Podcasts about dispensationalists

In this episode of Sound Words Podcast, we launch our new series Faithful Men, highlighting influential voices in theology and church history. Pastor Jesse Randolph explains why dispensationalism still matters today. We discuss what dispensationalism is (and isn't), why he holds this view, common misconceptions and critiques, and its ongoing relevance in the church.00:00 Welcome to the Sound Words Podcast02:24 What is Dispensationalism05:16 Imbalance of Content by Dispensationalism06:16 Why Jesse Randolph is a Dispensationalist07:04 Jesse Randolph's Road to Dispensationalism09:45 Are Those Who Aren't Dispensationalist Lost?12:02 Is Dispensationalism New?14:32 The 7 Dispensations and The Bible17:40 Stereotypes of Dispensationalism19:19 Dispensationalists and Change23:16 Recommendations24:44 Why Dispensationalism Matters TodaySound Words is a ministry of Indian Hills Community Church, a Bible teaching church in Lincoln, NE. Sound Words is also a partner of Foundations Media, a collective of Christian creators passionate about promoting biblical theology and applying it to everyday life. Learn more at https://foundationsmedia.org. Follow on Instagram Follow on Facebook Follow on YouTube Follow on Twitter Follow on Threads Visit https://ihcc.org

All the Episodes of the Heidelcast Subscribe to the Heidelcast! Browse the Heidelshop! On X @Heidelcast On Insta & Facebook @Heidelcast Subscribe in Apple Podcast Subscribe directly via RSS Call The Heidelphone via Voice Memo On Your Phone The Heidelcast is available wherever podcasts are found including Spotify. Call or text the Heidelphone anytime at (760) 618-1563. Leave a message or email us a voice memo from your phone and we may use it in a future podcast. Record it and email it to heidelcast@heidelblog.net. If you benefit from the Heidelcast please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts so that others can find it. Please do not forget to make the coffer clink (see the donate button below). SHOW NOTES How To Subscribe To Heidelmedia The Heidelblog Resource Page Heidelmedia Resources The Ecumenical Creeds The Reformed Confessions The Heidelberg Catechism Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008) Why I Am A Christian What Must A Christian Believe? Heidelblog Contributors Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button or send a check to: Heidelberg Reformation Association 1637 E. Valley Parkway #391 Escondido CA 92027 USA The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

All the Episodes of the Heidelcast Subscribe to the Heidelcast! Browse the Heidelshop! On X @Heidelcast On Insta & Facebook @Heidelcast Subscribe in Apple Podcast Subscribe directly via RSS Call The Heidelphone via Voice Memo On Your Phone The Heidelcast is available wherever podcasts are found including Spotify. Call or text the Heidelphone anytime at (760) 618-1563. Leave a message or email us a voice memo from your phone and we may use it in a future podcast. Record it and email it to heidelcast@heidelblog.net. If you benefit from the Heidelcast please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts so that others can find it. Please do not forget to make the coffer clink (see the donate button below). SHOW NOTES How To Subscribe To Heidelmedia The Heidelblog Resource Page Heidelmedia Resources The Ecumenical Creeds The Reformed Confessions The Heidelberg Catechism Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008) Why I Am A Christian What Must A Christian Believe? Heidelblog Contributors Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button or send a check to: Heidelberg Reformation Association 1637 E. Valley Parkway #391 Escondido CA 92027 USA The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

Open forum debate for the topics listed, as well as as these: Calling all LIBERTARIANS, Feminists, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Muslims, Atheists, SNEAKO/TATE fans, Dispensationalists, Hebrew Roots, Gnostics, Mormons, Black "Hebrew" "Israelites" - Open debate that ALSO includes GEOPOLITICAL TOPICS - the INTEL Agencies and their relationship to the Churches and CULTS and religions in general! call in here https://x.com/Jay_D007/status/1905698429881508205 Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnt7Iy8GlmdPwy_Tzyx93bA/join Send Superchats at any time here: https://streamlabs.com/jaydyer/tip Get started with Bitcoin here: https://www.swanbitcoin.com/jaydyer/ The New Philosophy Course is here: https://marketplace.autonomyagora.com/philosophy101 Set up recurring Choq subscription with the discount code JAY44LIFE for 44% off now https://choq.com Lore coffee is here: https://www.patristicfaith.com/coffee/ Orders for the Red Book are here: https://jaysanalysis.com/product/the-red-book-essays-on-theology-philosophy-new-jay-dyer-book/ Subscribe to my site here: https://jaysanalysis.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ Follow me on R0kfin here: https://rokfin.com/jaydyer Music by Amid the Ruins 1453Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jay-sanalysis--1423846/support.

Open forum debate for the topics listed, as well as as these: Calling all LIBERTARIANS, Feminists, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Muslims, Atheists, SNEAKO/TATE fans, Dispensationalists, Hebrew Roots, Gnostics, Mormons, Black "Hebrew" "Israelites" - Open debate that ALSO includes GEOPOLITICAL TOPICS - the INTEL Agencies and their relationship to the Churches and CULTS and religions in general! call in here https://x.com/Jay_D007/status/1905698429881508205 Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnt7Iy8GlmdPwy_Tzyx93bA/join Send Superchats at any time here: https://streamlabs.com/jaydyer/tip Get started with Bitcoin here: https://www.swanbitcoin.com/jaydyer/ The New Philosophy Course is here: https://marketplace.autonomyagora.com/philosophy101 Set up recurring Choq subscription with the discount code JAY44LIFE for 44% off now https://choq.com Lore coffee is here: https://www.patristicfaith.com/coffee/ Orders for the Red Book are here: https://jaysanalysis.com/product/the-red-book-essays-on-theology-philosophy-new-jay-dyer-book/ Subscribe to my site here: https://jaysanalysis.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ Follow me on R0kfin here: https://rokfin.com/jaydyer Music by Amid the Ruins 1453Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jay-sanalysis--1423846/support.

Open forum debate for the topics listed, as well as as these: Calling all LIBERTARIANS, Feminists, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Muslims, Atheists, SNEAKO/TATE fans, Dispensationalists, Hebrew Roots, Gnostics, Mormons, Black "Hebrew" "Israelites" - Open debate that ALSO includes GEOPOLITICAL TOPICS - the INTEL Agencies and their relationship to the Churches and CULTS and religions in general! Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnt7Iy8GlmdPwy_Tzyx93bA/join Send Superchats at any time here: https://streamlabs.com/jaydyer/tip Get started with Bitcoin here: https://www.swanbitcoin.com/jaydyer/ The New Philosophy Course is here: https://marketplace.autonomyagora.com/philosophy101 Set up recurring Choq subscription with the discount code JAY44LIFE for 44% off now https://choq.com Lore coffee is here: https://www.patristicfaith.com/coffee/ Orders for the Red Book are here: https://jaysanalysis.com/product/the-red-book-essays-on-theology-philosophy-new-jay-dyer-book/ Subscribe to my site here: https://jaysanalysis.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ Follow me on R0kfin here: https://rokfin.com/jaydyer Music by Amid the Ruins 1453 Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnt7Iy8GlmdPwy_Tzyx93bA/joinBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jay-sanalysis--1423846/support.

Open forum debate for the topics listed, as well as as these: Calling all LIBERTARIANS, Feminists, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Muslims, Atheists, SNEAKO/TATE fans, Dispensationalists, Hebrew Roots, Gnostics, Mormons, Black "Hebrew" "Israelites" - Open debate that ALSO includes GEOPOLITICAL TOPICS - the INTEL Agencies and their relationship to the Churches and CULTS and religions in general! Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnt7Iy8GlmdPwy_Tzyx93bA/join Send Superchats at any time here: https://streamlabs.com/jaydyer/tip Get started with Bitcoin here: https://www.swanbitcoin.com/jaydyer/ The New Philosophy Course is here: https://marketplace.autonomyagora.com/philosophy101 Set up recurring Choq subscription with the discount code JAY44LIFE for 44% off now https://choq.com Lore coffee is here: https://www.patristicfaith.com/coffee/ Orders for the Red Book are here: https://jaysanalysis.com/product/the-red-book-essays-on-theology-philosophy-new-jay-dyer-book/ Subscribe to my site here: https://jaysanalysis.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ Follow me on R0kfin here: https://rokfin.com/jaydyer Music by Amid the Ruins 1453 Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnt7Iy8GlmdPwy_Tzyx93bA/joinBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jay-sanalysis--1423846/support.

Jacob Glass refutes popular videos by John MacArthur and others, as well at looks at Luke 21 and Daniel 9.Watch all of our videos and subscribe to our channel for the latest content >HereHere

In this episode Phil Cecil talks with Dr Mark Snoeberger and Dr Ryan Meyer about the Active Obedience of Christ. Some today hold that such a doctrine is unbiblical. They might even say that true Dispensationalists cannot be for the Active Obedience of Christ as imputed righteousness to the redeemed. We dicuss this and more.

PASTOR WILLIAM'S BOOKS: https://www.amazon.com/stores/William... Disagree, agree, or have a question: Contact us through the contact page on our website; http://www.biblebulldog.com , if we use your question on the podcast, we'll send you a free hat! Proposition #1: The Church Of Jesus Christ Embraces Both Jews And Gentiles As Part Of The Messianic Kingdom. The Messianic Kingdom Includes Jewish And Gentile Believers As Citizens On An Equal Basis. 3: How do different eschatological perspectives (premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism) influence the understanding of the Church's relationship to the Kingdom of God? Does this Proposition support or challenge specific eschatological views? It does challenge eschatological views when there is a distinction made between Israel and the church. Premillennialism typically sees the two as separate entities in spite of what Christ is said to have done. “Dispensationalism one variety of premillennialism has a commitment to a literal interpretation of prophetic scripture resulting in three well known tenants. [1] A distinction between the prophecies made about Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament must be maintained.” (Progressive dispensationalists agree on this point. Four Views on the Book of Revelation. Dispensationalists typically see the Jews/Israel as a separate set of God's people distinct throughout the present and the future or at least till the end of the millennium with God having a separate plan for both. Conversely Scripture always portrays the two as being united in Christ as one people. Amillennialists take a view much more consistent with proposition 1. 4: Was Abraham a Jew? No. “The term Jew is a derivative of Judah the fourth son of Jacob and the dominant last surviving tribe of Israel. The Hebrew term meant “man of Judah,” and that term is first used in the Bible in 2 Kings 16:6. After the exile the term Jew came to be used for anyone descended from these people regardless of other considerations. Mordecai is identified as both a Jew and a descendant of Benjamin in Esther 2:5.” Oxford Companion To The Bible. 5: Was God's promises of a land, a seed, and a blessing given to Abraham alone? Was it Abraham that was called and no other? Initially it was given to Abraham, then extended to Issac and Jacob. Ultimately the blessing was connected to Christ who came to bring the two, both Jew and Gentile together. SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS! Jesus,God,Holy Spirit,resurrection,jerusalem,gethsemane,deserted,lamb,forgive,destroy,thirsty,forsaken,cursed,spirit,blood,ascended,peace,power,crucified,Christ,reformed,Martin Luther,John Calvin,church,christian,devotion,Bible,Scripture,prayer,death,saved,eternal,heaven,hell,R C Sproul,Torah,shadow,risen,Israel,end-times,people,land,jews,muslims,worship,last days,Armageddon,Revelation,conflict,replacement,Eschatology,end of the world,Palestine,war,rapture,gentiles,rise,theology,70ad

PASTOR WILLIAM'S BOOKS: https://www.amazon.com/stores/William... Disagree, agree, or have a question: Contact us through the contact page on our website; http://www.biblebulldog.com , if we use your question on the podcast, we'll send you a free hat! Proposition #1: The Church Of Jesus Christ Embraces Both Jews And Gentiles As Part Of The Messianic Kingdom. The Messianic Kingdom Includes Jewish And Gentile Believers As Citizens On An Equal Basis. 1: How do we define the Messianic Kingdom? Is it primarily a spiritual realm, a future earthly kingdom, or a combination of both? Currently it is primarily a spiritual realm though touching on natural, earthly things. The future kingdom will be characterized by features of both. 2: What model(s) of church leadership and worship best reflect the unity of Jews and Gentiles? Since we have been made one in Christ there should be no distinct difference or uniqueness other than those elements which are characteristic of earthly cultures. For example, clothing styles, length of service, music styles etc. The worship should center on Christ as redeemer and the leadership should strive to keep that central rather than ethnic heritage. 3: How do different eschatological perspectives (premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism) influence the understanding of the Church's relationship to the Kingdom of God? Does this Proposition support or challenge specific eschatological views? It does challenge eschatological views when there is a distinction made between Israel and the church. Premillennialism typically sees the two as separate entities in spite of what Christ is said to have done. “Dispensationalism one variety of premillennialism has a commitment to a literal interpretation of prophetic scripture resulting in three well known tenants. [1] A distinction between the prophecies made about Israel in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament must be maintained.” (Progressive dispensationalists agree on this point. Four Views on the Book of Revelation. Dispensationalists typically see the Jews/Israel as a separate set of God's people distinct throughout the present and the future or at least till the end of the millennium with God having a separate plan for both. Conversely Scripture always portrays the two as being united in Christ as one people. Amillennialists take a view much more consistent with proposition 1. 4: Was Abraham a Jew? 5: Was God's promises of a land, a seed, and a blessing given to Abraham alone? Was it Abraham that was called and no other? 6: Exactly who is "Abraham's seed"? 7: From the beginning, could a Gentile become a Jew? 8: By the Exile, had Abraham's descendants become "Not My People"? Hosea 1:8-9 9: What/Who is the fallen tent in Amos 9:11? 10: Did Jesus indicate that the Kingdom would be taken from the Jews in Matt. 21:43? (Romans 11:20-21) 11: Pastor, what is Replacement Theology? 12: How does this quote and these passages below fit into the entire narrative of redemptive history? "The Greek does not have to become a Jew. Rather both enter into a new condition. His aim is not to bring Greek believers into being as different kinds of Jews but rather to create both anew. Rightly he uses the term create rather than change to point out the great effect of what God has done." John Chrysostom (12: How do these passages fit into the entire narrative of redemptive history?) 13: How do they contribute to understanding God's plan for redemption and the inclusion of all people? . SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS!

In this episode, Bryan and John discuss the Israel-Hamas conflict from a theological perspective. They explore the concepts of dispensationalism and covenant theology and how they shape the understanding of the conflict. They dive into the promises made to Israel in Genesis 12 and the conditions attached to those promises. They emphasize the importance of praying for both Israel and the Palestinians, and the need for all people, including Jews, to accept Jesus as their Savior. The episode sets the stage for a deeper exploration of the conflict's history and current situation in the next episode.Takeaways:Understanding the Israel-Hamas conflict requires a theological perspective.Dispensationalism emphasizes a unique plan for Israel and sees the promises made to Israel in the Bible as literal and still applicable.Covenant theology views God's relationship with humanity through covenants and emphasizes the continuity between the Old and New Testaments.Believing in Jesus is essential for salvation, and Christians should pray for the salvation of all people involved in the conflict.Praying for peace and the spread of the gospel in the region is crucial for Christians.Chapters:00:00 Introduction and Purpose01:01 Understanding the Israel-Hamas Conflict Theologically04:24 Dispensationalism: A Unique Plan for Israel06:23 Genesis 12: The Promised Land and Dispensationalism19:53 Covenant Theology: God's Relationship with Humanity27:37 The Importance of Believing in Jesus for Salvation29:44 Praying for Israel and the Palestinians41:23 Conclusion and Preview of Next Episode--The PursueGOD Truth podcast is the “easy button” for making disciples – whether you're looking for resources to lead a family devotional, a small group at church, or a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Find resources to talk about these episodes at pursueGOD.org.Help others go "full circle" as a follower of Jesus through our 12-week Pursuit series.Click here to learn more about how to use these resources at home, with a small group, or in a one-on-one discipleship relationship.Got questions or want to leave a note? Email us at podcast@pursueGOD.org.Donate Now --The dispensational view is a theological framework that divides history into distinct periods, or "dispensations," during which God interacts with humanity in different ways. In the context of Israel, dispensationalism often emphasizes a unique plan for the nation of Israel separate from the Church. It suggests that God has distinct purposes for Israel and the Church and that these purposes unfold in different dispensations.According to dispensationalism, God made specific promises to Israel in the Old Testament, such as land promises, which are yet to be fulfilled. Proponents believe in a future period (often associated with a literal interpretation of certain biblical prophecies) where God will fulfill these promises to Israel. This perspective contrasts with covenant theology, which sees a more unified and spiritual continuity between Israel and the Church.Dispensationalists often highlight key biblical passages to support their views. Some foundational elements include:1. **Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1-3):** Dispensationalists emphasize God's promises to Abraham, particularly the land promise, suggesting a future fulfillment for Israel.2. **Davidic Covenant (2 Samuel 7:12-16):** The covenant...

