtain salvation do so because of the relentlessness of God's mercy. Men yield to grace, not finally because God found their consciences more tender or their faith more tenacious than other men. Rather, willingness and ability to do God's will, are evidence of God's faithfulness to save men from the power and the penalty of sin. [John 15:16]
5. Perseverance of the Saints:
Those whom God has called into communion with Himself through Christ, will continue in faith and will increase in faith and other gifts, until the end. [John 10:27-29] {http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism#Popular_summations_of_Calvinist_theology}
The Arminians believe, it is conditional; the Calvinists, that it is absolute. { http://www.arminian.us/}

Cessationist vs Non-cessationist
"Cessationism" is here defined as the thesis that some of the gifts (and their corresponding offices) described in the New Testament are ordinary and perpetual, while others were extraordinary and have accordingly been withdrawn from the life of the church with the close of the apostolic age. {http://pages.sbcglobal.net/dcrow/dcrc/articles/irons_cessation.html#Positive}
When considering the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the cessationist believes that certain gifts (typically those specifically mentioned in 1st Corinthians 12:7-11, generally identified as the miraculous gifts), ceased long ago, when the apostles died and Scripture was complete. The non-cessationist does not believe Scripture supports this point of view. The non-cessationist believes that God continues to gift believers and perform miraculous acts as He did in the days of the Bible. {http://www.hhbc.com/pdfs/Cessationism%20and%20Non-Cessationism.rtf}

Christian Zionism: "a movement, largely among Gentile Christians, supporting the right of the Jewish people to return to the Promised Land which has, of course, happened right before our eyes during this century" {http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/czionism.html}

Dispensationalist: According to dispensationalists, God has two distinct bodies of people with whom he is working: Israel and the church. There is a separate plan for each of these two peoples. Israel is said to be an earthly people, while the church represents a heavenly body. they teach that Jesus came to earth the first time fully intending to establish an earthly millennial kingdom with his chosen people, Israel. When the Jews rejected Christ's legitimate offer of the kingdom, say the dispensationalists, that kingdom was then postponed until the second coming of Christ. Then the same earthly Davidic kingdom which they are supposed to have refused will be established in the form of the millennium. During the millennium all the plans which were supposedly thwarted by the Jews at the first advent will be carried out in a literal manner. Because of Israel's rejection, the kingdom was postponed until the second advent of Christ. The millennial kingdom was offered, and postponed; but it will be instituted on earth after Christ's return. Since the kingdom was postponed it is a great error to attempt, as is so commonly done, to build a kingdom on the first advent of Christ as its basis, for, according to the Scriptures, the kingdom which was offered to Israel was rejected and is therefore delayed, to be realized only with the second advent of Christ.
The kingdom, because it was rejected and postponed, entered a mystery form (Matt 13) for the present age This mystery form of the kingdom has to do with the Church age when the kingdom of heaven is embodied in Christendom. God is now ruling on the earth insofar as the parables of the mystery of the kingdom of heaven require. In this mystery phase of the kingdom, good and evil mingle together and are to grow together until Christ returns.
The kingdom is to be reannounced by a Jewish remnant of 144,000 in final anticipation of Messiah's return. At the beginning of the great tribulation, which occurs immediately before the return of Christ, the Church will be raptured, taken out of the world, to be with Christ. An election of Israel is then sealed by God to proclaim throughout all the world the Gospel of the kingdom (Matt 24:14), i.e., that the Davidic kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, is about to be set up.
The millennial kingdom will then be realized as Christ returns in power and glory at the conclusion of the tribulation. Then Israel, which has been gathered from its dispersion through the earth to Messiah, will accept Him as such, and will enter the millennial kingdom as the covenanted people (George E. Ladd, Crucial Questions About the Kingdom of God, pp. 50,51). {http://www.graceonlinelibrary.org/full.asp?ID=178}

Dispensational Premillennialists hold that Christ will come before a seven-year period of intense tribulation to take His church (living and dead) into heaven. After this period of fulfillment of divine wrath, He shall then return to rule from a holy city (i.e., the New Jerusalem) over the earthly nations for one thousand years. After these thousand years, Satan, who was bound up during Christ's earthly reign, will be loosed to deceive the nations, gather an army of the deceived, and take up to battle against the Lord. This battle will end in both the judgment of the wicked and Satan and the entrance into the eternal state of glory by the righteous. This view is called premillenialism because it places the return of Christ before the millennium and it is called dispensational because it is founded in the doctrines of dispensationalism.

