Background as definitions: Preterism and Postmillennialism?

Dr. Gentry:

Modern postmillennialism is largely, though not solely, committed to a particular interpretive tool known as “preterism.” This tool is helpful for explaining many of the catastrophic judgment passages as features of the founding of Christianity in the first century rather than evidence for the decline of Christianity in the final century.

However, postmillennialists do not adopt this interpretive approach in order to avoid a negative impact on their eschatological system. Rather, preterism arises naturally from a careful reading of the biblical text.

The evangelical, Reformed preterist strongly holds to the futurity of the Second Advent, the resurrection, and the great judgment. These are orthodox givens well exhibited in Scripture and long held by historic Christianity in creedal form.

Three factors generate preterism: (1) the importance of chronological indicators in biblical prophecy, (2) the impact of OT apocalyptic language on eschatological discourse, and (3) the significance of A.D. 70 for redemptive history. Let us see how these impact Revelation.

First, chronological indicators

Preterism relies heavily upon Revelation’s assertions of the nearness of certain prophetic events (1:1,3; 22:6,10), while non-preterists disingenuously re-interpret these. When the preterist comes upon didactically-seated temporal delimiters, he allows them their literal significance and seeks an historical fulfillment in antiquity. Where absent, then other issues must suggest the proper interpretation, which may or may not demand a past fulfillment.

The article discusses prophetic symbolic imagery and the foundational basis for the New Covenant, aka Christianity. The education in this short post is invaluable to the proper understanding of our current timeframe in God’s plan for our redemptive history in Christ. Read the whole thing.

The headline is a ruse; it’s actually the same this time. The times it was different were in 1987, 2000, and 2008. We’re talking about the economy and stock market crashes, of course. In all three of those recessions, there was a so-called V-shaped recovery in which the economy and the market bounced back fairly quickly. Those times were different and not the norm at all. What’s coming now is much more akin to serious historical economic problems.

In 1987 was the Saving and Loan crisis. Instead of bailing out the failed Savings and Loan banks, the government insured the depositors. That’s the exact opposite of what they did in the 2008 housing crash when they bailed out all of Wall Street. In the 2000 technology crash and in 2008, we had disinflation, the definition for which is not very good. We got disinflation by shipping manufacturing and production overseas; prices on many things stayed flat relative to inflation in domestic items and services. Technology is the best example; computing power has doubled several times in the last 20 years, but the price of a PC is still 600 to 1000 bucks. T-shirts at Walmart are another good example; they are (were) still 7.99 to 12.99 and have been for decades. But those prices are now on the rise.

The point of that boring background is to say this: the economy is in real trouble this time, something America hasn’t seen since the 1970s, two generations ago, and governmental mismanagement is exacerbating the conditions of the setup.

Steve Forbes isn’t wrong, but he is part of the supply-side establishment that got us into this mess.

The ‘real cure’ for inflation has gone ignored, Steve Forbes says

In focusing on raising interest rates to cool inflation, central banks and governments have overlooked the importance of maintaining stable currencies, said Steve Forbes, chair of Forbes Media.

[…]

“Today, unfortunately, not only is the Biden administration putting up obstacles to deal with supply-side problems, but also the Federal Reserve and other central banks think you have to depress the economy to bring inflation down,” he said, disputing the idea that a recession is the only solution to combating inflation.

“They do it by artificially raising interest rates. So they have fewer people employed … that is not the real cure,” he said.

“The real cure is to stabilize the currency. You don’t have to make people poor to conquer inflation.”

The money printing started a century ago, but the profligate printing started by Trump bailout checks and continued by Biden’s democratic policies to “recover” the economy from the “pandemic” is backfiring. There’s no more disinflation to cover the cost of money printing. The lowest practical overseas wage has been realized. Moving manufacturing to Africa is not a viable solution, so there’s nowhere else to seek lower wages. That’s but one set of problems. The war in Europe is another thing. But the worst problem is cutting off domestic energy and food production coupled with hyper-regulation of mineral exploitation and use; those choices will be crushing.