According to dispensationalism, God made specific promises to Israel in the Old Testament, such as land promises, which are yet to be fulfilled. Proponents believe in a future period where God will fulfill these promises to Israel. This perspective contrasts with covenant theology, which sees a more unified and spiritual continuity between Israel and the Church.--The PursueGOD Truth podcast is the “easy button” for making disciples – whether you're looking for resources to lead a family devotional, a small group at church, or a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Find resources to talk about these episodes at pursueGOD.org.Help others go "full circle" as a follower of Jesus through our 12-week Pursuit series.Click here to learn more about how to use these resources at home, with a small group, or in a one-on-one discipleship relationship.Got questions or want to leave a note? Email us at podcast@pursueGOD.org.Donate Now --The dispensational view is a theological framework that divides history into distinct periods, or "dispensations," during which God interacts with humanity in different ways. In the context of Israel, dispensationalism often emphasizes a unique plan for the nation of Israel separate from the Church. It suggests that God has distinct purposes for Israel and the Church and that these purposes unfold in different dispensations.According to dispensationalism, God made specific promises to Israel in the Old Testament, such as land promises, which are yet to be fulfilled. Proponents believe in a future period (often associated with a literal interpretation of certain biblical prophecies) where God will fulfill these promises to Israel. This perspective contrasts with covenant theology, which sees a more unified and spiritual continuity between Israel and the Church.Dispensationalists often highlight key biblical passages to support their views. Some foundational elements include:1. **Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1-3):** Dispensationalists emphasize God's promises to Abraham, particularly the land promise, suggesting a future fulfillment for Israel.2. **Davidic Covenant (2 Samuel 7:12-16):** The covenant with David is seen as a promise of an eternal kingdom, often interpreted as a future millennial reign of Christ on Earth.3. **New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34):** While associated with the Church in most theological perspectives, dispensationalists may distinguish between the New Covenant's application to Israel and the Church, emphasizing a distinct future role for Israel.4. **Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24-25):** Jesus' teachings on the end times, including signs and events, are frequently referenced to support dispensational views about a future tribulation period and Christ's return.5. **Revelation (especially chapters 4-22):** Dispensationalists often interpret the events described in the book of Revelation, including the tribulation and millennial kingdom, as literal future events.These scriptures, among others, are central to the dispensationalist understanding of God's plan for Israel and the Church, with a focus on a future restoration and fulfillment of God's promises to the nation of Israel. It's important to note that interpretations can vary, and not all Christians agree on the specifics of dispensationalism.Key Figures in DispensationalismThe dispensational view has its roots in the teachings of John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), an Irish Anglican clergyman who later became a prominent...

All the Episodes of the Heidelcast Subscribe to the Heidelcast! On X @Heidelcast On Insta & Facebook @Heidelcast Subscribe in Apple Podcast Subscribe directly via RSS Call The Heidelphone via Voice Memo On Your Phone The Heidelcast is available wherever podcasts are found including Spotify. Call or text the Heidelphone anytime at (760) 618-1563. Leave a message or email us a voice memo from your phone and we may use it in a future podcast. Record it and email it to heidelcast@heidelblog.net. If you benefit from the Heidelcast please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts so that others can find it. Please do not forget to make the coffer clink (see the donate button below). SHOW NOTES Resources On Jonathan Edwards Resources On Revivals And Revivalism How To Subscribe To Heidelmedia The Heidelblog Resource Page Heidelmedia Resources The Ecumenical Creeds The Reformed Confessions The Heidelberg Catechism Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008) Why I Am A Christian What Must A Christian Believe? Heidelblog Contributors Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button or send a check to: Heidelberg Reformation Association 1637 E. Valley Parkway #391 Escondido CA 92027 The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

Wednesday, 27 December 2023   Then there arose a loud outcry. And the scribes of the Pharisees' party arose and protested, saying, “We find no evil in this man; but if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God.” Acts 23:9   The Greek more precisely reads, “And there was a great clamor. And having arisen, some of the scribes of the part of the Pharisees were contending, saying, ‘We find nothing evil in this man. And if a spirit spoke to him, or an angel, let us not fight against God'” (CG).   Luke just included an explanatory sentence to detail why the reaction in this verse now came about, “For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection—and no angel or spirit; but the Pharisees confess both.” Because of this division of thought between the sects, it now says, “And there was a great clamor.”   The loud outcry mentioned here was probably a lot of “harumphs” from one side and “here here's” from the other. The word is kraugé. It is used, for example, to describe the loud cry in Matthew 25:6 and the crying noted in Revelation 21:4.   It indicates loud crying done with great emotion. Each side defended what they believed was possible based on Paul's words. As it was a cry among many, the word “clamor” is well-suited to the intent. Next, it says, “And having arisen, some of the scribes of the part of the Pharisees were contending.”   The scribes are the learned men, whether from the Pharisees or the Sadducees. They were not an independent group but were simply those who were well educated and performed a scribal role. Being educated, they would be more disposed to protesting over the din of others and getting them to quiet down while they made their case.   In this situation, they probably sided with Paul more on a theological basis than on whether they agreed with him personally. In this case, they were saying, “We find nothing evil in this man.”   He had said nothing that was impossible from their worldview, and so, they defended his right to present his case based on that. Their protesting then shows they had a greater disdain for the opposing party than they did towards Paul's misdirected (as they perceived) faith in Christ. Therefore, as a jab in the eyes of the Sadducees, they next called out, “And if a spirit spoke to him, or an angel, let us not fight against God.”   It should be noted that the final words of this verse, “let us not fight against God,” are disputed as to whether they are original or not. Many scholars see them as an insert to match what was said by Gamaliel in Acts 5:39. For this reason, they are not included in many translations.   Despite this, Paul's diversion was successful. Their words, “And if a spirit spoke to him, or an angel,” are likely referring to Paul's claim in Acts 22:17-21, of which they would be aware by now.   Unless they accepted that Paul's vision was real and from a divine source, the words “let us not fight against God” seem to be out of place. Demons can speak as well as the Lord. And so, for them to include God in the statement would imply that they accepted his words, including being sent off to the Gentiles. This seems less likely, and the words may have been inserted at a later time by someone attempting to give additional credence to Paul's case.   Life application: The old saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” seems to apply to this verse. The Pharisees stood against Jesus, and they continued to stand against those who followed Him. However, the theology behind the Sadducees' religion was so aberrant to them that they were willing to use Paul as an ally to poke at what they perceived as a completely misguided approach to Scripture.   This is not uncommon in Christian circles. There may be two completely divergent approaches to a particular concept, and yet adherents to one or the other may join together to defend a third, unrelated issue.   For example, Dispensationalists and Calvinists may be at odds over the state of Israel, but they may be united in their dismissal of evolution. Therefore, they may put aside their unhappiness concerning the former issue and unite in a letter to a Christian college that has recently hired an evolutionist professor.   Some things are worth setting aside differences over in order to secure an intended goal in another area. Looking for common ground in this manner is not caving to one side or another. And yet, protestations by others may rise to a crescendo, calling out charges of apostasy or compromise – “I didn't get a harumph out of that guy!” This is inevitable. Some people feel so passionately about a particular issue that it will cloud their thinking in other areas.   Be on the lookout for such things and be ready to defend why you take particular actions. If feelings are hurt, or charges of apostasy are thrown at you, for standing up for the truth, so be it. You can't please everybody, and some seed pickers will never be pleased with anything. Ignore them, and you will do well.   Heavenly Father, may we be willing to stand up and speak out when it is right to do so. Help us not to be timid or pusillanimous in our approach to sound doctrine and right conduct before You. Strengthen us in our resolve to stand for what is right. To Your glory, we pray. Amen.  

28 November, 2023

In this episode Dr Clark looks at Romans 12:3–8 and considers how grace makes us gracious. He answers a question from Kevin about those Dispensationalists who agree with the Reformed on Matthew 24 and being "left behind." He answers a text from Kaleb, who asks what, according to the Amillennial view, has to happen before Christ returns. He interacts with a comment by J. P. on why Dr Clark is skeptical that Romans 11 promises a future ingathering of Jews. The opening features Chris Gordon of the Escondido United Reformed Church. This episode of the Heidelcast is sponsored by the Heidelberg Reformation Association. You love the Heidelcast and the Heidelblog. You share it with friends, with members of your church, and others but have you stopped to think what would happen if it all disappeared? The truth is that we depend on your support. If you don't make the coffer clink, the HRA will simply sink. Won't you help us keep it going? The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All your gifts are tax deductible. Use the donate link on this page or mail a check to Heidelberg Reformation Association, 1637 E Valley Parkway #391, Escondido CA 92027. All the Episodes of the Heidelcast Resources On Romans Subscribe To the Heidelcast On Twitter @Heidelcast How To Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button below Subscribe in Apple Podcast Subscribe directly via RSS New Way To Call The Heidelphone: Voice Memo On Your Phone Text the Heidelcast any time at (760) 618–1563. The Heidelcast is available everywhere podcasts are found including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Call or text the Heidelphone anytime at (760) 618-1563. Leave a message or email us a voice memo from your phone and we may use it in a future podcast. Record it and email it to heidelcast@heidelblog.net. If you benefit from the Heidelcast please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts so that others can find it. Please do not forget to make the coffer clink (see the donate button below). SHOW NOTES Resources on Eschatology Heidelblog Resources The HB Media Archive The Ecumenical Creeds The Reformed Confessions Heidelberg Catechism (1563) Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008). What Must A Christian Believe? Why I Am A Christian Heidelblog Contributors Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button or send a check to: Heidelberg Reformation Association 1637 E. Valley Parkway #391 Escondido CA 92027 USA The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

Welcome to Grace in Focus radio. Today, Bob Wilkin and Mike Lii are answering a few great questions about repentance, Luke 13:3, God's sovereignty, man's free will, dispensationalists, and the Judgment Seat of Christ. Bob Wilkin and Mike Lii will offer their thoughts rapid-fire style from a Free Grace position!

The Rapture Theory is an outgrowth of dispensationalism. Steve gives background for why he wants Catholics and non-Catholics to get on the same page. Referenced in this episode: Ephesians 2 CCC 674 Romans 11 Luke 21:24 For a copy of Steve's book Grace & Justification: An Evangelicals Guide to Catholic Beliefs, shop dads.org.

Ever wondered why the Book of Revelation is so frequently misused and misunderstood? What if the key to unlocking its secrets lies in recognizing its true purpose: a revelation of Jesus Christ, not a book of fantasy or science fiction? Join me as we embark on an eye-opening journey to unravel the mysteries and symbols of the Book of Revelation, shedding light on its true meaning and revealing the presence of Christ throughout history.In our exploration, we'll discuss biblical dualism and the continuity of truth from Genesis to Revelation, examining prophecies such as Jeremiah's 70-year captivity and Daniel's 70 weeks leading up to Jesus' ministry. We'll also touch on the importance of understanding the Old Testament to fully grasp the Book of Revelation, and challenge the idea of a perfect millennial kingdom of peace and harmony suggested by Dispensationalists. This in-depth study will encourage you to see the Book of Revelation in a new light, focusing on the revelation of Jesus Christ throughout history.As we study the Book of Revelation with open hearts and open Bibles, let us be guided by the true purpose of this extraordinary book: the revelation of Jesus Christ. This journey will not only help us better understand the Bible and its symbols but also enrich our lives with a deeper connection to Jesus and his message. So let's dive into the Book of Revelation and be blessed by the understanding and revelation of Jesus Christ.

“Jesus is Lord” is our confession as Christians (Romans 10:9), and our confession has a crescendo of consequences. I can summarize my life's whats and whys under “Jesus is Lord” and for the glory of God, and when I think about how that looks, I think about the Kuyperian Dispensationalist. He is not my imaginary friend, but he is always talking to me wherever I go; “Hey! Look at this!”# (Re)Defining Terms“Kuyperian” refers to a Christian who confesses that Jesus, the Logos, created all things and that He cares about all that He created. A Kuyperian mindset is like a filter through which a man sees that he can honor Christ in studying theology and in building swing sets, in walking in the Spirit while walking down the halls of Congress, or to the voting booth. A disciple of Christ isn't defined as much by what he does (as if only sacred not secular, spiritual not earthly, eternal not temporal) as much as Who he does those things for. The consequences of Abraham Kuyper's (Holland, 1837-1920) confession that Jesus is Lord included that he *stopped* being a pastor and got into publishing and politics. He started a daily newspaper and edited a monthly magazine. He energized Christian education at the grammar and secondary levels, then helped to found a university where the students were free to study and steward every thumb's width in creation. He saw Calvinistic soteriology and raised it with the implications of Calvinistic cosmology. Also, big sheesh, we make disciples of Christ, not disciples of Kuyper. I don't tell any of my unbelieving neighbors that they need to “ask Kuyper into their hearts” or end their prayers “in Kuyper's name.” And at the same time, it may very well be that my neighbors observe something different about our family/community that I know grows out of a viewpoint and motivation I learned from considering the outcome of Kuyper's way of living for Christ (per Hebrews 13:7).Kuyper himself was *not* a Dispy; no one's perfect. But he read the Bible right in many areas and obeyed with indefatigable obsession, he just didn't do it with the intention to make the Jews jealous. That's what we mean by the term “Dispensationalist.” Our type of Dispy is close to a certain type of Covy, even if some Covies claim Dispies teach two ways of salvation (which we don't). We read Scripture that reveals that there is still something special and unique about the nation of Israel. Before Christ, salvation came through faith in the coming Seed. After Christ, salvation comes through a Jew, Jesus, but does not depend on a man changing his passport to Israeli colors. Americans, Russians, Canadians, Netherlanders, Germans, and more believe as part of the church. Israelites who believe in these days are also part of the church. But there is coming a day when the fulness of the Gentiles will “come in,” that is, all the elect non-Jews will be converted to Christ, and then “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25-26). There are national promises of salvation and blessing that remain to be fulfilled (per the New Covenant promise in Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31). That's what makes us Dispies.Some more things need to be said.In history, most Dispensationalists have considered their lives, and the world, to be in a sort of throw-away, disposable category. We say catechesis matters, our lives not so much. Our lives *are* a vapor, as James wrote (James 4:14), but Dispensationalists tend to apply that to the *worth* of one's life rather than the *duration* of it. Compared to eternity our lives on earth don't last very long. That doesn't make our lives here less valuable. It's actually the opposite. A Dispensationalist sings about how this world is not his home, he's just a passing through, and he sings how the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of Christ's glory and grace. A Dispensationalist runs everything through the comparative grid rather than the integrated grid (categories Joe Rigney described in his book, _The Things of Earth_). Compared to the Lord everything else is worthless, “there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25), but we have trouble comprehending that the Lord Jesus gave worth to what He made for us. We tend to be best at building Dispensational Bible colleges as well as walls between Denominations. We are good at seeing and criticizing and condemning sin in the culture. We major on strident apologetics and urgent evangelism and rapture fiction. We believe that Israel is still significant in God's plans and promises, and we expect that God will work all that out on the other side of the globe. We'll wait here, at home, in our prayer closets, and Jesus will be back to make things right at any moment. The hope about Israel is good, the rest ruins our claim of better Bible reading. There are great promises of God to His elect people in the Old Testament. He made great and unconditional, and so *unbreakable*, covenants with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We've recently looked specifically at the New Covenant promises to “the household of Israel,” promises to give them a new heart and the indwelling Spirit, as well as to return them to the land of their forefathers (Jeremiah 31:31-40; Ezekiel 36:22-32). We've seen Paul's long section of confidence in Romans 9-11. God chose the nation of Israel for Himself, He chose to save many within the nation. He also purposed for many to reject His Son for a time, before He will save all of them in the future. God is faithful. He will finish what He started. While the fullness of Gentiles are grafted into salvation in Christ, the ethnic people of Israel will also be grafted back in. This what it means to be a Dispensationalist. # What God Has Joined TogetherMost Kuyperian-minded Christians have not been Dispensationalists. Most Dispensationalists have not been Kuyperian. There are verses for both, so there are blind spots to watch for on both sides. Whether or not one uses the labels, both truths are Bible truths.Do they go together or do we just try to hold them both? God says them, we believe them, we can't explain them further…? He's sovereign, we're responsible, He'll have to figure out how it works…?Perhaps the truths are like holding two seventeen pound bowling balls, one in the left hand and one in the right. There have been some Christians who believe and live like this, most of whom probably couldn't explain it, but they do it. We shouldn't drop either ball, but the left hand don't really have much to do with the right. That's *not* the case. Kuyperianism is more like the cue ball that breaks the Dispensational rack, sending balls into pockets all around the table. Kuyperianism is the key that touches all the right parts of the eschatological lock, opening the door on the timeline of God's plan. It's not just that they *could* go together, they *must*. How so?# Making the Jews JealousThere is a key word used three times in Romans 10-11, a word that's part prophecy, part observation, part motivation. The word is *jealous*. We almost always take jealousy to be a sin, and usually it is. It is feeling of envy to be in someone else's shoes, wanting to have what they have. The desire itself is not wrong, it depends on what you want and why you want it. In Romans 10 Paul addressed why so many of his kinsmen did not confess that Jesus is Lord and in his explanation he quoted the second half of Deuteronomy 32:21. > But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,> > “I will make you **jealous** of those who are > not a nation; > with a foolish nation I will make you angry.” > (Romans 10:19) In Deuteronomy God warned Israel, under the name of “Jeshurun,” that they “grew fat, stout, and sleek; then…forsook God who made” them and “scoffed at the Rock of…salvation” (32:15). They “forgot the God who gave (them) birth” (32:18). God responded with jealousy for the glory of His name. He values it so much—as He should—that He reacts when His name isn't honored, so He was going to make them jealous. That is the first part of the verse Paul quoted in Romans 10:19. > They have made me jealous with what is no god; > they have provoked me to anger with > their idols. > **So I will make them jealous** …. > (Deuteronomy 32:21)They gave worship due to Him to other gods, so God would give blessings offered to them to other peoples. He was going to give blessings to “those who are no people,” a people the Jews looked down on, in order to cause the Jews to want the good from God they could have had. Paul stitches the jealous thread again in the next chapter. > So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel **jealous**. (Romans 11:11)“Stumble” refers to their rejection of salvation in Jesus. In God's plan, Israel's rejection led to salvation and “riches for the world…riches for the Gentiles” (Romans 11:12). God extended His grace in forgiveness and in fruitfulness. “Riches” are blessing, good gifts from above, eternal and temporal, spiritual and material. These riches “make Israel jealous.” Making Jews jealous was a major motivation for Paul's ministry.> Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews **jealous**, and thus save some of them. (Romans 11:13–14)Provoking jealousy was not an afterthought or an accident, it was his *aim*. Paul didn't merely look back and realize an unintended consequence, he looked around for ways to increase the provocation effect. “I magnify,” the word is δοξάζω, “I glorify.” Salvation and blessing among the Gentiles provoked the right sort of envy in the elect in Israel. Paul maximized his blessing-bling to “save some” of the remnant in his day, but there will be a large-scale application in the end when the fulness of Gentiles come in so that “**all Israel will be saved**” (Romans 11:25-26). Toward that end Paul was making disciples jealousable.*A Kuyperian Dispensationalist confesses that Jesus is Lord in everything he does on earth, and that God has purposed to make the Jews jealous through great blessings of salvation and fruitfulness as we live by faith that Jesus is Lord so that all Israel will believe and be saved.* Those blessings will be on earth and not just in our prayer closets. We are the means of God's ends, like a cue ball breaking the rack and sending balls all over the table. # Blessing BlingIn Genesis 1 God blessed Adam and Eve before He gave them their mandate (Genesis 1:28). He blessed them for sake of their marriage and mission of fruitfulness and filling and forming the earth. They were #blessed by Him. In the Psalms the Israelites received and requested more of God's blessing. The first word in Psalms is “blessed,” describing the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked but delights in the law of the Lord and yields fruit like a tree in season. The Lord's blessings came in the form of good harvests and in victory over, or at least protection from, enemies. Blessings sometimes looked like gold with gladness and sometimes gladness without it. Blessings came in the form of a wise and righteous king as well as in judgment on transgressors. Blessing included land, livestock, and eating the fruit of one's labor. Blessing came in the form of peace of heart, peace with God, peace among brothers. Blessings included forgiveness and feasts. Blessing came in the form of temple worship and in the form of kids all around the dinner table. > The earth has yielded its increase; > God, our God, shall bless us. > God shall bless us; > let all the ends of the earth fear him! > (Psalm 67:6–7)Fear of God extends on earth as God blesses His people. Salvation blessings are riches for the world. # Eschatology for TodayWe will not aim to make Jews jealous if we don't think that Jews are still part of God's plan. We will not be motivated to provoke them, or confident that God will give us the required blessings for it, if we think that His promises to Israel have been redefined. This is a *Dispensational aim* and a *Dispensational assurance*. We also will not aim to make Jews jealous if we think that our lives are throw-away, that everything we do will “burn,” that we should hide out in the basement reading our Bibles, lamenting the 6 o'clock news and latest national/international outrage. We will not provoke the elect by our whimpering waiting for the rapture helicopter out of hell on earth, a common temptation among Dispensationalists. Provocative jealousy is a *Kuyperian end* requiring *Kuyperian energy*. Because Jesus is Lord we marry and raise kids and bake cupcakes and attend City Council meetings and tweet against abortion and hire employees and drink wine at parties. These are merely a sample of the fruitful blessings God gives to those who believe. This is not a new “prosperity gospel.” By faith we also suffer in joy and endure with perseverance by God's blessing. Our confident *losing* by faith may be even *more* provocative to the Jews. “It has been granted to (us) that for the sake of Christ (we) should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29). When we are not frightened, it is a sign of winning (Philippians 1:28).A Kuyperian Dispensationalist is a Christian who **confesses Jesus is Lord in everything he does on earth in order to make the Jews jealous of God's blessing so that all Israel would believe in Christ unto salvation and even greater riches for the world**. We live by faith, more than conquerers even when we're killed, bringing life from our sacrificial deaths. Informed by our Bible reading and study, we look for the the Word to yield its fruit in season, making us without a withering leaf, prospering us unlike the wind-driven chaff. Our meditation on His Word should produce provocative fruit.# ConclusionThis cannot be fulfilled by any one individual, but it must be done by persons of faith. Because Jesus is Lord and we seek to honor Him in our culture maybe we will rebuild America in His name, or maybe we will thrive in Post-America in His name. This project isn't tied to America's future, but it is a project applied to the public square. This is a reason for *everything*! It is a unified explanation of humanity and history, and it is a motivation for our intentional and joyful contributions. For too long we've been hanging out in our Baptistic bunkers and basements as bumps-on-a-log. We are good at talking about the cultural battle, not sure what we'd do if we won. We run in one direction: away, never toward. We're complaining, combative, complacent Christians. Who wants more of *that*?Our purpose is to, by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, prudently and persistently provoke jealousy among elect Israel by how we seek and steward and sing about God's blessings. This is the big perspective and driving passion of a Kuyperian Dispensationalist.