Fundamentalist: Self-described Fundamentalists frequently consider themselves "non-denominational", and indeed the movement is found in many denominations. They are typically pessimistic in their expectations for the future of the world (see dispensationalism), and committed to separation from what they believe to be theological, scientific and moral error. Although the modern movement formed within many of the established denominations, their tendency toward separation swelled the ranks of peripheral spinoff denominations, produced a multitude of new groups, and often made the choice of congregational independence appear to be the more faithful choice.
Christian fundamentalism is characterized as well by a more strict moral code compared to mainstream Protestantism, by which the fundamentalist believer seeks to distinguish himself from the world and identify himself with the community of the faithful. . The term Fundamentalist Christian, against the unheeded objections of nearly all to whom it is popularly applied, now describes any conservative adherent to Christianity, who clings to views of morality, sin, salvation through Christ alone, or other views based on the truth and authority of Scripture, which have been discarded in favor of more skeptical or pluralistic views, by the more widely respected authorities and scholars of religion. Notwithstanding this loose use of the terms, there is some awareness that Fundamentalism has a specific, historical meaning.{http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalists}


Historical Premillennialists : place the return of Christ just before the millennium and just after a time of great apostasy and tribulation. After the millennium, Satan will be loosed and Gog and Magog will rise against the kingdom of God; this will be immediately followed by the final judgment. While similar in some respects to the dispensational variety (in that they hold to Christ's return being previous the establishment of a thousand-year earthly reign), historical premillennialism differs in significant ways (notably in their method of interpreting Scripture).
The postmillennialist believes that the millennium is an era (not a literal thousand years) during which Christ will reign over the earth, not from an literal and earthly throne, but through the gradual increase of the Gospel and its power to change lives. After this gradual Christianization of the world, Christ will return and immediately usher the church into their eternal state after judging the wicked. This is called postmillennialism because, by its view, Christ will return after the millennium.


Mid-trib: Mid-Tribulationism teaches that the church will enter the seven last years, but will be taken to be with Christ 3 1/2 years later at the mid-point. Typically, this removes the church from the "Great Tribulation" which they believe to be contained in the second half, but does put the church through some of the more tolerable conditions during the first half.

Parousia: "parousia" the Greek word for advent, coming, or presence. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, and it says, 'Advent (often, return; spec. of Christ to punish Jerusalem, or finally the wicked

Patristic: The study of the writings of the Fathers of the Church, has more commonly been known in England as "patristics", or, more commonly still, as "patristic study".

Postmillennialists: They see the millennium as symbolic of the "church age" progressing through time. They also have a pretty optimistic view of history, that the world is slowly getting better and better.

Post-trib: The 'post-trib' (abbreviation for 'post-tribulation') rapture view is the belief that Jesus will return visibly and bodily to raise the dead Christians and 'catch up' the living Christians at the end of a period of intense tribulation, called by Jesus "great tribulation" [Matt. 24:21]. The post-trib view is the only rapture view which sees only a single future coming of Jesus. Other rapture views, 'pre-trib,' 'mid-trib,' and 'pre-wrath,' all envision the rapture / resurrection as being prior to the second coming of Jesus by months or years. While all the other rapture views see the rapture as a means to take the Church to heaven for a brief period of time to escape God's wrath, the post-trib view sees the rapture merely as a mechanism to gather together all believers in a single location with Christ, to accompany Him in glory as He is revealed to the world. {http://www.geocities.com/~lasttrumpet/post-trib.html}


Preterist: A "full" preterist would interpret passages as Matthew 24 as referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 The term 'Preterist' is a somewhat obscure way of labeling those who believe that the Roman-Jewish War in the first century is to be associated with end-times Bible fulfillment. Based upon revelations throughout God's Word, all of the Bible's eschatology was to fing fulfillment in the latter half of the first century (Please read: The Significance of A.D. 70).
Those who believe (using Sproul's definition) that all eschatological events are in the past are { http://www.preteristarchive.com/Preterism/dennis-todd_p_01.html}


Pre-trib: Pre-Tribulationism is a futurist interpretation of end time events. It teaches that the church will be caught up to Christ sometime before the "tribulation" period (which they claim is Daniel's Seventieth Week and thus a seven-year period) begins. This removes the church from the earth and conveys it into Heaven while divine judgment is poured out on the unbelievers who remain. Typically pre-trib teaching includes the belief that there will continue to be people saved who were left behind, many who are converted by the preaching of the 144,000 "witnesses" of Rev. ch 7. These believers are the "tribulation saints" who must wait until Christ returns a second (third?) time to receive their eternal inheritance, although most will be martyred by then. Upon Christ's return with the church, a 1,000-year period of earthly rule by Christ will begin (pre- millenialism). {http://www.souldevice.org/pretrib.html}

Pre-Wrath: "Pre-Wrath" is a view that has espoused in such books as Van Kampen's "The Sign" - it is basically a view that states that Christians will go through the great tribulation, but will be raptured prior to the descending of God's wrath very shortly before Christ's return. Pre-wrathers assert that Christ's parousia will occur after the great tribulation has started, but not before it ends. But they do not place it smack-dab halfway through as normal midtribbers do. In fact, most prewrathers are fairly agnostic about the actual timing in terms of where within the 7 years. But they do say it will be after the 4th seal is broken