The conditions are not favorable at all for an easy recession that recovers quickly. Those last crashes were sudden; this time, it’s coming on slowly and will likely be long and grinding. Tell your family you love them.

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On September 23, 2022, Judge Maryellen Noreika issued a preliminary injunction against Delaware in the case of Rigby v Jennings. The case is about whether the State of Delaware can outlaw homemade guns and the distribution of materials and software to make homemade guns.

*gasp* Ghost Guns!

The decision is a win for supporters of Constitutional rights but has some troubling verbiage. Judge Maryellen Noreika was appointed by President Trump in 2018.

Judge Noreika relies on the “Final Rule” from the ATF, which is under dispute in several cases, as to what is a “firearm.”  Further arguments fall apart if the definition of a firearm reverts to the decades-old definition.

Judge Noreika then makes a claim, supported by a Colorado case, that if a commercial transaction may be regulated, then all transactions may be regulated.  Footnote 11, p. 11:

Sections 1459(a) and 1463(b) do not solely target commercial transactions. There is no reason to believe, however, that the non-commercial character of a transaction changes the analysis. See Colorado Outfitters Ass’n v. Hickenlooper, 24 F. Supp. 3d 1050, 1074 (D. Colo. 2014) (“Logically, if the government can lawfully regulate the ability of persons to obtain firearms from commercial dealers, that same power to regulate should extend to non-commercial transactions.”),vacated on other grounds and remanded, 823 F.3d 537 (10th Cir. 2016).

This is a jump of logic and directly against the dicta in Heller, which states the Second Amendment allows:

“laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

There must be a differentiation between the commercial sale of arms and non-commercial transactions, or the above statement is nonsensical.

Somebody is going to tell us about an acre of wheat grown for private use that “could be” sold out of state.

Mr. Weingarten explains several drills that can be used to prepare for a bear encounter.

AmmoLand:

Realistic bear defense drills can help prepare gun owners for actual situations.

The success of Eli Dicken in stopping a mass murder in the early stages, with excellent marksmanship at a claimed 40 yards, has engendered a plethora of people creating and executing some form of a “Dicken Drill” of ten shots at 40 yards.

There have been a number of “bear defense” exercises, usually arranged to simulate a worst-case scenario. I know of one such scenario, as it was related to me, by the inventor/trainer who ran it for a major agency.

The “bear” ran on a cart, as I recall, starting 10 yards away.  Speed was determined by the person who ran away from the shooting line, pulling the bear, which also moved up and down on the terrain, toward the trainee shooter.

I’ve seen a video of a drill similar to this.

The trainer prepped the trainee, to be tested, thus the trainee was armed with a pump shotgun with a sling. There were rounds in the magazine, but none allowed in the chamber. The shotgun had to be slung on the shoulder, with the safety on, and the bolt locked forward.  To engage the target, the trainee had to unsling the shotgun, disengage the bolt lock, work the action, disengage the safety, then shoot.  Alternatively, the trainee could unsling the shotgun, disengage the safety, dry fire the shotgun, which would disengage the bolt lock, work the action, and then shoot.

Once preparation to do the drill was ready, the trainer would engage the trainee with a question or small talk. When the trainee’s attention was off the “bear” the trainer would give the secret signal to start the bear charging at the trainee. Unsurprisingly, few trainees managed to get off a shot and hit the “bear”.

Trainers can create a drill to obtain the effect they want to establish.

A bear’s brain is reasonably close to the size and shape of a 12-ounce beverage can. To build confidence in shooters concerned about bear defense, I suggest these drills, taken from actual bear defense situations. The 12-ounce can should be oriented close to how it would be in a bear.

I have serious reservations about going for a headshot with a grizzly or even a black. Their skull is pretty thick. Large caliber hits at center mass seem like the best option. He explains The Ralph Fletcher Drill, The Dusel-Bacon Drill, The Cecil Rhodes Drill, and The Tanner Allen Drill.

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US health officials have called for new prevention and treatment efforts as the number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases, which include gonorrhea and syphilis, has been skyrocketing over the last few years.