Let's introduce the letters to the seven church in Asia Minor. We also take a look at the timeline given by Dispensationalists as their interpretation of these letters. You can find the Louis Brighton Revelation Commentary at https://smile.amazon.com/Revelation-Concordia-Commentary-Louis-Brighton/dp/0570063124/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2QO0FKSL7II4U&keywords=brighton+revelation&qid=1672525680&sprefix=brighton+revelation%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc You can find the Reformation Heritage Bible Commentary at https://smile.amazon.com/Reformation-Heritage-Bible-Commentary-Revelation/dp/0758627610/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2QO0FKSL7II4U&keywords=brighton+revelation&qid=1672525894&sprefix=brighton+revelation%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-3 Subscribe on Breaker (https://www.breaker.audio/wrestling-with-theology) or your favorite podcast app.

In an effort to represent (and not misrepresent) the various views we wanted to talk about in this series we tried to get some of the best representatives from each position.You can find out more about Randy White HERE!The following is Generated by AI: Summary/AbstractRandy White is a pastor and the founder of Dispensational Publishing House which publishes Bible study materials from a Dispensational perspective. He has been a pastor for over 30 years and does daily Bible teaching at randywhiteministries.org. He lives in the beauty of Tau, New Mexico and pastors a small church which he calls America's greatest tiny church.On the podcast, Randy is representing the Dispensational perspective in a series on Eschatology, the study of the end times. He believes that we should question the assumptions and make sure we are right according to the Scripture. Distensationalism is a hermeneutic, or method of interpreting scripture, which recognizes that at certain points in progressive revelation, God has given a revelation that is so fundamental that it changes everything from that point forward. Dispensationalists look for these points when “the rules of the game changed”. There is a huge range of opinions and interpretations within Dispensationalism and the number of dispensations can vary, with some citing three or four while others cite seven or nine or ten.However, it can be simplified to understanding that life in the Garden of Eden was drastically different than life outside the Garden. The conversation discusses the concept of dispensationalism, which is the idea that God deals with people differently depending on the dispensation (or period of time) they are living in. Dispensationalism looks at scripture and determines how much of it is applicable to all people for all time, and how much is specific to certain people living under certain rules of that dispensation.Examples of different dispensations are the Garden of Eden, the giving of the Law, the dispensation of grace, and the future kingdom dispensation. The conversation also clarifies that the dispensation of grace is the period of time in which Gentiles are given access to God's covenants and hope.Dispensationalism is a hermeneutic approach to interpreting the Bible that looks at the progression of God's revelation throughout history. It holds to a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial view of the end times in which the Church is raptured before the Tribulation, followed by the second coming of Christ before the millennium. In addition to this eschatology, it also emphasizes a separation between Israel and the Church, believing that the future kingdom of Christ will be physical, fraternal, and established through the nation of Israel. This interpretation of the Bible is closely associated with pre-millennialism because it looks for fundamental moments in Scripture where things change, such as the new revelation of salvation through grace by faith.Timestamps0:00:14Interview with Randy White on Classic Dispensationalism and Eschatology0:02:51Conversation on Dispensationalism: Exploring the Hermeneutic0:05:12Discussion on Dispensationalism0:08:21Dispensationalism: A Discussion on Eschatology and Hermeneutics0:12:12Discussion of Dispensationalism: Historical Perspectives and Futuristic Bed0:14:57Discussion on the History of Dispensationalism0:19:21Heading: Dispensationalism: A Discussion of Different Views0:20:52Discussion on Unfair Characterizations of Dispensationalism0:25:29"Exploring Dispensationalism: A Discussion on End Times Theology"0:27:52Topic: Understanding the Timing of the Rapture and the Benefits of Pretrib Pre Millennialism0:30:00Discussion on Dispensationalism and Its Impact on Biblical Worldview0:31:51Discussion on Old Testament Salvation0:33:38Discussion on Dispensationalism and Cooperation in Ministry0:35:50"Exploring Different Perspectives on Faith: A Discussion on the Benefits of Reading Different Points of View"0:38:06Heading: Understanding Different Eschatological Perspectives in Christianity0:42:21Heading: Interview with Andy on Biblical Interpretation and DoctrineHighlightsAnd yet when it comes time to serve the community, to celebrate the birth of Jesus or to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we hold the same views on it, the person of Christ. Pretty much throughout Protestant and Evangelical and even fundamentalist Christianity, we hold the same ideas of the Trinity, of the person of Christ and largely even of the gift of salvation. There's some different viewpoints on how you receive that gift, but what's involved there?. But I think it's a value to have a local church that has taken a position and works to defend it. And you can fellowship around that position and that can be your identity, but at the same time being able to work with others. And I wish in the Christian community there was a little more openness to saying, I'm going to get together with an all millennialist and we're both going to get down on the wrestling match, on the wrestling match and try to work this out and defend our positions and try to seek to learn these.Yeah, I think that one does not need to adopt dispensationalism in order to receive the gift of grace that God is offering. And so we have brothers and sisters in Christ who hold all sorts of wrong ideas and we can and do walk with them and enjoy the Christian journey with them and learn together with them on so many things. I actually think that one, and especially those of us who are pastors, we benefit probably more from reading a different point of view than reading our own point of view because we already had that point of view. Let's find something different.It depends on who you ask. So I'll answer in a way that I would say the majority of my fellow dispensationalists would disagree with most. I think dispensationalists have the flaw of thinking that there has always been one soteriology plan of salvation that has always been by grace through faith, not of works. And it's almost anathema in American Christianity to say anything other than that. But my position is that salvation, as the three of us know it and those in our audience know it, that this salvation is something new that God is offering now to the individual that comes after the death barrel and resurrection of Jesus Christ.There's just way too much in how do you interpret this? Determines how you're going to interpret this, how you're going to interpret this? So for me, I figured, okay, there is a rapture. And then I looked at the various positions of where are we going to put that rapture? And I came to the conclusion after a long time because I was what is often called a historic pre millennialist or a post tribe pre millennials for many years and came to the conviction that the pretrib is really what works biblically and puts all the passages together in harmony. But it's a harmonizing of Scripture. And again, that's the vast majority of doctrine is a harmonizing of Scripture. And I think that it would do anybody good, even if they're not a dispensationalist and reject dispensationalism altogether.And if the plain sense makes common sense, seek no other sense as we often say. And then we try to connect the dots. But every theology is connecting dots that aren't just fully connected for us. Unfortunately, the dotted dot in the Bible is not numbered. And that's why there are theological differences and we all ought to recognize that. Whether it's a reform position, a covenant position, a dispensational position, it's based upon some interpretive assumptions.. And if we got any of those assumptions wrong, then the whole thing falls apart. And the older we get, the more we study, the more we look back and say oops, shouldn't have put that. I shouldn't have connected those two things. Now I see that and so I'm going to change my position. And I don't know, maybe it's pride, but for some reason we have a hard time changing our position or backing up on something that especially those of us who are preachers because we stood in front of a crowd of people and stake their life on it.

Continuing the conversation on fulfillment Theology, I wanted to play an interview with John Macarthur's response to "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11). Again, the issue here goes back to Eschatology and HOW God will deliver The Kingdom: the new Heavens, and the new earth, etc. Dispensationalists seem to always disregard this. Thanks for listening. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/trunews365/message

We take at look at the topic of fellowship in the context of both salvation and interpretation. When it come to interpreting scripture, I hope I'm consistent and I implore anybody in any system to be consistent (or at least try to be consistent unti it doesn't work!). Surely, we can find fellowship with ALL who have found Life in Christ and who are resting in Him alone via the true gospel of the grace of God. But, naturally, we fellowship at different levels. With that said and understood, we are also careful to draw lines regarding those who are without. And a lot of theose people outside of Christ still take the name of Christ. We also get into popes, cardinals, and stuff like that there.

Dispensationalists habitually misidentify the Beast of Revelation 13. Is this a person-- A system-- Past-- Present-- Future-- Why are they always wrong about this-- Note- this was a special study originally posted in March 2022 with a slightly different title. Here it is placed in the sequence of the current studies in Revelation.

 Why we are not dispensational:   • Dispensationalism promotes escapism which hinders discipleship in the present because the goal is to escape the earth. If Christ's goal is to be his body on earth why would he want us to escape it and if he is the pattern and his pattern was suffering leading to victory then the dispensational interpretation is opposite of the pattern of Christ. If a true disciple looks like Jesus then we are called to endure to the end not escape, this actually builds our faith and discipleship.   • Staunch Dispensationalists see the 7 churches as ages from the ascension up till the “GREAT TRIB” and this stunts the application of Jesus' message to these churches because they apply them to other “ages” and cannot see the application (not written to us, but written for us). To give the benefit to Dispensationalists some do see the pastoral applications of the churches (The "things that are”).   • Dispensationalists interpretations of the 144,000 as Jews in the “Great Trib” screws up much of the rest of the letter. If they can't see this as what John “sees” in Rev 7 (The interpretation of 144000) as all tribes, tongues, and nations (the church) who worship the lamb and follow him wherever he goes (Rev 15) and rather see it as some end times jewish army with the church “raptured” out of the picture it can really screw up the mission of the church in following the lamb in suffering and service because that is only reserved for the end times jews (The same that are called a synagogue of Satan in Smyrna?).   • A major thrust is the futurist nosterdomist misinterpretation of what prophecy Is, but we addressed this in part in our intro episode. If it's all about predicting the future then it has no bearing on the present except to just “watch” for it. It requires not action on the part of the church.

Dispensationalists often get accused of being escapists from the present evil age -that we don't live boldly for Christ or seek to influence the culture. In this live recording for the Do Theology Podcast, Jeremy Howard and Kenn Chipchase will discuss what escapism is, why we shouldn't be escapists, and how the hope of Christ's pre-tribulational return for His bride spurs us on to boldness.-Kevin

Dispensationalists often get accused of being escapists from the present evil age -that we don't live boldly for Christ or seek to influence the culture. In this live recording for the Do Theology Podcast, Jeremy Howard and Kenn Chipchase will discuss what escapism is, why we shouldn't be escapists, and how the hope of Christ's pre-tribulational return for His bride spurs us on to boldness.-Kevin

The Ceremonial Law was fulfilled and abrogated by Christ. And yet, some Dispensationalists think that animal sacrifices will be reinstated in the Millennial Kingdom.

16:18 Podcast - 2.10 Dispensationalism In this episode, I discuss dispensationalism, it's definition and background, as we prepare to embark on a series about the Kingdom. What is Dispensationalism? "Dispensationalism is an evangelical theological system that addresses issues concerning the biblical covenants, Israel, the church, and end times. It also argues for a literal interpretation of Old Testament prophecies involving ethnic/national Israel, and the idea that the church is a New Testament entity that is distinct from Israel." - Michael J. Vlach, PhD. BUY HERE: "He Will Reign Forever" by Michael J. Vlach A "literal interpretation" Dispensationalism argues for a "literal interpretation of Old Testament prophecies involving ethnic/national Israel, and the idea that the church is a New Testament entity that is distinct from Israel." If ethnic, national Israel will one day in the future receive the fulfillment of the land promise from Abraham, it will, by default, not include those of the church who are not part of ethnic Israel: thus creating a distinction. When thinking about the covenants, Dispensationalists claim that "the New Testament does not transcend or reinterpret Old Testament passages or the storyline that began in the Old Testament." What this means, then, is that every promise or covenant made in the OT that has not yet been fulfilled literally in the NT will be fulfilled in the future. With Israel, then, dispensational theology claims that since the promise of land and Israel's role among the nations has not been fulfilled up to this point. The NT does not spiritualize or reinterpret that covenant, rather it will be fulfilled in a literal sense in the future. This is opposite to what many in the reformed, or covenant, theological system claim. The Dispensations Vlach writes, "While affirming that salvation has always been by grace through faith alone, Dispensationalism teaches that God has worked in different ways in different eras of history. Dispensationalism often taught that the various dispensations involved a test for mankind, a failure, and then a judgment. This then would be followed by another dispensation. These seven dispensations are (1) innocence; (2) conscience; (3) human government; (4) promise; (5) law; (6) grace; and (7) kingdom." Essential teachings of Dispensational Theology Charles Ryrie writes, "(1) a distinction between Israel and the church; (2) a hermeneutic of “literal interpretation” to all areas of scripture including Old Testament prophecies; and (3) the glory of God as the underlying purpose of God in history." Source: Vlach, Michael J. "Dispensational Theology." The Gospel Coalition, edited by Brett McCracken, 9 Apr. 2020, www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/dispensational-theology/. Have a question or comment? I'd love to hear! If you love the 16:18 Podcast, check out our merchandise! Follow me on Twitter. You can also support me on Patreon. Visit christianpodcastcommunity.com to find more great Christian podcasts!