Reformed: The Reformed faith finds its entire authority in the teaching of the Word of God. The Bible is the only infallible rule of what we are to believe and how we are to live. Continuing charismatic revelations, prophecies, or unknown tongues are no longer needed because God has spoken his final and all-sufficient word with the completion of the canon of Holy Scripture. The Bible and the Bible alone--that is our confession.{http://www.opc.org/what_is/Reformed_Part1.html}{This was the hardest one to pinpoint as there are as many 'reformed' beliefs as there are churches... so this definition may be very limited}

Zionism:Zionism, the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, advocated, from its inception, tangible as well as spiritual aims. Jews of all persuasions, left and right, religious and secular, joined to form the Zionist movement and worked together toward these goals. Disagreements led to rifts, but ultimately, the common goal of a Jewish state in its ancient homeland was attained. The term "Zionism" was coined in 1893 by Nathan Birnbaum. {http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Zionism/zionism.html}




Me *julie* at  # 5:16 PM

Many of my friends are getting ready to get school rolling again; home-schooling that is. I haven't started putting anything together yet. I have decided to enjoy the summer as much as the kids. I have spent many summers pouring over catalogs, the internet and the computer trying to put together a great program for the kids. But since I am great at planning and making charts but not on sticking with any program for any length of time... by January we were so off the great plan I had put together it wasn't funny.
Every year I would try again and decide that this year we would stay 'on track'. I bought several full curriculum packages with lesson plans and all. They were great but I could never stay on the schedule. I always had great intentions but I never finished a year the same way I started it...until last year. I didn't have a plan going in...and I stayed on that 'basic plan' the whole year! We read whatever we wanted (have lot of books from the whole curriculum program) and learned about history and science by the books we wanted to read. The kids did a lot of math and some writing but we didn't finish any workbooks.
I used to worry that if I didn't stick to a strict schedule and plan that the kids would end up way behind. They aren't! The older kids rank in the college level on most of their yearly tests and the little ones are learning everything that is necessary for 1st and 2nd grades. The older two boys worked with Jim a lot this year and learned how to remodel a bathroom and how to tile a floor. They went on a 50 mile hike through the Olympic Mountains and progressed in their music well enough to be on our church's worship team. And, they all still love to learn. Jesse wasn't assigned it, but he wrote up a huge 10+ page article on all the instruments in an orchestra. And Cory taught himself how to make animation on a flash program. They both memorized most of John for a quizzing team. We don't have a time schedule or a lesson schedule but a lot seems to get done during the year without it. And I get to enjoy my summer!!
I have had a fear in the back of my mind that by the time they got into college they would have a hard time adjusting to a schedule...I don't think that will be a problem watching Morgan take off. Since they have taught themselves to learn, they will fit right in with college where no one is sitting over you telling you to study. {I don't think I can write this up as a 'how-to' for home-schooling... I don't think it would go over real well.} One of these days I will go down to the store and pick out some math books and maybe a new book or two. But not yet... the sun is still shinning and in Washington that is a reason to be in it!

Me *julie* at  # 6:48 PM

This song always reminds me to take God out of the box I put Him in...

Be Magnified Lyrics~

I have made You too small in my eyes
O Lord, forgive me;
And I have believed in a lie
That You were unable to help me.
But now, O Lord, I see my wrong
Heal my heart and show Yourself strong;
And in my eyes and with my song
O Lord, be magnified
O Lord, be mag - nified.
CHORUS:

Be magnified, O Lord
You are highly exalted;
And there is nothing You can't do
O Lord, my eyes are on You.
Be magnified,
O Lord, be mag - nified.


I have leaned on the wisdom of men
O Lord, forgive me;
And I have responded to them
Instead of Your light and Your mercy.
But now, O Lord, I see my wrong
Heal my heart and show Yourself strong;
And in my eyes with my song
O Lord, be magnified
O Lord, be magnified.

CHORUS:

Be magnified, O Lord
You are highly exalted;
And there is nothing You can't do
O Lord, my eyes are on You.
Be magnified,
O Lord, be mag - nified.

Me *julie* at  # 10:32 AM

I have always loved school as far back as I can remember. I wasn't an A+ student but I enjoyed the challenge of learning. Maybe that's why I went into teaching . . . Maybe that's why I have enjoyed homeschooling my kids. But I have not been so challenged to think in a long time as I have by a few blogs that I love. And it's not a challenge that makes me feel insecure in what I believe but in making me not take what I believe for granted; to push myself into areas that go beyond my comfort zone. I've been at some pretty scholarly churches in the past and ours now has some real strong teachers. But the teaching is only for 40 minutes a week and not really geared for study during the week. So I have been totally enjoying delving into this new blogging world. Especially since I have found such great writers to enjoy reading.
Me *julie* at  # 10:24 PM