Passages to be considered: 1 Thessalonians 4 13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. -kjv 1 Corinthians 15 51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. -kjv Question from moody radio listener on September 16, 2017: My question is about the rapture event and I have never really been taught about any of the specifics about it but, of course I believe in the second coming, what are the scripture verses that support the belief of the rapture event and what is the history of the word, is rapture the English word or what was the original greek word? Answer from Dr Michael Rydelnik: The greek word "harpadzo" is caught up and is used in 1 Thessalonians 4 and so when people say rapture, it is not in the bible and the word trinity is not in the bible either but we believe it. I do find it's funny that when people say it is not in the scriptures, I don't know how anyone could say that it is not in the scriptures. In 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4, it says that we will be caught up, beginning with verse 13 of chapter 4, it says " we don't want you to be uninformed brothers concerning those who are asleep", those who are dead, they are called asleep because that's the metaphor for death, "so that you will not grieve like those who have no hope, since we believed that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus, who we say this to you, by revelation from the Lord, we who are still alive at the Lord's coming will have no advantage over those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a loud shout, with the arch angel's voice and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds, there will be a great reunion between those who died and those of us who are still alive" , will be caught up together with them. The word "caught up" is "harpadzo" . In Latin, it's something like "rapturo". And so from the latin word "rapturo", that's where we get rapture. But, it's caught up and it's right there in scripture. In 1 Corinthians 15, will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye and so in scripture, the idea those who are alive will be translated immediately to be with Him.
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Passages to be considered: Romans 8 11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. -kjv Ephesians 5 18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; -kjv Colossians 3 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. -kjv Question from moody radio listener on 9th September 2017: Thank you for explaining to us that everyone who has Jesus as Lord and savior has the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Same scripture goes on to say that the Holy Spirit could be in some, with some, overshadowing some, I wonder if there are any differences in all those phrases? Dr Michael Rydelnik: Overshadowing? Where does it say overshadowing? Listener: Mary ... Is there a difference in varying degrees the filling of the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit and with those differences, the consequence in terms of the mentality, anointing, benefits and so on? Dr Michael Rydelnik: I will do my best on this one ... ok? First of all, I will say that the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit upon the mother of our Messiah was unique, it's not like everyone experiences that overshadowing, it was the way a miracle happened that she was able to have a baby. One of the things that is really repulsive is that some people make it almost seem like a sexual union between Holy Spirit and Mary. It was not and it was a miracle that the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and cause this child to be formed in her womb. It was not sexual, it was merely a miracle. And so, that's what happened there and I don't think it is common or normal or something that every believer experiences obviously. Secondly, the filling of the Holy Spirit is a command. Too often, we think that filling of the Spirit like a cup, do we have quart of a cup, do we have a half cup? It's not filling a cup, the way I would use it is a picture of a sponge, being filled and certainly a different kind of filling there. And so, you can't have more Holy Spirit than I have. You know, we all have the Holy Spirit. Now how much use do we want to make of that Holy Spirit? That's a different story. There were people in Rome who were making the idea that they can have more Holy Spirit than others, when needed more Holy Spirit we need more Holy Spirit than these, Paul writes that Romans 8:11 that " The spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Messiah from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His spirit who lives in you." So, the point there is, we don't need to go looking for more Holy Spirit, we already have the power that raised Jesus from the dead indwelling us, we don't need more of Him, He needs more of us. That, I think is the great difference and in Ephesians 5:18, where it says "Don't be drunk with wine, but rather be filled with the Holy Spirit." The word means control, that's the idea. In the bible when it says be filled with joy means controlled by joy, filled with rage means controlled by rage, filled with the Holy Spirit, that means they are controlled by the Holy Spirit. How that happens is found in the parallel passage to Ephesians 5:18, it is found in Colossians 3. Gives a similar command, it's a parallel passage, with the same consequences. So you read in Ephesians 5:18, if you are filled with the Spirit, you will worship, you will have healthy family relationships, all these kinds of consequences. In Colossians, it gives the command and has the same worship and healthy family relationships but the difference is in Ephesians 5:18, it says be filled with the Spirit, and in Colossians 3;16, I believe, it says let the word of the Messiah dwell in you richly and that means let the word of God take forcible occupation of our lives, and the more we read, study, understand and obey God's word, the more the word of God takes forcible occupation, that's the parallel idea to letting the Spirit controls us. How does the Spirit controls us, the Spirit controls us as we allow the word of God to take forceful occupation of our lives and we obey it, that's when we are transformed, that's how He gets control of us.
Question from the audience on open line progam on 9 September 2017? How do we know that the books in the Protestant bible are the only books inspired by God? Answer from Dr Michael Rydelnik? Ah .. the question then would be about the books that we have in the bible versus the Catholic bible which has the Apocrypha as well. You know, the question of which books should be in the bible was not settled until the sixteenth century, kind of interesting. In a sense, it was settled right away. The books of the Hebrew bible were received and accepted and believed to be God's word by Jewish leaders and not in the year ninetieth as some people say but almost immediately as they were received, they were recognized as scripture. And you can look at the literature that developed in between the close of the old testament and the beginning of the new, it's called intertestamental literature, where Jewish people talk about wanting to have a prophet to rise again and give more scripture, but apparently prophecy had ceased and they didn't know but they anticipated this restoration and then we get the new testament and those books were received virtually immediately, not like certain movies and books like Da vinci code say that it was only in the fourth century that Constantin decided to include the New Testament books at the Council of Nicea. That is a completed fabrication and I always tell people, that's fiction. The question of Canon didn't even come up at the Council of Nicea but almost immediately, the books of the New Testament were recognized as scripture. And the apocrypha was not. When you come to the sixteenth century when you have the Protestant Reformation, where we're having the five hundred anniversary this year. In the Protestant Reformation, there was a movement to separate from certain traditions that have grown up in the Church. One of those would be Purgatory. In 1546, the Catholic church held another council, the Council of Trent, and they wanted to counter information, they wanted an answer to the Reformation. And the only place where they could find some of the doctrines taught in the church was in the Apocrypha. Previous to this, the Apocrypha was thought of as good intertestamental religious literature but not of scripture. And so what happened was then they say, Ah, we're going to call this a secondary level of scripture, a quasi-scripture, we're going to include it in the bible and so the sixteenth century, they included it and it was sort of an after thought, not because it was ever accepted as scripture before that but just so they could defend some of the doctrine that were being taught. And so, most people except for this tradition, most Christians don't accept the Apocrypha as scripture, just the Hebrew bible and the new testament as we have it.