The Revelation of Jesus the Messiah Revelation 1:1-8 by William Klock The book of Revelation has, I think it can very safely be said, produced more useless commentaries than any other book of the Bible.  Every generation churns out books, almost all of which are quickly and mercifully forgotten.  That said, our generation has turned writing and preaching nonsense about Revelation into an art form, but no generation in Church history has been immune.  In the last few years I've been invited to pick through the libraries of several retiring clergymen and have found a number of “gems”.  A book from the 70s about computerised credit systems and how they were connected to the “mark of the beast”, one outlining how Khrushchev is the antichrist—and another doing the same for Henry Kissinger, and yet another for Saddam Hussein.  Oops.  And one little book titled “88 reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1988”.  Oops again.  That author went on to pen another tract titled “89 reasons Why the Rapture will be in 1989.”  And there were some more recent—but already past-their-expiry-date—books about blood moons heralding the end.  And, of course, more recently there are so-called “Bible prophecy” folks finding the current pandemic in Revelation.  I had a phone call from a woman, nearly hysterical, who was convinced mRNA vaccines are the mark of the beast, that they'll mess with your genes, erase your soul, and leave you eternally damned.  Revelation is for far too many people, at best, a book of doom and gloom, picked apart and explained and expounded by pessimists, and all too commonly at worst, a fertile ground for kooks and outlandish prognostications.  G. K. Chesterton quite accurately wrote, “Though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creatures so wild as one of his own commentators.”[1]  These sorts of things end up undermining faith in God's word and faith in God's church.  And, Brothers and Sisters, if there's anything you take away from these forthcoming sermons on Revelation, I hope it's the opposite: that Revelation reveals the faithfulness of God in Jesus and is meant to strengthen our faith, enliven our hope, and embolden our mission. Now, part of the problem is that Revelation is a notoriously difficult book.  It wasn't meant to be.  The Christians to whom it was written, it's safe to say, had no trouble understanding what it was that the Spirit was communicating to them through the pen of St. John.  It has become difficult for us thanks to our distance from the original context.  And because of this difficulty—and because all of you have, over the years been exposed to so many different ways of approaching Revelation, some better and some worse than others—I think it's important to talk about these approaches.  That's not something I normally do when I'm preaching, but bear with me this morning as I swap my surplice for an academic gown and play professor rather than pastor for a few minutes. There are four basic approaches to Revelation.  And, of course, within each of those approaches you'll find plenty of variation, but this is just an outline so that we can have some interpretive bearings. The first approach is what we'll call the “Futurist”.  I put it first because you may or may not be familiar with the other three, but I guarantee that everyone here has been exposed to this one.  While it's not the dominant view historically, it is the dominant view today in North American Evangelical circles and it's also the one that gets all the popular attention, because it's the one that purports to tell the future.  This is the approach behind the sensationalist best-sellers and Bible prophecy teachers on TV.  Simply put, this approach to Revelation sees most, if not all, of the book's events as taking place in the future.  This was the dominant view of the Church in the Second Century and well into the Third.  We don't have many details of how they parsed everything out, because this view pretty quickly fell out of favour.  In part that was because the “future” came and events didn't happen as these folks had thought they would.  (When “88 reasons Jesus is Coming Back in 188” didn't pan out, they were smart enough not to write another tract on why he would come back in 189!)  Like our own era, it did produce some sensationalist and goofy predictions, but unlike our era, when those predictions failed this approach to Revelation simply fell out of favour.  But it also fell out of favour because, in the Third Century a new approach to interpreting the Bible arose that gave allegory primacy of place.  Futurist interpretations pop up here and there in Church history, but usually amongst weird or cultic sects.  That's exactly what happened in the 19th Century.  That century was a breeding ground for odd, new approaches to biblical interpretation and numerous cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists, which put a lot of emphasis on weird eschatology.  The Plymouth Brethren, generally orthodox despite some odd beliefs, developed their own system—something now called “Dispensationalism”—but due to a number of factors, it didn't die out like so many others.  It was there in relative obscurity for almost a century when three things happened: First, in 1909, a guy named C. I. Scofield published the first modern study Bible and incorporated Dispensationalism into its notes.  The Scofield Reference Bible quickly became wildly popular.  Second, in 1906, the Pentecostal movement began  and quickly latched onto Dispensationalism's claim that the “last days” were about to begin as an explanation for why the Spirit had suddenly returned miraculous gifts to the Church.  And, third, in the heat of the Modernist-Fundamentalist controversies of the early 20th Century, Dispensationalists' claim—a dubious one, but that didn't matter much—it's claim to be a consistently literal means of interpreting the Bible became very popular.  And within a couple of decades this odd, obscure, and very recent approach to the Bible became the dominant view amongst many Evangelicals—even to the point that anyone who doesn't hold to it has often been viewed with suspicion or accused of being a “liberal”.  This is the school of interpretation behind the vast majority of “end times” and “Bible prophecy” literature since World War II.  But as prominent as it is, it's not the only evangelical approach.  It took hold in many of the new Evangelical churches and denominations, but the older Evangelical traditions—Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterian and Reformed, and some Reformed Baptists—already had confessions of faith and established theological traditions that are at odds with Dispensationalism and especially its key defining feature, which is that it maintains a distinction between Israel and the Church.  Dispensationalists claim that when the Bible speaks of Israel, it refers and can only ever refer to ethnic Jews, and that the Church is a specifically gentile body.  Dispensationalism not only divides the people of God into two distinct groups, denying the continuity between the old and new covenants, but it also teaches that God essentially has two plans of salvation.  The Church is for gentiles and he's got another plan for the Jews.  The entire Dispensational approach to Revelation is uniquely built around this belief, which makes it distinct from all other approaches.  For this reason classical, confessional Protestants have rejected Dispensationalism.  In the last few decades, I think mainly as a protest against Dispensationalism, there has been a movement to revive a more historical Futurist reading of Revelation.  It's produced a number of very good, serious commentaries, but hasn't gained much traction at the popular level.  The general problem with most Futurist approaches to Revelation, Dispensational or otherwise, is that they leave the book largely irrelevant to the people to whom John wrote it in the First Century.  It also ignores the overwhelmingly imminent and urgent nature of John's message.  And that's not to mention that this approach has an utterly abysmal track record of ever getting anything right.   The second approach is one we'll call the “Idealist” approach.  This approach, in one form or another, has dominated the Church's approach to Revelation from the Third or Fourth Century until the Seventeenth or Eighteenth and continues to dominate both Roman and many confessional Protestant circles.  It began as the Church Fathers placed emphasis on interpreting the biblical text allegorically instead of literally.  There have often been elements of this approach that have been Futurist, but the trend has been towards flattening the biblical narrative into sort of universal and timeless truths.  There have been some positives that have come out of this approach and it's often been seen as the best way to let Revelation speak both to the original audience and to people today, but it falls short in that it largely ignores the original context and, as I said, in that it flattens out and often fails to account for the big biblical narrative. Third is what we'll call the “Historicist” approach.  This is often combined with various Futurist approaches and understands Revelation to be describing the history of the Church from beginning to end, so for example, while the seven churches addressed by John in Chapters 2 and 3 were real churches in Asia Minor, they represent progressively the Church from Acts up to the return of Jesus.  The rest of the book plays out the same way.  The major problem with this approach is that it accounts only for the church in the West and that every generation that uses it finds itself at the very end and has to massage the details to make them fit the new timeline.  Every few years it has to be scrapped and reconstructed.  Like the Futurist approach, this may appeal to people today, but it leaves the book largely meaningless to the original audience and simply ignores most of global Christianity in its artificially constructed timeline. The fourth and last approach is what's usually called the “Preterist” approach—“preter” meaning “something past”.  This approach has been around since at least the Eighteenth Century.  It understands most or all of Revelation to be describing events which took place in the First Century, typically centring around the fall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70 and reads Revelation in close connection with the apocalyptic teaching of Jesus.  Again, there are plenty of variations, but most Preterists hold that at least the last few chapters of the book remain in our future.  There is an heretical variant of Preterism holding that all of the events of Revelation have already taken place, but this isn't very common.  The common criticism of Preterism is that while it makes a great deal of sense of the book for Christians in the First Century, it doesn't leave much for us today.  This is, however, the approach that I'll be taking here and I think it makes the best sense of the book within the context of the bigger biblical narrative.  I think this approach does the best job of reading Revelation as First Century Jews would have done with their deep grasp of the Old Testament and I think it takes account of what Revelation actually is—something we'll get to shortly.  It's also really the only approach that takes seriously the language of imminence we see both here in Revelation and in the apocalyptic teachings of Jesus.  When John says “soon” and when Jesus says “before this generation passes”, Preterists believe they really meant “soon” and “before this generation passes”!  I think, too, that Preterist and some Idealist approaches are commended by their optimism.  They see the Church, commissioned by Jesus and empowered by the Spirit, actually succeeding in the mission we've been given, rather than whisked—or “raptured”—away just as everything turns for the worst. So, off with the academic gown and back on with the surplice, let's look at the first Chapter and St. John's introduction.  Revelation 1:1-8. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.  Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.   John to the seven churches that are in Asia:  Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.  To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.  Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.   “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”   This is the revelation—in John's language it's the apokalypsis, an unveiling, making something known.  Specifically, it's the revelation of Jesus the Messiah.  John writes that God gave this revelation to Jesus to reveal to his servants—to his Church.  What does that mean?  Well, first, we know that these early Christians were struggling.  These were people who had heard the good news about Jesus, that he had died and risen and that he is Lord.  Some of them may even have witnessed those events first-hand.  And they believed.  In Jesus, the God of Israel was fulfilling his promises.  In Jesus, the God of Israel was making all things new.  In Jesus, the God of Israel had defeated sin and death and inaugurated new creation.  They saw the promises fulfilled.  They saw and experienced first-hand the transformation brought by Jesus and the Spirit in the Church.  And yet they struggled.  The good news was spreading.  Little churches were springing up all over the world.  But they faced opposition, persecution, and sometimes even martyrdom.  They proclaimed: “Jesus is Lord”.  And they believed it.  They saw the evidence first hand.  But Caesar's claim to lordship was only growing stronger and his cult was spreading fast—and Christians were facing pressure to acknowledge him.  Great temples were being built in some of these cities.  And back in Jerusalem, as much as Jesus had denounced the unbelief of his own people, as much as he had pronounced judgement on them, they too were violently persecuting the Church.  What did it mean?  What was God's plan?  Was their hope misplaced?  Was Jesus really Lord? In those desperate days, God spoke to his Church.  Now, consider that in the days of the old covenant, the temple has been the place where earth and heaven met, the place where men and women went to meet God—often to pray and to wait for his revelation.  But now there's a new covenant.  Now we meet God in Jesus the Messiah.  He is the new temple.  He is the one in whom earth and heaven, God and man have been brought together.  God gives his word to Jesus and we come to him to receive it.  There's some deep covenantal truth in this first verse. God's revelation in Jesus is delivered by an angel to John.  It's the angel who comes to him and acts as a kind of tour guide and expositor of the things he sees.  Briefly, who is John?  This has been debated since the Second Century and I don't know that the question will ever have any ultimate resolution this side of the New Jerusalem.  The majority view has always been that the John who wrote Revelation is the same John who wrote the Gospel and the three epistles that bear that same name.  That's John the Son of Zebedee or John the Apostle and Evangelist.  There may have been another well-known figure in the early Church known as John the Presbyter or Elder.  Some have said that he may be the author.  Some who don't want to commit refer to St. John the Divine—the namesake of the parish down the hill on Fifth Street—who was maybe one of these two or maybe a third person.  At the end of the day I don't think it really makes much of a difference and I'm happy with the evidence for John the Apostle—the author of the Gospel and epistles—also being the author of Revelation.  He describes himself as the one “who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw” and I think that certainly sounds like the man who was Jesus' close friend and who wrote the Gospel.  That he could introduce himself to these churches as simple “John”, not “John This” or “John That”, I think also points to his being the well-known John the Apostle. “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy,” John writes.  He's not talking about reading Revelation as if it's some kind of talisman—just pick something at random and read it and you'll be blessed.  Again, he's addressing these churches where it will be read aloud to the congregation—where God will reveal himself in Jesus through the reading of his word—and in that these people full of question and maybe even fears and doubts, will be blessed.  The word of God will strengthen their faith, their hope, and their joy.  It will prepare them for the difficult days to come.  And it will remind them of the faithfulness of God. Brothers and Sisters, this is true about God's word in general.  Read the Bible and be blessed as God reveals himself through his word to you.  But I encourage you to let God speak to you this week through the uniqueness of Revelation and to be blessed as your faith, hope, and joy are strengthened.  It takes about forty-five minutes to an hour to read the whole book and I guarantee that there are plenty of things you'll do this week that take longer that won't leave you as blessed as God's word will.  As John writes, Jesus loves us, he has freed us from our sin by the shedding of his own blood, he has made us priests to God his Father.  And even after all of that, if we're left wondering or left troubled by our situation, come to him and be reassured.  John writes at the outset to these churches: “Jesus is coming with the clouds…every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes on earth will wail on account of him.”  John draws on the language of the Prophet Zechariah (12:10-14) to say that Jesus will vindicate the faith of his people.  As the Father has revealed his faithfulness to do what he has promised and as he had done so in Jesus, Jesus himself will be faithful to do what he has promised and to finish what he has begun.  Have faith.  Read his word—his self-revelation—and have even greater faith. And the last line there in verse 8 points us to the ultimate purpose of everything that has happened and everything that will happen.  “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”  Jesus has come so that the world will know the Lord God, the one who is both the source and the goal of all of history.  That's what “Alpha and Omega” is getting at.  The first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet.  Rebellious humanity has rejected and forgotten him, but Jesus has come to make him known—in judgement on those who persist in their rebellion and for salvation to those who believe.  For he is the Almighty, the pantokrator, the Lord of hosts, whose dominion encompasses the cosmos. So clearly Revelation is important.  But as I said, it's not an easy book to understand.  What can we do that will help us understand beyond just being careful and prayerful as we read?  Brothers and Sisters, in these first verses John tells us just what kind of a book this is and that's a good starting point.  First, it's a letter.  And not just any letter.  Like the epistles, it's a letter written to a specific, real, historical people.  In the case of Revelation, it was written to a cluster of seven churches in Asia Minor—Western Turkey.  It was God's Spirit-inspired word directly to them and only indirectly to us.  That means it had to make sense to them.  When we don't understand something, we often make the mistake of reading it through our present situation and cultural lens, but we can't do that with the Bible.  Before we can start talking about how a text relates to us, we first have to ask what it meant to the people to whom it was originally addressed. Second, John writes that this is a prophecy.  And as we read it, we see that John not only writes in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets, but that he is constantly drawing on those prophets and their language and imagery.  This is, I think, the biggest obstacle we face in understanding the book.  John's readers were steeped in the Old Testament (and in a certain way of reading it) that very, very few people are today.  The average Christian, at best, knows the Old Testament only as disconnected Bible stories and struggles to string them together into a full narrative.  Many know familiar passages from the Prophets, but don't know anything of the context or history those prophets were addressing—and then just assume that the prophets speak directly to us or to current events.  In contrast, for the early Christians the Old Testament was their culture and many knew large sections by heart.  We're not nearly so steeped in the scriptures and so we miss the connections and we misunderstand—or we try to understand them through categories that we do know and make a mess of things.  We read about weird astronomical happenings and instead of looking back to the use of such imagery in the prophets, we look to literal events in our own day—like the “blood moons” fiasco of a few years ago.  We hear about weird grasshoppers or scorpions and instead of looking to the Old Testament, we try to see how their descriptions fit with modern military hardware and interpret them as tanks and helicopters. Third, and this follows closely on the last point, we need to read Revelation with the big narrative of God and his people constantly in mind.  Getting back to my earlier example, an interpretation that divides the people of God in two rather than stressing the unity and continuity of the people of God between the old and new covenants, can't be right because it simply doesn't fit the narrative.  Of course, this assumes we've got a good grasp of that big story—which is why I so often put the stress I do on exactly that. Finally, Brothers and Sisters, as we read Revelation we need to keep our eyes on Jesus.  He is the central figure through whom the Father reveals himself and his faithfulness.  In his death and resurrection he has accomplished the purpose of God.  In him we see not only the love of Jesus, but also the love of the Father for sinners.  The Father gave his Son and that Son gave himself for the sake of his rebellious creatures.  He is the firstborn of the dead.  He is the king.  And there's an obvious promise there as we look around us and see that the work of his kingdom has yet to be fulfilled.  The God who has proved himself to be faithful has more work to do and in that we can find faith and hope.  In that we find reason to worship the King both for what he has done and for what we know he will do.  Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again. Let's pray: Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen. [1] Orthodoxy (Hendrickson, 2006), 13.

