New Life said:
Maybe our thoughts on who is Christian are different.
Maybe they are. The only way, though, that you could say virtually all Christians believe in the Rapture is to define as Christian those churches which teach the doctrine. That's circular reasoning and worse than useless. Care to explain to me on what criteria you judge that Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Lutherans and Angicans (amongst others) are not Christians? None of these churches teach the Rapture and nor have they ever done so and
at least three can show an unbroken succession from the Apostles, which you clearly could not.
That doesn't mean they aren't there is means you can't see them.
Nor does your seeing them mean they are there. It's not exactly unusual for supposedly sola scriptura Protestants to read meanings into the text that are not there. But what is more reasonable? The idea that they are there but all Christians missed them for 1800 years, or the idea that they are not but that the heirs of the Plymouth Brethren (and Darby didn't even claim that he found the idea in Scripture - it was a personal revelation) read them into the text? I know which I'd go with.
I don't need to do mental gymnastics to fully believe the word that my Savior and Creator gave me is innerrant, I would need an arrogant mind to deny it seeing that He is all wise and knows everything and that He has said that scripture is fully sufficient for my Christian walk.
Show me the Scripture that says that either Scripture is all-sufficient or that it is inerrant. While you're at it tell me how you know what is or is not Scripture (again, use Scripture alone to do this, just to be consistent with your beliefs) and what Scripture is referred to by whichever passage of Scripture you choose (I can guess which passage that will be and I think you're kidding yourself if you believe you take it seriously - ever read the Maccabees?). Then we'll see who's doing mental gymnastics, the sola scripturalist who claims Biblical inerrancy, or the Christian who holds to neither of these Reformation era doctrines but accepts that the Scriptures come from the pens of God-inspired but
fallible men, and not the mouth of God Himself.
.
You can't see how all the descriptions of Christs coming aren't one event? Now who is doing mental gymnastics? You must be if you can make them into one event.
Drop your entirely unscriptural insistence on Biblical inerrancy, understand that the Word is not a Book but was Incarnate as man, and accept that each of the many authors of the Bible brought themselves as well as God to the text and all the apparent contradictions, and the need for mental contortions, will simply melt away. Do that, though, and you'll no longer be a sola scripturalist (I've been there, so I know).
James