[
Replying to post 51 by PinSeeker]
Sigh. As I have said many times, there is no "prediction" of anything. Micah is relating to the Israelites God's words.
Just what exactly is your beef with me saying "prediction"? Is it because you think I'm implying that the author of Micah has abilities to see the future all on his own, that he's engaged in something like crystal-ball gazing or tea-leaf reading; or that I'm implying that this knowledge does not come from God?
As I said from the outset, Verse 2 is about the first coming.
Then God needs an editor. According to you, Verse 2 is the first coming, Verse 3 and 4 are the second coming, and Verse 5 & 6 are about Bablyon conquering Assyria.
In other words, a mess chronologically.
So, verse 2, 3 and 4 together are really about the whole of human history -- from a "40.000 foot view" -- from the writing of Micah, which again was around 700 B.C., all the way up to the second coming of Christ.
Your ability to see things in texts that quite simply are not there really is astounding. I read Micah Chapter 5 and I don't see this entirety of human history. I don't see a mention of major events such as the Crusades or Napoleon or the World Wars or 9/11. I see a mention of the messiah of Judaism, supposedly coming from a town or clan, and how Israel will send military men to rule Assyria by the sword, how their messiah will protect Israel from foreign invasion.
It's very hard to debate prophecies with you when you are constantly talking about things
that are not in the text. One of us is talking about what's on the page. One of us is not.
Now, before you answer to that and go, "But-but-but-but-but," let me speak to you in another parable of sorts and try to get you to see what Micah is doing here:
Can't we simply discuss what Micah actually says, instead of what you are imagining is there on the page? Here's a link to the relevant chapter.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=NIV
The man gets up and starts toward the front door of the bar, but stops, turns around, and says, "Cheers!"... and walks out into the night.
I'm not holding my breath, of course, but maybe that will help you.
I'm not a sports man, but for the sake of argument I'll pretend I am...I'd think that the guy who told me all that is insane. Apparently his "birdy" is always correct?
Also, look at your parable. Look how detailed it is. Let's compare it to what you've been making of Micah. Does " In the fourth game of the season, a player whom you do not yet even know will play in his first game, and he will single-handedly carry your team. But then he will get injured and will be out for the rest of the season."
actually mean that during Game Number 4, a new player who is unknown will play his first ever game, carry the team and then suffer wounds and be unable to play? Or are there different meanings to what you said, such that it's almost like you're using a different language? Note how when Micah says that the military leaders will be sent to rule Assyria by the sword, you said that this was the Babylonians, even though the Babylonians were not actually sent by Israel. You just brushed aside the "sent" part, treating God supposedly using the Babylonian conquest as somehow counting for "sent".
That's at least part of your problem. Micah's prophecy, while chronological in a larger sense, is not s not strictly chronological.
That's if we go by what you are saying. Don't forget, what you say is not authoritative. What you say works against you, because now it means God is apparently intentionally being confusing and unclear.
Micah writes about the short term (verse 1), then about the long term (verses 2, 3, and 4, and the very first part of verse 5. Then in the rest of verse 5 and verse 6, he refocuses on the short term. Very much like I just did in the parable above.
No, your parable above does not follow what you have done with Micah. According to you, Verse 2 is the first coming of Jesus, Verse 3 and 4 are the second coming, Verse 5 and 6 are about Israel, Babylon and Assyria. This is going from future, to even further out in the future, then back again to the past.
For your parable to work like this, it would have to mean something like the team suffers their losses in the championship season, then centuries later a star player is born, then loops back to talking about their first ever season.
Oh and I have to point out...for what you say to be true, this means the author of Micah
is not telling us in the text just when each verse is supposed to be taking place. Go on, read Micah like you've never heard of it or read it before. Where is the clarity that verses 2 through to 6 are talking about three different time periods?
A straight reading of it doesn't reveal this. So why should I take your word for it that there ARE three different time periods being talked about, or as you say "the entirety of human history"?