Welcome to Grace in Focus radio. On today’s show, Bob and Shawn will be answering questions related to the church and Israel. They will address how dispensationalism impacts how we are to support Israel. In addition, the guys will discuss the role of the church right now as we look to the middle east and

Are all dispensationalists also “Free Grace” proponents? Today on Grace in Focus radio, Bob and Shawn will be unpacking this important term. We will hear the guys address the differences between these two theological groups. We will also hear the guys discuss why they are so closely related and why many people who are free

The Brief Teaching on Dispensationalism Dispensationalism is God's creative management of the ages in keeping with His own eternal plan, incorporating the good and bad choices of humans. -Danny Campbell 3 Key Features of Dispensationalism: The overall theme of the Bible is the glory of God. Takes Bible texts at their plain meaning. Therefore Bible passages are read literally unless the context indicates otherwise. Maintains a clear distinction between Israel and the Church. Unfulfilled Promises made to Israel will be fulfilled. Dispensationalists reject the idea of the church replacing Israel. Clarifying items about Dispensational teaching: Salvation is always by grace through faith! The call in every dispensation is to believe God and love Him. Then each dispensation has specific commands to obey. There is both continuity and discontinuity between the dispensations: Salvation is always a matter of believing in and loving God; some commands are reiterated, others non-applicable (Priestly Law, Civil Law) Some things end at the end of a dispensation Access to Garden; Civil Law of Israel The Rites to observe may be different in different dispensations 7th Day Principle observed on the Sabbath by Israel, on Lord's Day for the Church Circumcision for Israel, Baptism for the Church Passover sacrifice for Israel; Lord's Supper for the Church No need to “spiritualize” battles Israel fought, or to try and justify what God called them to do in that ‘dispensation' as if they were the church No need to speak of “the church in the OT” – the church wasn't in the OT! No need to insist that the church replaces Israel – God has a future plan for Israel that will fulfill all of His literal promises to Israel. Verses to Consider: Genesis 3:22-24 Genesis 6:1-8 Psalm 37:34 Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10; Dan.9:1-2 Daniel 9:24-27 Daniel 12:1-2 Matthew 5:17 John 1:17 John 7:37-39 Luke 11:24 Acts 1:5-9 Acts 3:21 Romans 11:1-7, 25-29 Galatians 3:13-29, v. 24 Ephesians 1:10 Revelation 3:10 Eternity Past Being omniscient, or all-knowing, God was able to factor in all the free will choices that angels and humans would make ________________ He created everything. 2 big timing Questions about angels and demons: When did God create angels? When did some angels rebel with Satan and become demons? Since the angels were singing and shouting as God was creating, they themselves must have been __________________ before Genesis 1:1. In other words, before the 6 days of creation! Nowhere are we told the total number of angels and demons. But there is a place that tells us what percentage of angels became demons.