Speaking at a medical conference earlier this week, Dr. Leandro Mena of the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that it was “imperative” that the US work to “rebuild, innovate, and expand” STD prevention. This comes as the rate of syphilis infections last year reached a 20-year high, and the number of new infections shot up 26%, beating a record set in 1948.

They need to “rebuild, innovate, and expand” what God has already prescribed in ordination from the start?

The head of the National Coalition of STD Directors, David Harvey, whose group is pushing a proposal for at least $500 million in federal funding to be earmarked for STD clinics, has described the situation as “out of control.”

Health officials are suggesting a number of possible solutions to the problem, such as, for example, promoting the use of condoms and developing at-home testing kits for some STDs that would make it easier for people to learn if they are infected and thus prevent further spreading of diseases.

“4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” – Jesus, in Matthew 19:4-6. He goes on to discuss divorce in the next several verses.

Jesus is citing Genesis 1:27 perhaps, but certainly Genesis 2:21-25. It seems that God has set forth from the earliest foundations in His created order all the innovations needed to curtail sexual diseases. The diseases themselves aren’t the problem; they are simply an outward result of sin. Sin, dear friends, has consequences.

What better way to show that sin is real and affects the sinner? Without fornication, there would be no STDs at all. God owes us nothing to prove Himself, but by His grace, He makes evident His existence by the very operation of the creation under His hand of divine dominion.

If you sin, then you will have illness with permanent consequences. Don’t sin, and you won’t get sick. What could be more precise in the economy of the Almighty than that?

At the fall in the Garden, the devil is cursed, the woman is cursed, Adam is cursed, and the very ground is cursed.

The CDC is correct; it’s “imperative” that the US solve this problem. Jesus Christ is the answer, and has been from the foundation of the world, and is evermore. He paid your sin debt on the cross in His blood for your forgiveness. By His resurrection is salvation from eternal hell (1 Corinthians 15:3-4): the Kingdom of God is at hand. Having received forgiveness, seeking Him first in all things that you sin against Him no more (Psalm 119:11) is the solution; that is full repentance. In John 8:11, Jesus didn’t say go and neglect a condom no more. After forgiving a sinner by His grace, He said: “go, and sin no more.”

There’s a reason that the DoD considers STDs a readiness issue. But for us, this stuff affects your family and church’s preparedness, not just medical preparedness. If you’ve got active sin of any kind in your camp (Joshua 7), it can destroy the foundations of unity. You need cohesion.

Of course, proper Christian training of children from the start averts a lifetime of confusion and physical, emotional, and phycological problems. Ask anybody saved later in adulthood what the price of sin is. I tell you, it’s too high, for if you knew what things they had done, you wouldn’t let them in your church or near your family.

If you’re a young man or woman, find somebody that you can cleave to for the rest of your life, and never let go.

Pictured: F-104 Starfighter

Due to Johnson designing the F-104 to be better than any other aircraft, many other countries were interested in the F-104. At one point in time, the F-104 was operated by 15 different militaries.

This has always been one of my favorite aircraft. As a boy, I had a die-cast F-104 and spent seemingly endless hours destroying everything in its path. Here’s an interesting background on his work.

The Man Behind Lockheed Skunk Works

SR-71 Blackbird

Following the introduction of the U-2, both the USAF and CIA loved the aircraft. However, the 1960 U-2 incident [ Wiki ] highlighted to the USAF and CIA that the U-2 wasn’t invincible and needed something to prevent that.

Arming U-2s wasn’t an option- this would decrease the service ceiling of the U-2 and make it easier for Soviet radars to detect. As such, the CIA contracted Lockheed to develop a new, undetectable spy plane.

Lockheed contracted Johnson, then head of Lockheed Skunk Works, to develop the U-2s replacement. Johnson soon realized that arming the aircraft was nearly impossible, so chose another route: speed.

Johnson and his team developed the A-12 for the CIA. During the 1964 Presidential Election, Republican Barry Goldwater and Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson were having a televised debate.