Those are my words, and are a paraphrasing of several different parts of Scripture. And a summation, in layman's terms, of Micah 5... a Cliffs Notes kind of thing.
Exactly. In other words, you are reading Scripture and coming away with what you think it means.
It's not simply the case that you are having "Scripture interpret Scripture" (whatever that means exactly). If it were, you wouldn't be presenting your own thoughts. You'd just be presenting to me chapter and verse, and nothing else.
You are getting things mixed up (as seems to be your habit).
Nope. I disagree.
The other passages in Scripture that I referred to that provide clarification regarding what Micah said were from the New Testament book of Romans. There seems to be no disagreement between us that verse 2 foretells Christ's first coming.
Actually there is. I think the Jews took the text of Micah Chapter 5 as being a foretelling (can I use the word prediction?) of their messiah.
However, I do NOT agree that this is a foretelling of a one Jesus Christ.
What evidence do we have that Jesus Christ was actually born in the town of Bethlehem?
In Romans 1, Paul writes, "God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful..." Then, in Romans 8, Paul says, "...we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now." Knowing that Paul wrote these things more than 700 years after Micah lived clarifies what Micah was really talking about in verse 3, when he said, "Therefore He will give them up until the time when she who is in labor has borne a child."
One guy waxes poetic about childbirth and this is something profound? Are you aware of what it is you yourself have just quoted? Paul talks about
all of creation suffering the pains of childbirth, whereas Micah 5:3 talks about a
single woman.
The two are quite different.
Even now, figuratively speaking of course,we are suffering though the pains of childbirth.
I'm a dude, so of course not literally, and if you're going to go down the figurative route...then this just means you've given yourself license to essentially make up whatever it is you want, and I can't exactly disprove it; it's a never ending game of moving the goalposts now.
But also figuratively, "that child will be born," so to speak: Jesus will return.
Oh of course. Born can mean anything. It doesn't have to mean coming out of a womb. It can mean whatever you want, and you can't be shown to be wrong.
This leads us into Micah 5:3b, where Micah says, "Then the remainder of His (Jesus's) brethren will return to the sons of Israel." This is clarified by Paul in Romans 11, where he says, "...they (ethnic Jews) also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again... a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in...." This describes the events, again, from a high view, leading up to the return of Christ.
I'm no longer going to ask you what these verses mean. By going down the figurative road, there's literally nothing you can't say that they mean. If I try to pin you down on a verse, you can always just say "No, that's not what that verse means, it actually means this other thing".
Again, one of us is dealing with the text on the page. One of us isn't.
Then verse 4 describes Jesus's second coming and what will ensue:
The only reason you think this describes a second coming, and not the first, is because Jesus obviously didn't do any of this stuff the first time around. I mean, it's not like the text actually makes this clear is it? It's not like the text says there will be two comings, and what will happen during the first, and what will happen during the second?
and the second being what Isaiah wrote in chapter 9 of his prophecy,
Shall I even bother asking whether Isaiah 9 is talking about a government here on Earth, or a spiritual kingdom? Last I checked, David didn't rule in heaven, he was king over a patch of land in the Middle East.
And that's about finding comfort in Jesus in troubled times, not actually fighting and warring against the Assyrians and conquering them in any kind of military conflict:
Of course, of course! How silly of me! I must be the world's biggest idiot. I mean, look at how stupid I've been. I read a text that's talking about invasions, and conquering of fortresses, and leaders with swords fighting against Assyria...and somehow I thought that that was what the text meant!
Of course the text means the complete opposite of what's on the page. Of course it means that Israel isn't going to conquer Assyria. Only idiots would think that...right?
So, in answer to your question, again, Micah is talking about Jesus's second coming -- His return -- specifically in verse 4.
Without bothering to inform us that that is "actually" what's being talked about specifically. God really,
really needs an editor, and perhaps a teacher in composition.