Our listeners have been asking for a podcast about leaving dispensationalism. We try to give the people what they want! Jon and Justin talk about why we are not dispensational. We talk personally and theologically, covering topics such as: the redemptive-historical framework of Scripture, covenant theology, law/gospel distinction, sanctification, and the ordinary means of grace.Semper Reformanda Podcast: In our first ever Semper Reformanda podcast, we talk more in-depth about the differences between a confessional, reformed perspective and a dispensational perspective. We tell a story or two and share some of the things that we most want our listeners to know.Resources:FREE EBOOK Theocast.org/primerOur podcast: Law/Gospel https://youtu.be/EMSfwPUuuVk Our podcast: Demands of the Gospel? https://youtu.be/VHUmO4eD8Lk Our podcast: Are You a Legalist or an Antinomian? https://youtu.be/xvGhu9Pc2LA Our teaching series: Covenant Theology https://youtu.be/iCfzmujnlHo  SUPPORT Theocast: https://theocast.org/give/ FACEBOOK: Theocast: https://www.facebook.com/Theocast.org TWITTER: Theocast: https://twitter.com/theocast_org INSTAGRAM: Theocast: https://www.instagram.com/theocast_org/SEMPER REFORMANDA Podcast Podcast TranscriptJustin Perdue: Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, we are going to do our best to give the people what they want. By popular demand, we are going to try to answer the question why it is that we have left dispensationalism. Perhaps you’re out there and you have spent some time in a dispensationalist context, or maybe you’re just seeing aspects of dispensational teaching in your current environment. We’re going to have a conversation today about the distinctions between our perspective that is Reformed and confessional over and against the perspective that is dispensational. Jon and I are going to talk a little bit personally, we’re going to talk theologically. We hope that this is a clarifying conversation for you, and as always, we hope it encourages you in the Lord Jesus Christ. Stay tuned.We’re going to talk today because of popular demand. We’re going to talk today about leaving dispensationalism. We’re just trying to give the people what they want, and we had a number of people on the Facebook group post about this. When the first post went up, there were lots of other people that chimed in and said, “Yes, please talk about this.” So we’re gonna talk about it a little bit today.The episode is entitled, as already said, Leaving Dispensationalism. Just to clarify a little bit of what we’re going to try to do today, we’re not going to give a bunch of technical, deep, heady definitions of dispensational theology or anything like that. What we’re going to do is hopefully aim to have an approachable conversation where we talk about the high level distinctions between our Reformed confessional perspective and a dispensational perspective.Before we even get into it, I’ll just go ahead and give a little bit of my background that is relevant right now, and then Jon, you can talk a little bit about you as well. My exposure to dispensational theology was more general in that I was a part of a church that was self-consciously liberal theologically, but had a very mixed bag in terms of the membership of the church. Many of the members of the church were conservative—at least theologically—and certainly conservative morally. They had been heavily influenced by the default dispensational evangelical-ish theology that was out there in the 20th century in America. I absorbed some of that and was never taught anything contrary to it. And so basically, by default, I would have had notions of, for example, the pre-tribulation rapture understanding of the end of the world. I definitely was aware of Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series. Whenever the judgment house thing would happen, there was definitely the rapture that occurred and the piles of clothes everywhere, and you don’t want to be left because then you’re gonna have to go through tribulation and all kinds of things. That was my exposure to it all.Then I began to read and encounter different theology in my early to mid-twenties. And as I began to read, study, and investigate Scripture more on my own from a more Reformed covenantal perspective, I started to see the distinctions between what I had absorbed and what I was now learning.That’s enough about me. Jon, why don’t you let the people know a little bit about your background? Because you, even more than I was, were steeped in dispensationalism, and even went to a postgraduate institution that would champion this kind of understanding of Scripture.Jon Moffitt: I’ve been in different kinds of dispensationalism. I grew up in the independent, fundamental Baptist world. My dad was a preacher for 20 years before he passed away in that world. And progressively coming out of it, for those of you that know anything about that world, my dad used to work for Jack Hyles, and then he slowly started to read men like John MacArthur and he started leaving it. The two colleges that I went to were both dispensational. Most of the churches I worked in in my early twenties were all dispensational. So I was very familiar with the branding and the style, I would even say, the hermeneutic and the theology. And then I ended up going to probably one of the most prominent dispensational schools that are conservative, and I would say Calvinistic, in today’s world. I went to the Master’s Seminary. And it was there that I really began to dive deep into the dispensational perspective, and understand the nuances and the different kinds of dispensationalism. So it’s not just dispensational theology—there’s actually different kinds. And this is not an overview of what this is because there’s plenty of information out there of what dispensationalism is. MacArthur and the school are probably more of a progressive dispensationalism.Justin Perdue: Versus a classic historical dispensational view.Jon Moffitt: Yeah. And there are definitely some differences. I think progressive is by far better hermeneutically than a traditional classical. There’s a lot of concerns that come from there.What we’re going to really talk about is why I left it and why we don’t hold to that perspective.Justin Perdue: Or at least why we’re not there today; why we believe something else.Jon Moffitt: We’re going to talk about the major differences, and I would say these are differences that the majority—now, you I’m sure you can find a dispensationalist that’s going to counteract this; this is the thing about it is that theology just can get so broad. But I would say mainline dispensational, and I would even say mainline progressive dispensationalism, for the sake of this argument—my seminary, my alma mater, and John MacArthur would disagree with us. That’s really what this podcast is about; it is what we embrace to be what we think is biblical and historically accurate in our perspective. To be clear, Justin, I think it’s safe to say this; we need to say this: we love our dispensational brothers, we do not think they’re heretical. Again, I’m sure there’s some weirdo out there that holds to some weird doctrine and calls himself dispensationalist; I am not going to be the straw man who torches that. That is just not fair.Justin Perdue: The only things that we would condemn from a dispensational perspective are things that most dispensationalists have already condemned themselves. Like the idea that there are two different covenants of salvation: one with Israel and one with the church. That has been rejected by the vast majority of people that would call themselves dispensationalists, and we too would look at that and say that is not at all faithful to Scripture, but is a false doctrine.Jon Moffitt: That’s correct. Israel was not saved by the law and those underneath it are saved by Christ. That’s just not correct. Now that was taught by some, but it is not the prominent view today. And so we aren’t going to bring that up as one of the oppositions because that’s not what they’re saying, and we do not want to misrepresent them.So I would say the easiest place to begin when we’re thinking about the differences and what my journey out of dispensational theology was… When I was actually in seminary, steeped in it, studying all the different books that I was reading. They had a lot. They were talking about continuity and discontinuity between the New Testament and the Old Testament, understanding that the different dispensations, and then of course I had classes on covenant theology and the way in which it was being presented.As I began to read Scripture in really new eyes, when I stopped trying to read into the text—the moral application of being like David and or like Daniel—one of the things that I am very thankful for that my seminary taught me is to understand the authorial intent. What is the author’s intentions in writing the book? One of the things that I took from that, and sometimes our dispensational friends only go to the actual author, like Moses, the Psalms, Paul, etc. But the book is authored by one God, which is our sovereign Being, and we have to ask, what was His authorial intent? What can we look at from Scripture to determine what His intentions for writing these books? Then you can lower down into the individual authors, and then you can lower down even more into the individual applications of that text. For instance, what were they trying to communicate in this particular section or this paragraph?So what I began to discover is that the Bible had one story. It was really describing one pushing narrative. Now the dispensationalist will say it’s the glory of God—it is the overarching purpose of God’s word and why He wrote it, which we’re not going to disagree with that because everything is for the glory of God. But you can’t just say this book is about God’s glory when it has in the very opening scene in Genesis 3 the major theme, which is the fall of man and God’s promise to restore men. So it’s redemption.So I began to see Scripture unfold from a redemption or redemptive understanding, and, I would say, that it’s not only just redemptive but it’s redemption through history. So the technical term for it is a redemptive-historical understanding. When this was introduced to me and I was reading through the counter-arguments to covenant theology, I was taken aback by how can this not be right when it seems like all you have is the further progression of God’s promises to His people through covenants and prophecies to bring us the Messiah. I quickly began to see a redemptive-historical understanding of Scripture to be an accurate way of understanding how to explain the Bible.Justin Perdue: We do not disagree with the dispensationalist that says that the Bible is about the glory of God, but we want to be more specific because we think the text is more specific and it’s more clear in terms of how it is that God gets glory for Himself. And certainly He is glorified in having His righteousness vindicated through judgment. And at the same time, it is quite clear that God is glorified, I’m going to go in and say is most glorified, in the work of redemption accomplished by His Son, Jesus. That is a big point of difference which dovetails with another piece.Not only is our understanding of covenant theology at odds with a dispensational hermeneutic—with respect to the Bible and how it hangs together, how redemptive history unfolds, and the like—we also are going to be explicitly Christocentric; we’re going to be Jesus-centered in how we understand the Bible and its main point, that it is God’s plan of redemption accomplished through Christ that brings God glory. And our dispensational friends will disagree with us on that because for them, at the center of God’s plan to glorify Himself—of course, they’re not going to deny that Jesus is a part of this—but at the center of God’s plan to bring Himself glory is Israel and how God works through Israel. It’s a very Israel-centric hermeneutic where ours is unapologetically Jesus-centric in terms of how God goes about saving His people, what the point all along was. We’re basically taking our cue from Christ himself and certainly the apostles as they understand the entire Old Testament to be ultimately about Jesus, the Christ, and what he would come to do in order to accomplish redemption—all to the praise of God’s glorious grace.Jon Moffitt: To maybe bring some clarity, what’s so hard is the nuance here. We don’t want to misrepresent. Hear our hearts and hear how we’re trying to express some technical differences.Every dispensationalist I talked to would say, of course, Jesus is the point of the Bible. They wouldn’t reject that because to reject that would be weird.Justin Perdue: How do you even reject such a statement?Jon Moffitt: Right. So we don’t want to throw that straw man out there either. Their rejection is this: “Jon, you guys find Jesus under every rock. When you say it’s Christocentric, you’re saying that you need to find Jesus in every single verse.” I would say if you’re projecting upon the text, just like I would say people do when we think about projecting moral applications—be like Daniel, be like David—you shouldn’t do that either. That’s not what we’re saying. What we’re saying is the narrative and the purpose behind what was written is to further explain, clarify, and reveal the shadow of Christ as we get closer to the substance of Christ. So we think everything in the Old Testament is a greater shadow, a revealing of what’s going on when it comes to the actual substance of Christ. All of the Bible is Christocentric.Justin Perdue: Like you’re saying, I think the big difference of where this comes out most pointedly is how we read and understand the Old Testament, because we read and understand the Old Testament with Christ at the center of it as well. We do not read anything going on about the nation of Israel, with the nation of Israel, and read that without Christ in view as the backdrop. I would even say a better way to phrase it is the lens through which we view Israel is Jesus. And so that, I think, is a difference between our perspective and a dispensational view. It is a hermeneutic and a hermeneutic is a means or a method of interpretation. We, again, are not forcing anything down on the text; we are taking our cue from Christ and the apostles and understanding that the point of the Bible is to reveal God’s plan of redemption through history as it has unfolded, and all of His plan to save His people has centered upon Christ. We would understand, like you said at the beginning, Jon, that yes, we’re concerned with authorial intent at the human level—Moses, Paul, David, whoever it may be—and we are primarily concerned with authorial intent at the divine level, because there is one Author of Scripture, namely the Holy Spirit who inspired men to write exactly what God would have written down. And so we want to get underneath any kind of human authorial intent and see exactly what God intends to reveal- and God has not left us in the dark on that. Because as we look at the entire canon and how it hangs together, we are able to better interpret the Old Testament in light of the New. And as we’ve said many times on here, the best interpreter of the Old Testament is the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the New Testament.That’s where we’re going to come at odds, I think, with some of our dispensational friends. If we were to go to an Old Testament text, it’s going to come very obvious that the way that we’re coming at it is different.Jon Moffitt: That’s really helpful. I think it’s encouraging to see where we do agree with our dispensational brothers. This is why we can call them our brothers. There’s a lot I’ve learned from them. They’ve been super helpful in their interpretation of Scripture. But I will say that it does impact your use of the Old Testament completely. My Alma mater did an entire lecture series on why they would reject a Christocentric understanding of the Old Testament. John MacArthur has openly stated that the primary reason he teaches from the New Testament is that we’re in the New Testament era.Justin Perdue: We’re in the era of the gospel of the Messiah, and so the Old Testament is really not all that applicable other than to moralize it and apply it in those kinds of ways. Is that fair?Jon Moffitt: Yeah. And if you go to his book on preaching, it’s been around for years, which he still holds to that. Basically you can use the Old Testament for great illustrations, and then there are sections about the prophecy of Christ. But as it relates to preaching Christ from the Old Testament, it’s just not something that they promoteJustin Perdue: Whereas for us, again, as Reformed guys who are covenantal in our theology, we hold to the three historic covenants: the first one being the covenant of redemption that was made in eternity past between the members of the Godhead, most pointedly between the Father and the Son, where the Father and Son agreed together about redemption and how it would be accomplished, then the Son is going to be the one to do it. Then we would understand the covenant of works that God made with Adam in the garden, and dispensationalists would disagree with us on that language. They would just say that’s just not in the Scripture. And then we also would understand the covenant of grace that is promised in Genesis 3:15, when God promises that there would be one who would be the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head. We understand that to be the first promise of the covenant of grace that then is going to be revealed through further steps, and ultimately established through Christ in the new covenant. Dispensationalists would disagree with us completely with respect to that framework. They would say, “Well, that’s not in the Bible. You guys are imposing that down upon the text.” And we would just say, no, actually we are aiming to responsibly read the entire Bible and see how it hangs together as a whole, and therefore what we’re saying about these covenants actually comes up out of the text and then helps us understand the whole thing.I’ll go ahead and throw these two words out there and briefly define them. When a dispensationalist would argue with us about covenant theology and say that those three covenants respectively are not in the Bible, I think two things are going on. One is a little bit of word-concept fallacy, where the words that you’re using are not in the Bible, and so we shouldn’t talk that way. And of course the greatest thing to bring up there is the word “trinity” is not in the Bible, yet it’s the best way we know to express the threeness and the oneness of God, so three-in-one. Trinity. The other thing that I think goes on with dispensationalist is because of their high view of the Bible and their high view of inerrancy, they do tend toward biblicism, where there’s just this, “Well, we need to see a chapter and verse in a text, and then we can talk this way. And what you’re saying is not there, chapter and verse, in that sense, and so we disagree with your theological framework.” To which again, our response is this stuff is very clearly revealed over the course of the whole canon from Genesis to Revelation, and it makes sense of the entire thing, and there’s this unified thread that runs through—and covenant theology in a redemptive-historical understanding, with Jesus at the center, all of that hangs together.Jon Moffitt: We are thankful to our dispensational brothers. They do fight against the logical conclusion of biblicism, which ends up being open theism. Because if you have to have the actual text to say something, or you take every text literal and you won’t allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, and you do not allow the explanation of all of Scripture to apply, you could come to the conclusion that God doesn’t know the future, that God isn’t in the future, and that God isn’t eternal- and that’s what open theism has done. It’s the ultimate conclusion of biblicism.Justin Perdue: And we will do a podcast on biblicism, I trust, in the next few months, because it’s something that Jon and I have talked about. Biblicism, basically, what you get there is people take words in the biblical text and they pit one text against another. They introduce a tension and a mystery that is actually not there, that can be harmonized and explained quite easily with appropriate hermeneutical tools. But biblicism actually unsettles us because it’s like this is saying this, and this is saying that, and apparently there’s a contradiction here, and there’s a mystery and a tension here—and that actually does not exist if we understand the Scripture rightly, we would argue. For example, from a covenantal, redemptive-historical, Christ-centered perspective.Jon Moffitt: A dispensationalist would openly agree that they are not covenantal. As a matter of fact, it literally is A and B.Justin Perdue: It’s oil and water.Jon Moffitt: It is. There is a distinct difference that both covenantalists and historic dispensationalist are not going to agree on these frameworks of interpretation. And I will say that dispensationalism is a framework of interpretation. It’s how you interpret God’s word. They would say the way in which they understand the word of God to unfold and explain itself is through these seven dispensations, which we’re not going to get into, but they are going to interpret all of their Bible through those lenses. The application of it is going to come from that lens of a seven dispensation lens. Now, people are going to differ on what those dispensations are, it is broken up and there’s no continuity between the two.Justin Perdue: But those seven dispensations in and of themselves or a theological system and framework. I think what’s interesting is that the dispensationalist argument against Reformed covenantal types like us is that we are using and relying too much upon a theological framework or a theological system, and implication is they are not. Those seven dispensations—that’s a system and a framework of its own.The other thing that can sometimes happen is, at least I’ve heard this before, a dispensationalist will say, “We’re just using the Bible, whereas you guys are using confessions and creeds and things like this alongside the Scripture.” Humbly, I would say this: what do you think that Scofield Study Bible is? That thing has some stuff that’s not in the biblical text too that very much sounds like a confessional or a creed of sorts. It certainly contains some kind of a theological system in it, and you’re claiming that you’re not doing that.Jon Moffitt: I very rarely meet somebody who can fully explain dispensationalism and they came up with it on their own. It’s been handed down to them. I just have never really met someone who fully explained dispensationalism and then a dispensationalist goes, “You know that’s dispensational theology.” Again, is it out there? Sure. Broadly speaking, that is not the case.We have to be careful that just because it’s not a specific verse or word in the Bible doesn’t mean the concept doesn’t stand. The Trinity, or even the eternality of God, or the sovereignty of God—these big concepts, a lot of time, it takes a lot of Scripture to help explain what’s going on with this theological understanding, or we could say system, or we could say systematic of understanding it. So when I began to understand covenant theology and the hermeneutic of it, I very much embraced the idea of it because it was consistent with the flow of Scripture, and it was consistent with the explanation of Scripture. Just to be clear, Justin and I are Reformed in our understanding from a covenantal perspective of the London Baptist Confession. If you want to know the technical phrase of that, it would be the 1689 Federalism is our understanding of that. Full explanation of that in the link or in our comments. We did a whole five-part series on our perspective of covenant theology. So we’ll move on from that. We don’t need to spend more time there.Justin Perdue: Last thing I may say before we move on to another item. I’ve referenced this earlier, and I think you have too, Jon. The fact that Israel is such a big deal in terms of a dispensational theological framework, where Israel becomes a big point of emphasis and focus from a dispensational perspective, to the point that I think, at least as I’ve always heard it taught and explained, and even as you and I have talked—and I think this holds water but you can push back on me if you think this is overstating it—but I think that in a dispensational view, Israel, in terms of God’s people and God’s saving His people, Israel is the point and the church is kind of the parenthesis. Whereas from our perspective, we would say it’s actually maybe the opposite: that Israel is the parenthesis and that the church, God’s people, the Jew and the Gentile, the elect from all nations, tribes, and peoples around the throne of God—that’s the point, and that Israel was the parenthesis. That’s a fundamentally different perspective there, too, in terms of how we understand God’s purposes in redemption and what He’s always been out to accomplish.Jon Moffitt: And I will say because of these two theological differences, the dispensationalist has a heavy view on in time theology, the rapture. Now, this may not be true today of all dispensationalists, but of the ones I grew up in, and Tim LaHaye, and you were talking about the Left Behind series. The in time theology was a scare tactic to get you to live straight.Justin Perdue: It was all fear and judgment.Jon Moffitt: Yeah. There was no assurance on Christ and resting in Christ while looking forward to the return of Christ. I was dreading the return of Christ. I did not want him to come.Justin Perdue: It was a frightening reality.Jon Moffitt: We would do the whole “scare people by leaving our clothes all over” for a youth group. I actually watched the original Left Behind series back in the seventies, I think. It was very disturbing.The number one question we get all the time, because a lot of dispensationalists are listening to us, they ask us what our hermeneutic on in time theology is. Because it’s so emphasized and it’s so part of the theological system that what you believe about the return of Christ is of paramount, for whatever reason.We’re not gonna do a podcast on this today, but I’m gonna just throw this out there that dispensationalists, amillennialists, postmillennialists, historic premillennialists—any of those positions that you want to take, they all agree that Christ is coming back, he’s going to rule, and reign and we will live with him forever in our new bodies, in a new heavens and a new earth—in a physical realm, not a spiritual realm. All positions hold that. Our brothers, we do not need to be calling each other heretics in our disagreements on these positions. Justin and I have our perspective. Whatever reason in the dispensational world, the return of Christ and those details, if you don’t get it wrong, you are a heretic in some way.Justin Perdue: If you don’t get it right, and if you don’t have a particular view on it, then you are less than, at best, if not anathema in terms of how you would be viewed.I agree with you, Jon. Whenever I talk about eschatology, even teaching our membership class at our church, our elders are united in our perspective. I don’t tell people what that is. And I also will say to them, “Here’s what you need to agree on: that Jesus is coming back, that it’s going to be personal, it’s going to be visible, it’s going to be bodily, it’s going to be glorious. And that there will be a judgment according to righteousness, and that all those in Christ will be resurrected on to eternal life, and to live with God forever and with each other in a new heavens and a new earth that’s just as physical as this. If we believe those things, we’re good to go.” We’re going to be charitable there.All right. Let’s move on.Jon Moffitt: We got two more we gotta get to. Law-gospel distinction. Justin, real quick, tell us what it is and why it’s different.Justin Perdue: I can talk about what the law-gospel distinction is first.We’ve done some podcasts, and I’m sure we’ll link to this in the show notes. We’ve done several podcasts on law-gospel distinction. And even the podcasts that would have released a few weeks ago at this point called Are You a Legalist or an Antinomian? is a very good law-gospel podcast in itself where we understand that there is a distinction between the law and the gospel where they need to be kept distinct. The law reveals, most pointedly and fundamentally, in God’s moral law what God requires of humanity if we are going to be righteous in His sight. And then the gospel, distinct from the law, reveals what God has done for us through Christ. So the law tells us what we need to do, the gospel tells us what God has done through Jesus for us in our place.And so the law, as we understand it, because of the fall and because we are all born corrupt, we’re born sinful, we all stand condemned by the law. And so the things that the law demands of us, we can’t do. And then the gospel though, on the flip side, is completely about what Jesus has done and actually contains not one single word of anything that we need to do. It is the news of Christ and what he has accomplished for us in our place that we receive simply by faith, by trusting in Christ.That distinction between law and gospel is huge in a confessional Reformed theological framework, and it has everything to do with assurance and peace before God. Because when we blend law and gospel or confuse those two categories, a lot of bad things happen. But perhaps the first thing that often occurs is you end up turning the gospel into a kind of covenant of works, where there are things that you need to do in order to be saved, even by Christ. There are things that the gospel demands of us that we need to be doing, and we would disagree with that notion. There are no demands made in the gospel, but it is a proclamation and a declaration of something that has already been done for us that we receive.And so we would live and die on this hill. We would contend for this. We would stake our ministries on this: the distinction between law and gospel. A dispensationalist is not going to agree with us on this law-gospel distinction perspective.Why don’t you unpack that a little bit in terms of where the disagreement would lie?Jon Moffitt: There are articles by prominent evangelicals that are out there that are dispensationalist, people that I graduated from school with, and even my own school would say, “We don’t see this hermeneutic.” To be clear, again, not every Bible verse in the Bible can be defined as either law or gospel. There’s narrative and all those things. So don’t be thinking that we’re trying to put this on into every verse. But when we’re in a passage, we do have to ask ourselves if we’re being told what we must do to save ourselves or are we being told what was done so that we are saved?Justin Perdue: Are we being told what we need to do in order to be righteous?Jon Moffitt: That’s right. I would even say the three uses of the law is also a great definition of something that’s different probably between dispensationalism and Reformed. What happens when you’re not careful to separate the law from the gospel, and I would say not all dispensationalist would hold to lordship salvation, but because of men like John MacArthur who has made dispensationalism, Calvinism, and lordship salvation so popular over the last 30 or 40 years. 50 years, I think, he’s now been preaching. Bless his heart for that. Faithful man. Anyways, because of that, law-gospel distinction begins to break down lordship salvation because the passages that are used to promote lordship salvation or actually law, not gospel. They would say for instance, books that have been read, Hard to Believe, The Gospel According to Jesus, The Gospel According to the Apostles—all of those are hard passages. Like when the rich young ruler comes and says, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That’s a law passage we turn into a gospel passage.Justin Perdue: We collapsed the two categories and we ended up confusing both the law and the gospel.Really quick, Jon, to pick up on what you said about the uses of the law—I’m only going to talk about one of them. For us as Reformed guys, and we’ve got Lutheran friends who would agree with us on this as well, the first and greatest use of the law is to show us our sin and to drive us to Christ—and a dispensationalist, to my understanding, would not articulate the point of the law that way. Because again, it has everything to do with our redemptive-historical hermeneutic and a Christ-centered hermeneutic in answering what was the law for. We are ultimately going to understand that, ala Paul in Romans 5 and Galatians 3, that the law came in to increase the trespass, to bankrupt us, and crush us so that we might be driven to Christ who fulfilled the law for us in his active obedience, in his perfect life.That’s the active obedience of Jesus in fulfilling the law is another huge tenant of our theology that is a result of our study of Scripture, but also it dovetails beautifully with how we understand the law in the first place.We can just move forward.Jon Moffitt: I do have some thoughts on that, but we’re going to save that for Semper Reformanda a little bit later.The last one, I would say, is predominantly… again, not in all cases, but historically, why I moved to this direction and away from a dispensational understanding of Scripture is the idea of sanctification being either synergistic—the work that we do—or monergistic—the work that God does. Historically speaking, dispensationalism is a very synergistic movement. There are some who would promote a monergistic perspective, but historically speaking, and the way I was taught in seminary and growing up is that your progress in the Christian life, or how you become more like Christ, is dependent upon your own efforts. It’s not primarily your efforts. It’s like Christ is working in you and you’re working. So they aren’t saying all the sanctification is all your work. That would be unfair.Justin Perdue: Sanctifying yourself in your own strength—of course not. They’re going to acknowledge the grace of God and the work of God, but it is very much an understanding that we need to do our part, and that we need to cooperate with the grace of God in our sanctification. Whereas for us, from a more Reformed perspective, we are unashamed in saying that we understand rather than synergism—two workers—we understand that there’s one worker, monergism, in terms of our understanding of sanctification. And that one worker, of course, is God.Basically, to put it bluntly, the Holy Spirit sanctifies us. We, in no part, in no way do the work of sanctification. Now, we participate in our sanctification because we are alive now. We have been given spiritual life in Christ. We have been raised to walk in newness of life in him and thereby by the virtue of being alive, we participate, but we do not do the work.Jon Moffitt: I think another way of saying that is we observe. Like we can observe the work of sanctification in our lives. Paul gives us ways in which we see that the way in which we are growing in the knowledge and the maturity of Christ, and the trust of Christ, and an increase of grace and mercy towards each other, and love and affection towards each other. Those are all the works of the Holy Spirit in sanctification. A lot of times when I heard… and again, this is not of all dispensations, but the breed I came from, sanctification was you didn’t cuss, you stopped drinking, and you stopped going to movies, and you’re being sanctified. That’s just moral action change and some of it is not even wrong.Justin Perdue: Yeah. And what I mean in using that word “participate”, just like I would say that every human being who is alive participates in life because he or she is alive. And that’s all I’m saying; we participate in our sanctification because we are now alive, and yet God works and God is the only one who can change the heart, and God is the only one who can conform us into the likeness and image of His Son. And He is faithful to do it. And He has promised us that it will happen, and that we will be sanctified in this life and we will be fully sanctified at the point of the resurrection, and we can bank on that. It’s not in jeopardy.Not only that synergism-monergism piece, but also something that we’re going to emphasize heavily from a Reformed perspective is how it is that we ordinarily grow in the Christian life. And that would be, for us, an understanding of the ordinary means of grace. And so those ordinary means, just to be very clear, most prominently are the Word of God, sacrament, and prayer. And then some would maybe even add in song in the midst of the gathered church as well, as we’re built up and edified in that way. But the church gathered, the saints assembled together to sit under Word, to partake of the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper, baptism, to pray, and sing. That’s how we understand that we are ordinarily and primarily grown in the faith. And that emphasis is somewhat unique. Now a dispensationalist is not going to disagree with any of those things. But it’s going to really be about the emphasis and what is put first.Jon Moffitt: Historically, the Reformed have seen our sanctification in Christ. The protection of the believer, the growth of the believer, and the confession of the believer are primarily from the New Testament given to the local church. So we are to not forsake the assembling of ourselves, that we are to function properly so we build ourselves up in love to maturity in Christ, to the full knowledge of Christ, so that no one is tossed about by every wind of doctrine. This is given to us in Hebrews 10 and Ephesians 4. You are given these primary means. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” So there’s a heavy emphasis on God’s Word, the gathered people, the sacraments—those are not to be done individually. You aren’t to take the Lord’s Table by yourself. You aren’t to be baptizing by yourself.Justin Perdue: 1 Corinthians 10, 1 Corinthians 11, etc.Jon Moffitt: Exactly. Even the concept of prayer. Majority of the Bible speaks of prayer in a corporate reality, there is obviously an individual aspect of it, but if you’re going to weigh it, it is a primary means of a corporate gathering so that we are building each other up, we’re carrying each other’s burdens, James 3, we’re confessing our sins to one another. So the ordinary way in which God grows His people is within the local assembly through the ordinary means. Dispensationalism traditionally has emphasized spiritual disciplines, and I would even say the priesthood of all believers, which is something we absolutely say, amen, our faith is not tied to a priest, but we are tied to Christ, the ultimate priest.Justin Perdue: There is one mediator between God and man.Jon Moffitt: Right. But that doesn’t mean now that your sanctification is primarily in your hands because it’s between you, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible. That’s an individualistic understanding. It’s something that I wouldn’t say all dispensationalists hold to, but predominantly—this is why I walked away from them—because they don’t promote, they do not emphasize the ordinary means. It’s not their primary means of spiritual growth; primary means of spiritual growth for them is individual efforts in pursuit of the Lord.Justin Perdue: One last observation and this is not a huge thing. Even the language that we’ll use about the ordinary means and the terminology, some of that is a little different. I know, at least in my experience, dispensationalists would be very uncomfortable with the word “sacraments”, and to describe the table and baptism. I guess in the minds of many, it’s associated with Roman Catholicism, and it may be for them part and parcel of a sacerdotal theology where we would understand that the sacraments just operate on their own. And that is not at all what we mean, though I do think in our framework, we have a very high view of the sacraments as a means of grace, where God is present and is really there to bless, sustain, and nourish us through the table and through baptism as well. And it’s His testimony to us of what He’s going to do. So that’s a big thing, too, even as just a small subset of that ordinary means conversation.We have bumped up against our time cap here. Hopefully some of the things that we said were of use for you in clarifying things. Hopefully you can see some of the high level differences that would exist between a Reformed confessional understanding and a dispensational view.Jon Moffitt: So this is brand new; our first initial announcement on the podcast. We record multiple weeks out in advance, so sometimes we’re behind on stuff, but we have a new ministry. It’s a new part of Theocast called Semper Reformanda—always reforming. Semper Reformanda is our new way for you to join in on two things. First of all, we have a brand new podcast called the Semper Reformanda podcast. We’re going in that next. This is high level conversations where we take what we introduced to you in this podcast, and we’re going to go a little bit deeper and more technical. Secondly, that podcast is designed to go along with a brand new program called SR groups, Semper Reformanda groups, where you can now sign up. We are developing these groups right now, but you can sign up for a local group in your city that you can go to and now have discussions on this very subject with other people who are having the same question. So we will provide discussion questions and you can download our app, which should be available now. You can go down to the Apple store, look for the Semper Reformanda app, you can download that and then sign up for a local group. In order to do that, you have to be an SR member. If you want to be an SR member, just go to sr.theocast.org and you can learn more about that. That’s it.Justin Perdue: And even in the SR podcast, which is where we’re going, the Semper Reformanda podcasts, even if we don’t get more technical in every aspect of it, we certainly will be a little bit more transparent and it’s a little more of a safe space and family time. We hope that that podcast has that kind of feel. If that sounds interesting to you, then go to our website, theocast.org, and you would learn anything that you need to know about becoming a part of Semper Reformanda and joining the Reformation there.All right, Jon. Here we go. We’re going to see what we can give to people over there in our new SR podcast. We’ll talk to many of you over there. We’ll talk with the rest of you again next week.

