Andriya

I have a political question which is not related to the Christian faith. As I am a citizen of the EU, I do not know about the details of the legal consequences if the US government declares an organisation a domestic terrorist organisation. Is it disallowed to openly display sympathy for such an organisation (which might be contraray to the 1st amendment, for which there is no equivalent in most EU countries)? Is it illegal to provide financial support to it? What other consequences are there?

I presume that both alcohol and perhaps also cannabis was consumed by the laity at that time. At least the consumption of alcohol has been handed down in John 2:1-10. Nevertheless, such things do not belong into a church service, which is evident from Ephesians 5:18.

I only said that in my opinion the Gospel is not Gnostic. That does not mean that I believe in it. Basically, I agree with you. Nevertheless, I consider apocrypha somehow interesting.

As far as I know, not all of the Nag Hammadi scriptures are considered to be Gnostic texts. In my opinion, the Gospel of James in not Gnostic, since it says that Mary was pregnant with Jesus so that subsequently, Jesus became flesh. This is contrary to the idea of docetism typical of Gnosticism. Hidden knowledge as such is not an exclusive feature of Gnosticism as even Nicodemus does not understand some of Jesus' words (John, ch. 3), so that they too are "hidden knowledge". Moreover, the Gospel of James does not mention the existence of a demiurge, whom the Gnostics considered to be the evildoing creator of the material world.

According to the apocryphal Gospel of James, Joseph took care of Mary when she was 12 years old as she had reached puberty and so she had to leave the temple. It seems that Joseph's task was to keep Mary a virgin. According to the Gospel of James, Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit at the age of 16. What is missing from the Gospel of James is the section of Mary's life after the birth of Jesus. Therefore my question: Is it known if or when Mary and Joseph got married?

Imho, the wrath of God is the Final Judgement, which of course follows the great tribulation (θλίψις) of Matthew 24:7. Or do you mean that the Final Judgement can be equated with the “θλίψις“? You are right with what you said concerning the 6th seal. Nevertheless, I am not convinced that there will be a pretribulation rapture – what is if Thessalonians 4:16 and Matthew 24:30-31 mean the same event?

The question is what is meant by the term "hour" in Matthew 24:44. Is it 60 minutes or is it a longer period? If the latter is the case, one can say that the "hour" may begin all of a sudden, but when that time has finally arrived, one will realise that the second coming is imminent. This goes with Matthew 24:33: "So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates."

That could have been a CIA psyop. What struck me recently while reading the Revelation is one thing concerning Rapture. The Revelation of John seems to be divided into different narratives. The first division is that into the seven epistles on the one hand and the events revealed in heaven on the other hand. The former narrative concerns contemporary things, the latter concerns the latter days. Now to the heavenly vision. The heavenly vision can be further divided into the following narratives. 1st narrative: The seal judgments. 2nd narrative: The trumpet judgements. 3rd narrative: All that can be read in chapters 10 to 19. 4th narrative: The bowl judgments. Concerning the narrative of the seal judgments: On reading what is written there, I am reminded of Jesus' statement in Mk 13:7: “And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet.“ Those things related there (rumors of wars, diseases etc.) has occurred throughout human history after the resurrection until now. The distress described by the trumpet judgments and the things described in chapters 10 to 19 as well as the bowl judgments seem to be much worse, so it could be the description of the great end-time distress of Mt 24:21: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.“ The question arises: Will the Antichrist defeat the famous two witnesses (cf. Rev. chapter 11) before this great distress, after it, during it or will it be interrupted by the reign of the Antichrist? This question remains unanswered. Yet one thing can be gathered from Revelation - only when an angel blows the seventh trumpet (Revelation 11:15-19) will the believers behold God, and this event is described in parallel with Revelation 10:6 (the final judgement) as well as with the trumpet announcing what the Christians call Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:16: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.“ After all, in view of 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and also of Mt 25:1-13 I do think that there will be a Rapture, but I do not think that it will take place long before the Final Judgement as it is stated in Revelation 10:6 that there will be “no more delay“. Thus I assume that the so called “Rapture“ will take place exactly at the time of the Final Judgement - the Rapture and the Final Judgement seem to happen synchronously. As regards Mt. 24:34 (“this generation“), the question arises what the term “generation“ means. The Greek term for “generation“ is genea, and this can also mean “nation“, “race“ etc. Maybe it isn't a term denoting contemporary people but the Church or the Kingdom of God.

I read that the USA did not sign the “Global Compact for Migration“. What I would like to ask in this regard is this. Is the Biden administration currently pursuing any kind of immigration policy - i.e. is a certain quota of immigrants being allowed into the US or do they try to secure the border USA-Mexico as best as they can to fully stop immigration?

It is very good that there are still critical insiders.

What if the empires mentioned in Daniel 2, Daniel 7, Revelation 13 and Revelation 17 are the same? Rev. 17:10 talks about five fallen heads, and I speculate that they could be the following empires: 1) Babylon (Dan. 2:38) 2) Persians (Dan. 7:4 / Dan. 2:39) 3) Medes (Dan. 7:5 / Dan. 2:39) 4) Greeks (Dan. 7:6 / Dan. 2:40) 5) Romans (Dan. 7:7 / Dan. 2:41) The 6th head is the Kingdom of God, by which all preceding heads are fallen, which means: according to Rev. 12:7, spiritual power is transferred to the Kingdom of God (Mt. 28:18). This event is likewise described as a deadly wound given to one of the aforementioned heads. The 7th head (Rev. 17:10) is the false prophet during the last days. The fact that the false prophet will be able to work wonders and to delude the nations is tantamount to the healing of the deadly wound (for a little season, as described in Rev. 20:3).

Proverbs 10:12 says: "Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses." But therein lies the rub - the world (including heterosexual couples in it) does not know divine love because "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). I agree with the view that it is best for a child to have a father and a mother. But the question is how bad it is when a child grows up with a single mother or in a "patchwork family" or with homosexuals.

I don't quite understand what you mean by "living to satisfy the lusts of the flesh". Married heterosexual couples have sexual urges too, haven't they? Imho, the whole thing boils down to the question how detrimental it is for children if they grow up in a "rainbow family". If one looks at it somewhat sardonically, one can say that children are used to the rainbow lifestyle because as far as I know, drag queens in North America even go to kindergartens, which is called "sensitivity training" (I think they call it that).

If (and only if) it is both the case that the number of mothers choosing life increases proportionally to the demand for adoption and that the demand for adoption increases with the legal possibility for "rainbow families" to adopt children, then there is a trade-off: On the one hand, the legal possibility to establish a rainbow family ought not to be backed from a Christian point of view as a rainbow family is contrary to the Biblical idea of marriage. On the other hand, it would make sense to back rainbow families' legal possibility to adopt children from a Christian point of view with the effect of a decreasing number of abortions in mind. The legitimacy of considering the aforementioned trade-off is based on the fact that marriage law today is different from the one of Old Testament times (when the mere idea of a rainbow family was unthinkable), which is a fact many Christians seem to put up with. Of course, the measure of things should be the best interests of the adopted children. In my humble opinion, the fact that homosexuals will not teach Biblical tenets to their children (or that they do not live according to Biblical tenets) is an argument of doubtful nature since for example atheists or Muslims are not excluded from adopting children, either.

I have a question which is related to the abortion issue. I learnt that in all states of the US, adoptions of children by so called "rainbow families" are legal. Has this led to more and more people wanting to adopt children? I am asking this question because in that case, adoption could become a more and more attractive solution to decrease the number of abortions, couldn't it?