Here, Goldwater accused Lyndon Johnson of allowing the Soviets to out compete the US. As such, LBJ decided to reveal the A-12 program and the fact that the USAF was implementing a variant of the A-12, called the SR-71.

Kelly Johnson had designed the fly higher than the U-2, at 85,000 ft (26,000 m). Instead of giving the SR-71 weapons, Johnson designed the SR-71 to travel at Mach 3.32, making it the fastest aircraft ever.

Herschel may have posted something about Mr. Johnson previously, but if you haven’t seen it, watch the Video Documentary of his career. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

Source:

[Lindsay] Gietzen is a person of incredible experience and equal amounts of sharp wit; the combination of those qualities makes her one of the world’s leading experts and educators on traumatic injury care. She’s seen thousands of gunshot injuries in the worst part of Michigan and is now doing her best to get tourniquets and bleeding control kits right next to AED machines on the wall of every building.

The revelations here may surprise you, and perhaps you’ll buy your own bleeding control kit after reading this.

There are EDC folks that carry extra mags and a med kit too. I would never tell somebody not to do this if they felt it necessary.

A gun needs to be two simple things: reliable and reliable again—everything else coming in order of personal preference. Accuracy comes with practice and cosmetic choices are largely irrelevant, so as a baseline, the gun must function. Now what about bullets?

I’ve been telling people this for years. The gun needs to go bang every time you pull the trigger; that’s primary. Next is the ability to hit with it, and thirdly, time to muzzle on target. After you can do all that well, caliber selection should be considered because a gun that doesn’t go bang and you can’t hit with is just a paperweight.

“What causes death isn’t really kinetic force or expansion,” said Gietzen. “What causes death is rapid exsanguination (blood loss). A hit to the central nervous system or head does not guarantee an instantaneous kill. Despite what you see in the movies, the survival rate for wounds to extremities is very high, and death becomes more likely the closer you get to the heart of major arteries. The most deadly places to hit are the groin, armpits or a major artery in the torso.”

Read the section on Caliber and Effectiveness at the link. Bottom line: big bullets on target win.

H/T George 1, in comments.

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A hunter was attacked by a brown bear Thursday morning [This happened at the end of August] near Ship Creek after he shot it but didn’t realize it was still alive, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game official said.

That’s a perilous situation. Any large animal and all predators can be dangerous when shot, and it can be hard to know if they are actually dead.

The hunter, treated at a hospital for injuries, was able to make his way out of the area without calling for rescue, said Cory Stantorf, an assistant wildlife biologist for the Anchorage area.

The man shot a large adult brown bear between about 9 and 10 a.m. in an area near Ship Creek and up the valley from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson land, Stantorf said. It is legal to hunt in the area, he said.

The man then approached the bear, which he thought was dead, and it got up and charged him, the biologist said.

The bear wounded him during the attack, according to Stantorf, although he said he could not provide additional details about the injuries or how severe they were.

Others in the hunting party shot at the bear, Stantorf said, and it stopped attacking and left. The hunters made it out of the area without further incident, he said.

It wasn’t clear by Friday morning if the bear had died from the gunshot wounds, Stantorf said. The hunting party was returning to the area to look for the bear, he said.

Grizz are tough critters.

There have been several other bear maulings in Anchorage this year. A soldier was killed and another was injured during a defensive attack involving a sow brown bear with cubs on a remote area of JBER in May.

A man was treated at the hospital last month after he surprised a sow brown bear with a cub in Eagle River. A woman was also injured last month when a black bear swatted at her on the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail near Point Woronzof.

Stantorf said it’s important that anyone recreating outdoors in the backcountry or even in Anchorage is paying attention to their surroundings and looking for bears.

Note: We’ve been providing a lot of Bible studies on eschatology, posting as we find them, or they have become available, or as we wright them. Soon we’ll make a post that will put them in preferred reading (viewing) order as an educational tool for the reader. That’s a goal here at TCJ, to make us better men and women through Christian education and ministry, better with our tools, and more knowledgeable and competent to survive what may come.