Gary answers a question from a listener about Perry Stone and his (and many other Dispensationalists') major focus on the nation of Israel. According to Stone's view, Israel becoming a nation again in 1948 is a very important indicator of end-times events. But is he correct?

A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent St. Matthew 15:21-28 by William Klock Imagine having a sick child.  You’ve done everything you can think of to help her and she’s still sick.  And then you hear that Jesus is in town.  People say he’s the son of God.  He’s healed so many other people.  I’ll go and ask him for help.  For the first time you feel hope.  Jesus can heal her.  I have faith.  And so you go out and find Jesus as he and his entourage our making their way through town.  You call out to him for help, but he keeps walking.  Jesus’ friends tell you to go away, but you keep calling out to Jesus for help.  Finally, he stops, he turns to you, and he tells you that he can’t help you.  He wasn’t sent to help you and that to do so would be like a father throwing the bread meant for his children to the dogs. A lot of people would say that this doesn’t sound very much like Jesus.  Refusing to help someone in need?  Calling her and her people dogs?  But it’s right here in St. Matthew’s Gospel.  Look again at Matthew 15:21-28: And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.  And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.”  But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.”  He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”  And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith!  Be it done for you as you desire.”  And her daughter was healed instantly.   “Have mercy on me!” she says.  And he responds, “I can’t.  You’re not an Israelite.  It’d be like throwing a starving child’s bread to the dogs.”  Yes, Jesus eventually capitulates, but what’s going on here?  This story is often listed among the “hard passages” of the Bible.  Some people have used to argue that Jesus was a racist.  So what’s going on here? Matthew’s main purpose in telling us this story is to point us to Jesus’ mission.  Matthew reminds us that Jesus didn’t parachute into history to save humanity and the world at a random time and place.  There’s been a tendency in the Church to abstract Jesus’ ministry.  He’s is the Saviour of the world after all, and so we start thinking that if he’d wanted to he could have come at any time and any place to do his saving work, but in doing that we forget that—no—he came and he had to come where and when he did because Jesus is part of a bigger story. Some people explain away the difficulty here by saying that Jesus was testing this woman to see how persistent her faith was.  It’s possible.  And yet he doesn’t initially address her.  When he says that he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, he’s reminding his disciples why his mission isn’t to the gentiles, not offering the woman an explanation.  It’s possible that it was a test, but I think a better explanation is that that Jesus really was called to minister to the lost sheep of Israel and, over the course of his ministry so far, the massive scope of his task has set in.  He’s even told his disciples in 10:23 that they won’t have made it through all the towns before the time is up.  That’s when Jesus lamented that the harvest was great, but the labourers few.  His mission was to Israel.  It’s not that the occasional gentile couldn’t be part of it, but that there just wasn’t enough time.  In denying this woman, Jesus was simply being faithful to his calling. But why was Jesus’ ministry so specific?  “For God so loved the world,” we say, and we struggle to reconcile this with that.  And the reason this is troubling for us is because we’ve forgotten the story.  Not this short story and not even just the story of the gospels, but the big story, the story of Israel, the story of the people of God that runs from Genesis to Revelation.  Again, we tend to lift Jesus out of his historical and Jewish context, out of his First Century context, which means lifting him out of the story of Israel—which again means lifting him out of the Genesis to Revelation story.  What our Gospel today shows us is Jesus right in the middle of the story. Now, it’s true: Jesus did not come to the gentiles.  Yes, some gentiles—a few—came to him, but Jesus did not come to the gentiles.  Jesus came to Israel.  Jesus is Israel’s Messiah.  “But again,” we protest, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…”  Yes.  Jesus brings salvation for all, but we need to first understand that he does so as Israel’s Messiah.  Jesus stresses it right here: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  And in saying that he is not saying that he came to some of the house of Israel who were lost, but that he came to Israel because Israel—the whole people—was lost.  They were sheep without a shepherd. Jesus came to bring the kingdom that had been promised to Israel through Abraham and through David.  There were aspects of that kingdom that were new and different, but Jesus’ kingdom is built firmly and immovably on the covenant and the promises the Lord had made with Israel down through the ages from Abraham’s time.  He had called Israel to be his people.  He had promised to be their God.  He had rescued Israel and set her apart that he might show her his blessings and give her his word and he did it all so that she could then share that blessing and share that word with the gentile nations.  Remember that Jesus stressed in the Sermon on the Mount that he had come not to abolish the law—not to abolish anything God had promised or covenanted or established with Israel—but to fulfil it.  Jesus didn’t come to do away with Israel.  Many Christians down through history have said that because of Israel’s faithlessness God cast her aside to start over with the gentiles and the Church.  No.  On the other extreme you’ve got the Dispensationalists—very prevalent teaching in North American Evangelicalism—that has Jesus coming and putting Israel on hold while the Lord saves the gentiles and builds a Church.  Eventually, they say, God will be finished with the gentiles, the Church will be completed and then “raptured” out of the world, and the Lord will then pickup where he left off with Israel.  Again, no.  Jesus didn’t come to abolish the idea of God electing a special people, nor did he come to divide the people of God with Israel on the one hand and the Church on the other.  From day one with Abraham God had made clear that his restoration of the world and his restoration of humanity was going to happen through Israel.  Israel may have made a lot of mistakes, fallen into idolatry, failed to live the law, failed to be a light to the nations, but the Lord wasn’t giving up.  The Church isn’t “Plan B” implemented when “Plan A”, Israel, failed. Did gentiles need redemption?  By all means, yes!  But again, God’s plan was always to work through Israel and so the ministry of the Messiah had first to be for Israel.  Israel had misinterpreted the message she’d been given long before.  Some in Israel had even abandoned it almost entirely.  And so if Israel was going to be the Lord’s means of bringing life to the world, Jesus had first to call her back to the Lord.  Not to do so would be for Jesus to deny the Lord’s promises and to make a liar out of him. In fact, what we see Jesus doing—and especially so in the middle portion of the Gospels between his birth and his death and resurrection—is taking on the role of Israel himself.  In Daniel the Son of Man character represented the saints or the people of God, but in Jesus’ ministry we see him taking that role on, embodying it himself.  In his birth and ministry we see him taking on the role of the great Davidic King.  And as his ministry unfolds into rejection, suffering, and death we see him taking on the role of Isaiah’s suffering servant.  Again, these are roles the prophets ascribed to Israel, but one by one Jesus takes each of them up himself.  Brothers and Sisters, understand this key point: Jesus is Israel.  He embodies her inheritance and her mission.  Where Israel had failed to be faithful, Jesus is faithful without fail.  Even as he dies, he faces the very same death that the Jewish revolutionaries faced a generation later and for the very same reason: he challenged Rome as King of the Jews.  Jesus came as the embodiment of Israel.  And he came as Israel to show God’s people a new way of being Israel—a new way in which the people would fulfil everything the Lord had ever promised and everything the Lord had ever called Israel to be.  This is why Jesus came preaching repentance.  The people had to let go of all their misconceptions of what it meant to be God’s people, whether that was their hope for violent revolution or their hope that if they were obedient enough the Lord would finally send the Messiah to rain down fire and brimstone on the gentiles and usher in the kingdom.  As the promises were fulfilled in Jesus it did not nullify God’s plan to bring life to the world through Israel.  What it did was reorient Israel around Jesus himself—it forged a new Israel, not based on blood and genealogy but on faith.  Israel had been born as a people when they followed the Lord in faith through the waters of the Red Sea and were rescued from Egypt.  In Jesus Israel is born again.  But this new Israel is born of all those who follow Jesus in faith through the waters of baptism.  Jesus offered a choice.  As he fulfilled the covenant those who repented and reoriented their lives in and around him—those who found their lives in him—became part of the new way of being Israel, centred in Jesus.  But, Jesus warned, those who rejected him and refused him would be cut off—and when he said that he was speaking to the biological children of Abraham.  The axe was set to the root of the tree.  The branches that refused to bear good fruit would be cut off.  Jerusalem, embodying and representing faithless Israel would be and was judged, torn stone from stone, and scattered. But through Jesus, Israel would continue in a new way—with the law no longer on tablets of stone, but written on her heart, with the Spirit of God no longer residing in a stone temple behind a curtain they could never pass, but actually living inside them—making them the temple themselves.  And as the Spirit changed and renewed and brought to life the law of love now written on their hearts, this new Israel would finally fulfil the Lord’s mission for his people—reaching out to the nations and bringing his life to the world.  So, yes, Jesus came to bring life to the world—to Jew and gentile alike—but to fulfil the Lord’s plan he brought this life by first bringing it to the old Israel, to Abraham’s children.  To do anything else would have been to bypass the Lord’s plan and to make a liar of him. This faithfulness of God to his promises—what we call the “righteousness of God”—is the theme of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans.  Through the book Paul explains how God has been faithful to and how he has fulfilled his covenant promises to Israel and at the end, in Romans 15 he sums it all up, writing: For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised [that means Israel—Abraham’s biological children] to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,           “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles,                   and sing to your name.” (Romans 15:8-9) Jesus fulfilled God’s promises to Israel so that when the story of Israel and the Lord’s faithfulness to her—especially his faithfulness in Jesus the Messiah—was proclaimed to the Gentiles they would—we would—fall before God in worship of his great mercy.  This is the story the first Jewish Christians proclaimed to the gentiles.  This story of the faithfulness of God was the story St. Paul proclaimed as he travelled the Roman empire and as the gentiles heard it, they put their faith in Jesus, they were baptised into his body, and as they found their life in Jesus—the true embodiment of Israel and the fulfilment of God’s promises to her—as they found their life in Jesus the gentiles were grafted into Israel. It’s often a contentious point today in some circles, but the story we’ve inherited, the story told from Genesis to Revelation makes it clear that Israel is the Church and the Church is Israel and Jesus stands at the centre-point, at the bridge between them.  The Jewish root that was Israel gave birth to Jesus the Messiah who is now the trunk of a tree that branches out to the entire world.  Anyone who may—Jew or gentile—can take part in the life of Jesus.  All any of us needs to do is take hold of him in faith, trusting that in his death he has forgiven our sins and in his resurrection has given us life. Both literally and metaphorically, Jesus provides the blood to make us Israel.  All we need is faith. Of course, getting back to our story in Matthew, at the time this Canaanite woman approached Jesus, neither he nor his disciples were ready for any of this.  Jesus wasn’t even ready for the cross yet, but here’s this woman who is ready for Easter—ready even for Pentecost!  It’s remarkable.  Here she is a foreigner.  They meet up with her outside of Israel in a foreign land.  Near Sidon was a major temple of the god Eshmun, a pagan god of healing.  She may have just come from that temple with her daughter, disappointed that nothing had happened.  But she hears that Jesus is in town and she goes looking for him.  She’d heard about him.  Not only that, she knew more about the Lord’s promises to Israel—or at least she understood them better—than most people in Israel, better even than Jesus’ disciples. When Jesus told her that he had come only for the lost sheep of Israel she responded: “But even the dogs eat what falls from the children’s table.”  She understood, she accepted that Jesus had come to redeem Israel.  She understood that his mission wasn’t a mission to the gentiles.  That would have bypassed and undermined the Lord’s covenant promises.  But she was okay with that because somehow she also knew what Israel was called to be and to do.  She knew who the Messiah was and what he was called to do.  She addresses Jesus as “Son of David”—his messianic title that even the disciples hadn’t yet fully grasped.  And she knows that if he is the Messiah, his goal is to fulfil the Lord’s promises to Israel so that his greatness and his mercy will be proclaimed to the gentiles—to people like her.  She somehow knows that through the Messiah, the gentiles will be able to participate in the life of Israel, in the life of God’s covenant people.  And so she grabs hold of Jesus in faith and insists.  His mission may not be the gentiles, but that doesn’t mean the gentiles can’t and won’t come to him. This woman has hope because she understands what the Lord and what his kingdom are all about.  She has hope because she knows what the Messiah is ushering in.  And even though she’s envisioning Easter—even envisioning Pentecost—while Jesus hasn’t even made it to the cross, by her faith she reaches into that future and drags it into the present.  Jesus sees her faith and can’t help but make her daughter well. Brothers and Sisters, each of us has reached out to Jesus through the waters of baptism—reached out in faith in order to take part in the life of Israel, in the life of God’s people.  By that faith—not through what we’ve done, not because of who we are, but by that faith—we’ve been grafted into the people of God, we’ve been made part of the body of Christ, we’ve been incorporated into the story.  By faith we’ve each been given a part to play in that story and the Holy Spirit has given us fruit to bear and gifts to use as we work together as Jesus’ people to preach, to proclaim, to live and to make real the story of Israel, the story of God’s faithfulness to the world.  God’s intent is to bless—to redeem, to restore, to make whole, to make new—his world through his people.  In Jesus we’ve seen what the kingdom of God is like.  When we gather as the Church we see a glimpse of the kingdom as it will one day be.  As we come to the Table Jesus gives us a foretaste of the great banquet that awaits us.  All of these things are gifts of grace.  They strengthen our faith in the faithfulness of God and in that they give us hope.  But, Brothers and Sisters, let us live in faith as the woman in the Gospel.  Again, Jesus wasn’t even ready for the cross, but she was ready for Easter.  You and I live in hope of God’s future, but don’t stop there.  Live in hope and faith, bearing the fruit of the Spirit in the world to make God’s future a reality here and now.   Live in hope and faith, truly living in the knowledge that Jesus is Lord, proclaiming his kingdom and making it known here and now. Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of faith by which we have been grafted into your Son, Jesus, and in him grafted us into your people, Israel.  We were stones, but by the gift of faith you have made us children of Abraham.  We were dead wood, but by faith you have grafted us into the living vine and caused us to bear fruit.  Strengthen that gift of faith we now ask, that as we live in hope of your future we would live in such a way, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit and using the gifts you have given us, to make your future known this day in the present for all the world to see.  As you’re people, strengthen our faith that we might be the blessing to the nations you have called us to be, holding high the light of Christ and proclaiming boldly that Jesus is Lord.  Amen.