Eisegesis is reading into the text of the Holy Bible your presuppositions, personal view, or agenda, looking for confirmation bias in the Scriptures. Almost every American today, even the educated, operate their daily life in search of bias confirmation. This is very dangerous and has no place in proper Bible interpretation, nor is it wise in any discipline. Exegesis is drawing out the meaning, swallowing your pride, and letting God speak the truth to your heart regardless of how it makes you feel; it’s the plain meaning of Scripture in context.

We might have worded some things differently and have slightly differing views, but in the main, this is a very good brief overview of eschatology.

What is Postmillennialism?

When thinking about eschatology today, few Christians are even aware of the postmillennial view. When I have traveled to Russia, Ukraine, Latin America and other nations on short term missions trips, I am usually asked this question by new converts: “Are you pre-trib, mid-trib or post-trib?” as if these were the only three forms of eschatology. I often have to explain that I am not a dispensationalist. It is difficult to show some Christians that there is another way of looking at the end-times and the millennium altogether.

Postmillennialism (literally, “after the thousand years”) is the belief that Christ will physically return to the earth only after a non-literal millennium is completed. Postmillennialism is optimistic about the end times. Christ’s reign over the earth from heaven increases during the millennium, which is thought to be not a literal one thousand year period, but “a very long time.” Postmillennialism places the Church in a role of transforming whole social structures before the Second Coming and endeavoring to bring about a “Golden Age” of peace and prosperity with great advances in education, the arts, sciences and medicine.

All Christians must believe in the literal, physical return of Jesus Christ. Christians may differ in their opinions as to the nature of the millennium and the exact sequence of end times events without departing from biblical orthodoxy.

However, I believe that major problems have been caused by the most popular system: dispensational premillennialism. Ironically, I did not know anything of the postmillennial view until I became aware of the limitations of the dispensational paradigm. In searching for a view to replace dispensationalism, I found postmillennialism to be most convincing.

The article goes on to provide a brief overview of not just the four main eschatological views but several views and sub-categories. It also provides an understanding of “the antichrist,” the second coming, the Beast of Revelation, the great tribulation, and more.

Housekeeping Note: Herschel is offline this week. We’re certain that the quality of the posts will suffer, but the quality of the discussion in the comments doesn’t have to!

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…After the American experience in Korea, where servicemen faced massed assault from Chinese forces, it was decided that the World War II workhorse M1 Garand rifle was no longer adequate; its low capacity and lack of full automatic fire hamstrung U.S. troops.

The Pentagon wanted a new rifle. Around the same time, there was a push among NATO members to standardize a rifle caliber to simplify wartime logistics. American design philosophies dominated both, and the Army’s parochial Ordnance Corps dominated the discussion on design. Ordnance Corps officers clung to the popular myth of the heroic American rifleman, who wins the day with a few well-aimed, long-ranged shots from a full-power rifle.

Thus, the M14 was born, as well as the new NATO bullet, 7.62x51mm. But everyone soon discovered the difficulty of controlling full-caliber rifles on full-auto; 7.62 NATO weapons quickly turned into anti-aircraft guns in longer automatic bursts, rendering the feature ineffective. These experiences were supported by the results of Project SALVO, a Pentagon research project to develop next-generation infantry weapons. SALVO concluded that a smaller bullet traveling at high velocity would be as lethal, if not more so, than big calibers like 7.62 NATO; the SALVO report recommended that the Pentagon should adopt a little-known gun called the AR-15, designed by ArmaLite engineer Eugene Stoner, and based off his earlier file design for the AR-10.

The AR-15 was unlike anything seen before: It was constructed of forged aluminum and plastics, used a direct impingement gas operating system, and was chambered in the new 5.56X45mm cartridge. It was the antithesis of the M14. Naturally, the Ordnance Corps hated it, and moved to kill the project by resorting to testing practices and emulation that were ultimately unfair to the AR-15. The weapon languished in design committee as Army traditionalists butted heads with Robert McNamara and his RAND Corporation  “whiz kids.”

The article goes on to discuss the interesting history of the AR-15 type platform.