Selected Scriptures Series: Centers and Circumferences #12 # Introduction It's hard to imagine anything so obvious and obscene, so laughable but heart-breaking, so inarguable yet argued, as those who can't (or won't) tell the difference between the sexes. We are in a very bad, not good day when male and female are subjective, debatable, pliable, and at times indiscernible. At least we're moving toward a totally wireless society, because pretty soon it's going to be a hate crime to plug things into a socket. The sphere of sexuality is ubiquitous, even inescapable, and seems to somehow be becoming more exhausting every day. Understanding sexuality as a *noun* affects the nature of our identity, which affects what we pursue as *ideal*. Understanding sexuality as a *verb* affects the narrative of our relationships, especially our view of marriage and family and generations. While our Christian sub-culture thinks that the wider culture has gone crazy, they think we are in a cult. It used to be, "Do you want to be my girlfriend, yes or no?" And now it's "Am I a girl? I don't know.” This Centers and Circumferences series has the aim to consider Christ's lordship over various spheres of life under the sun. We are seeing how Christ provides the focal point--the center, and has interests extending out to the edges--the circumference. Sexuality, considered today as divided into gender identity and orientation, is different than, for example, Kuyperianism and Economics, in that sexuality is built into our person, part of our DNA, in a way unlike a man's paycheck or purchases. In what I've read by Abraham Kuyper I can't recall him explicitly addressing the subject of sexuality. But there are some principles of Kuyperianism and its *weltanschauung* (world-and-life-view) that will help us keep our heads. To be clear, Kuyperian Sexuality is not about his sexual appeal. As the elders also maintain, we are a church that teaches Dispensationalism, which comes from an approach to reading the Bible that, ironically, led to our becoming Kuyperian Dispensationalists. It turns out that Dispensationalists have not offered much when it comes to cultural issues, and even if they have, it isn't *from* their Dispensationalism, it is almost always in spite of it. This series has been more of an opportunity to show that we Dispies can think outside of being Left Behind, not necessarily our attempt to contribute. But tonight I'd like to consider sexuality as a Kuyperian Dispensationalist and then tell you what I see as some really good news when it comes to our current cultural degeneration. We need some encouragement for our souls, for raising our kids, for endurance in the re-education camps, for withstanding the propaganda, and for giving glory to God in whose image we are made. # It's Bad Out There Our culture has been circling the sexuality drain for a while. We have problems, serious and public. The gaslighting game is strong, and we are told that we're the crazy ones. Trying to talk about what is "natural" is taken as oppression by those who want to be "free." While we don't glory in the depravity, we are to see it for what it is. > “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." (Ephesians 5:11) Pornography is explicit and accessible in ways unimagined by previous generations, which messes with both the noun and verb of sex. It removes context, relationship, and the liturgy of porn teaches that physical release is the only goal. It messes with our brains, our expectations, and our consciences. Schools have embraced explicit sex-education at the earliest grades with crude materials. It ends up causing more confusion and leads young people into despair. Therapists have become auto-supporters, referred to as “gender affirming therapy”; many of them believe it's wrong to challenge or ask questions, and threaten concerned parents that if the parents ask too many questions, their transitioning kid may feel so un-affirmed that the son or daughter will commit suicide. Abortion is called "health care," under the guise that women can't have healthy lives competing with men for pleasure and productivity and power if they are "stuck" with a child. It leads to later guilt from killing one's child and some abortion methods ruin her from being able to have a child later. Then there is drag queen story hour at the public library (even here in Western WA), the "Cuties" so-called "documentary" on Netflix last year about sexual exploitation of children that itself was exploiting them, decades of Feminists and Lesbians, LGBTQ+ YouTube and Instagram "help" and support, PRIDE month and parades, delay of marriage and no-fault divorce, so-called gay marriage, marriage to robots, and more miserable Christian families modeling no better alternative. Our new executive regime seems hell bent on shoving our faces in folly. Our President and Vice President are fully on board a train that has left the tracks. Biden's Equality Act is deranged, though it's not as if Trump was going to help us treat women better. Biden's choice of Rachel Levine as "health secretary" is a science laughintstock. Conversion therapy, even prayer for your own kid ([in Australia](https://harbingersdaily.com/australia-conversion-therapy-ban/)) that might suppress his or her orientation or identity is becoming against the law. Many who think it's gross for *them* think it's okay for others. Solomon did say that there is nothing new under the sun. If you think back to Genesis 6, whatever the nature of it, the depravity warranted a global flood of judgment to wipe out the wicked. In Genesis 18 the men of Sodom groped at the door in blindness so that they could violate the visitors, and Lot offered his own daughters instead. His daughters proved themselves more pragmatic than pure not long after in Genesis 19. David's adultery with Bathsheba, and murder of Uriah, is tame by comparison. Even Romans 1 is hard to outdo. Having read some about the Caesars, I don't know if Jeffrey Epstien and his clientele were worse, but they do get more media exposure. I'm sure there are numerous resources, but I was benefited by reading a few. I don't recommend all of these as audiobooks while driving around with littles in your car. - _The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self - Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution_ by Carl Trueman - _Irreversible Damage_ by Abigail Shrier - _Men and Marriage_ by George Gilder - _The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert_ by Rosaria Butterfield When I was younger, the teenage girls had body-image issues, they thought they were fat and developed eating disorders. The boys had lust problems and wanted to have sex before marriage. Now it is trendy for girls to have gender dysphoria, to be uncomfortable about being a girl, and be told that it might be because she's not a girl. Some of them buy breast binders (an upgrade from duct tape), take hormones, get "top surgery" or seek gender reassignment surgery. Plume is a service with the tagline, "Gender-affirming hormone therapy from your phone," where ostensible 18 year-olds can sign up to get hormone blockers sent to them in the mail without their parents needing to be aware. There are no more Tom Boys, now they are just Tom. **This is not fine.** Where did all of this come from? How did we get here? We are nearing the end of a cultural revolution that is much older than the 60s and hippies. We are in a cultural revolution where your "self" is defined without history, without family, without biology, without logic or science, but by self-sentiment. Authenticity is about attitude, not anatomy. Identity is not a given, it is a freedom, and technology has allowed more sad people to pretend collectively that we can change who we and what is making us so sad. We want to be acknowledged, but not examined, let alone attacked. We want community, but we want that community to affirm us, not expect us to conform to fit it. Schools and churches, even therapists and teachers, are the culprits of this cruel and unfair control. As Trueman points out in his book this is an *anti-culture*. It is the worst sort of F.O.G., a fellowship of grievances. This is the only way that LGBTQ+ could become a collective group. Lesbians used to be angry at gay men; gay men didn't have to hide like lesbians, and feminists were mad at men anyway. The only reason they can be included on the same side is against *heterosexuals*. Transgender and Queer both depend on denying the very categories that define what makes a Lesbian or Gay person. One example I read was of a lesbian whose parter decided to transition to a man. In order for the lesbian to maintain her identity, she would have to deny the identity of her partner. So she calls herself Queer, which is nothing other than *muddling the identity and orientation norms*. The only common ground is hatred of what is natural and honorable. They hate the institutions that remind them of it, including the normal nuclear family, and even their own bodies. It is not creating anything fruitful, because there is no real goal or _telos_. Human nature has no meaning other than trying to find meaning, or be less sad. > "These worlds, with nothing beyond themselves by which they can justify their beliefs and practices, are doomed to be volatile, entropic, and self-defeating.” (Trueman) Acting like you can choose your pronoun is an act of defiance. And it turns out, pronouns are not a preference. # Kuyperianism and Sexuality Please note that Kuyperian is a nickname, it is shorthand. Kuyper himself attributed the root of his principles to Calvinism, but as I've said before, I considered myself a Calvinist for almost 20 years (from 1993 to 2011) while failing to recognize the implications of Calvinism that affect the center and circumferences of all the spheres of life. So these days I prefer to identify as a *Kuyperian*; you do not need to identify as one. There are three biblical emphases made by Kuyper that really help when it comes to sexuality. These are the sorts of things that help us understand why Christians think differently, and transfer that understanding to another generation. ## 1. Election As a Calvinist, I was overwhelmed when I first grasped God's choice to rescue me who didn't even know I needed rescuing. When I really saw sin's blinding power to keep a man from believing and that God had opened my eyes to the glory of His Son and Christ's sacrifice for sinners, it was the kind of humbling that exalts. > "Long my imprisoned spirit lay > Fast bound in sin and nature's night > Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray > I woke, the dungeon flamed with light > My chains fell off, my heart was free > I rose, went forth and followed Thee" > —honorary Calvinist, Charles Wesley As I came to see God's sovereignty in salvation, I did agree that God was sovereign over *all things*, but still didn't give due credit. I might say I thought that the doctrine of God being sovereign over everything was mostly an object lesson for sake of magnifying His *spiritual* work. Kuyper helped to distinguish not only Calvinism from Lutheranism, but Calvinism from *evolutionism*. Luther's emphasis on justification by faith alone is true, Calvin emphasized God's sovereignty. In lifting up God's power, Kuyper lifted up God's power *in particulars*. **God. Elects. Everything.** Another way to say this is that God makes decisions and distinctions all over the place. In Genesis 1, He divided land and sea, dark and light, day and night, seeds by kinds, birds by kinds, fish by kinds, and animals according to their kinds. Not only were there differences, there were orders, a *greater* light and a lesser one, the *great* sea creatures and the rest. All the decisions and distinctions were His will, and He called them all **good**. When He made man, God also elected to distinguish, to limit, and to complement the sexes. > “So God created man in his own image, > in the image of God he created him; > male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27) God elected mankind to rule over the rest of creation, to "have dominion over" the other creatures. God also elected one man to become one flesh with one woman (Genesis 2:24), and "blessed them" to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28). As someone has said, Genesis 1:1 is the most offensive verse in the Bible. Genesis 1:27 and 28 are close behind. God elected for there to be XY chromosome combos and XX chromosome combos. God elected male and female, and He elected them to be His reflections. **He elected whether you are a he or a she.** If we are *reflections*, and we are, then self-definition and becoming whatever we choose to be is impossible. Our fundamental identity as living beings is determined by One who is outside of ourselves. In the middle of the 19th century, Charles Darwin theorized a story of beginning and being and becoming without God. Then Friedrich Nietzsche claimed that God is dead; there is no standard Maker. Then Sigmund Freud said that we're all sexual beings looking for satisfaction. Our technology has finally advanced to the point both that we have enough food with enough leisure time to watch Instagram how-to videos on gender transition. The hormones and surgeries seem plausible because no one really agrees on what human nature is anyway. Don't take for granted your worldview with a transcendent God who exists, who has revealed Himself and His expectations and who exercises His will over who is tall and short, rich and poor, great and small, sick and healthy, male and female. Nothing is by chance. Self-determined sexuality is an illusion of unbelief. ## 2. Common Grace If grace is getting something good that you don't deserve, then *everything* good to a sinner is a gift, not wages (the only wages earned by a sinner is death). In salvation, we are given particular grace, a special good that is only for the elect. Saving grace grants regeneration, repentance, faith, forgiveness, fellowship, eternal life, and inheritance. Kuyper also emphasized common grace, truly *good* things, that are *undeserved* things, given by God because He is generous even to those He chooses to glorify Him in judgment; "he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45). He gives sinners colors, tastes, music, stories, spouses, and offspring with baby skin and scents. All of those goods can be enjoyed to some degree, and none of them were earned. Common grace, like particular grace, is God's to give, or not, to whom and to what extent He pleases (think Psalm 135:6). In the course of history, more common grace to unbelievers seems to increase when there are more Christians. Particular grace *saves*, common grace makes accountable. God gives good and takes note of those who don't thank Him for it. This is the standard behavior of the unrighteous in Romans 1. > “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." (Romans 1:18) > “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21) God says that just rulers and laws are good. God says wisdom is better than foolishness. God says some things are "natural," things that should be common sense. Perhaps the ultimate example of "natural" is also in Romans 1. > “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error." (Romans 1:26-27) Those who won't acknowledge transcendent truth eventually lose connection to natural truth, to simple reality. The more godless a culture becomes, the more unnatural it will become. Of course, by the end of the chapter, men not only do it with a guilty conscience they throw pride parades and force people to bake them cakes. > “Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them." (Romans 1:32) Professing to be wise, the Supreme Court have minds as dark as their robes. Common grace is God's favor to men that enables them to act inconsistently with their core ingratitude. Christians can thank God when they see such inconsistencies, and can to one degree or another recognize opportunities for limited partnership in cultural morals, but we cannot *depend* on common grace for culture-building, not for long. As for non-Christians, they are gifted with a taste of good, which serves to make them *more* accountable. ## 3. Anti-Dualism One of the biggest blessings of Kuyper's ministry to me is that he demonstrated that God cares about the terrestrial as well as the celestial, the temporal as well as the eternal. This includes our bodies. They are His design, His gift, His concern. Without claiming exclusive causation, at least consider the inconsistency of a Christian who criticizes those who want to divorce identity from biology while at the same the Christian defines identity only as spirituality. We have acted as if God doesn't care about our bodies, just about our thoughts. That's not what God's Word reveals. > “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." (Romans 12:1) > “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) Too many Christians have defined the pursuit of theological knowledge as maturity, so do we really wonder that unbelievers define something other-bodily as their liberty? Christian husbands have not embodied love, Christian wives have not embodied respect, Christian parents have not raised parents. Christian families, so called, have made family ugly, *unsexy*. It is of great importance to look to God, to see what He has divided, what He has united, and how He has done it. # Dispensationalism and Sexuality While the doctrine of the Trinity is the place to start for developing categories for love, for relationship, for intimacy, for diversity and unity, there is something about Dispensationalism that puts one in a better position to contribute to the recognition and celebration of male and female. What I understand to be the central mark of Dispensationalism is the distinction between the nation of Israel and the church. We believe that every promise God made to the elect nation in the Old Testament will be fulfilled, either already or not yet, and that those promises are *not* being fulfilled *spiritually* or figuratively in the church (of Jews and Gentiles). We see Jews and Gentiles as distinct. With that in mind, consider this comment from Paul to the Galatians 3:27-28. > For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek.... Has that just undone Dispensationalism? He continues: > there is neither slave nor free, **there is no male and female**, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Is Paul now saying that gender is a meaningless distinction for Christians? There are at least some professing Christians who *do* make such a claim, in the name of Christ. They argue that in Christ gender roles in the home and in the church are at least radically redefined, if not undone altogether. But a Dispensationalist is one who knows how to see categories, who can acknowledge shared blessings without flattening every distinction. He can see that the Galatians needed to learn the need for faith instead of for works and signs, and to learn that Gentiles could share in Christ by faith, and yet with Paul in another place still call the Gentiles "a wild olive shoot" (Romans 11:17) grafted into Christ along with the "natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree" (Romans 11:24). Male and female are both saved by faith through grace in Christ; the means and manner of salvation are identical. They are co-heirs of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:8). *And* yet their identities (ethnicity and gender) are *not* interchangeable. A hammer and a saw are both tools, but they are not meant for the same use. # The Good News I said at the beginning that there is some good news to share. The good news is that Jesus died and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3). This means our faith is not in vain. This means we are forgiven from our sin. This means we were raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). This means we do not need to be conformed to this world (Romans 12:2). The gospel is "the power of God to salvation" (Romans 1:16), to the Jew first and also to the transgender. Yes, to the Jew and Greek. And yes, transgender is not actually accurate; gender is a given. But Paul proclaims the power of God directly before all this suppressing of the truth about God. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, which includes the male or female glory. Paul told the believers in Corinth, know for their sinfulness, that the sexually immoral would not inherit the kingdom. He also said, such were some of you. > “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, NASB) > He told them to flee sexual immorality, and that they were not their own. They had been bought with a price and were glorify God in their *bodies*. We see some of our brothers and sisters being canceled for their claims, and there certainly looks to be more condescension, and fines, and lawsuits coming our way. But as discouraged as we might be, and as vigilant as we must be, seek His grace to obey Him in your body, in your heart and in your relationships and in your families. Submit to His sovereign election, give thanks to Him for every good gift He's chosen for you. Be honored to reflect Him as an image bearer, male or female. And keep worshiping God. Fathers, love your daughters; God has given you to provide the security they long for. Mothers, do not coddle your sons; let them grow up to carry heavy things. Refuse to send your kids to an educational institution that can't tell male and female apart. Pray that God would grant revival. We may have a decreasing expectation of common ground, but we have been given reason to *not* be ashamed of the gospel.

In this video, well-known Bible teacher, George Zeller presents an excellent background on the tension between Reformed Theology and Dispensational Theology. In the first half of the video he discusses the major criticism of Dispensationalism, and dispels the -Dispensational Derangement Syndrome- common among today's Reformed Bible teachers. -In the second half he covers the key Fruits of Dispensationalism. -This and Part 2 are excellent background in understanding the tensions between Reformed teachers and Dispensationalists. --Please note, the camera shaking ends after the first three minutes of video - sorry for it--Part 2 will cover the causes of the decline in Dispensationalism.

In this video, well-known Bible teacher, George Zeller presents an excellent background on the tension between Reformed Theology and Dispensational Theology. In the first half of the video he discusses the major criticism of Dispensationalism, and dispels the -Dispensational Derangement Syndrome- common among today's Reformed Bible teachers. -In the second half he covers the key Fruits of Dispensationalism. -This and Part 2 are excellent background in understanding the tensions between Reformed teachers and Dispensationalists. --Please note, the camera shaking ends after the first three minutes of video - sorry for it--Part 2 will cover the causes of the decline in Dispensationalism.

George Alvarado is joined by guest, Andrew Rappaport from Striving from Eternity, to discuss misunderstandings between Covenantalists and Dispensationalists. Andrew Recently recorded a short series on his podcast, The Rapp Report, that addresses some of his perspectives, as well as recent statements made by John MacArthur from the Shepherd’s conference about the Christocentric hermeneutic. He […] The post Ep. 036 | Misunderstanding Covenantalism vs Dispensationalism — TAU Roundtable appeared first on Things Above Us.

George Alvarado is joined by guest, Andrew Rappaport from Striving from Eternity, to discuss misunderstandings between Covenantalists and Dispensationalists. Andrew Recently recorded a short series on his podcast, The Rapp Report, that addresses some of his perspectives, as well as recent statements made by John MacArthur from the Shepherd’s conference about the Christocentric hermeneutic. He […] The post Ep. 036 | Misunderstanding Covenantalism vs Dispensationalism — TAU Roundtable appeared first on Things Above Us.

We now come to the second request in "The Lords Prayer", "Your kingdom come." Young's Literal says, "Thy reign come." An even more literal translation states, "Come the kingdom of You."  So if Christ taught his disciples to pray, "Your kingdom come," then it seems that the kingdom had not yet come or fully come and then it starts to get a little confusing. People are confused about this today. An example is Dispensationalists who believe Jesus brought the Kingdom in His ministry but when He ascended He took it back with Him. Thinking like the Jews, The Kingdom was supposed to be physical but the Jews rejected Him, so He instead died for the rest of the world, the Gentiles and went back to Heaven with The Kingdom. So they are waiting for the Gentile church to be raptured off the earth so Jesus will then bring The Kingdom back to the Jews and in a physical manner to be manifested on the earth.  So to all that, I say we take a look at what the scriptures say of the timing and nature of The Kingdom. Help Support: https://paypal.me/thekingdomproject YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs6iFjfgzzajleMLL2F99Rg Join the group: https://www.facebook.com/thekingdomprojectpodcast Email: thekingdomprojectpodcast@gmail.com

In this video, well-known Bible teacher, George Zeller presents an excellent background on the tension between Reformed Theology and Dispensational Theology. In the first half of the video he discusses the major criticism of Dispensationalism, and dispels the "Dispensational Derangement Syndrome" common among today's Reformed Bible teachers. In the second half he covers the key Fruits of Dispensationalism. This and Part 2 are excellent background in understanding the tensions between Reformed teachers and Dispensationalists. [Please note, the camera shaking ends after the first three minutes of video - sorry for it]Part 2 will cover the causes of the decline in Dispensationalism.

In this Episode Pastor Sam and Patrick “No Compromise with Evil” Wyett break down the final dispensation, the dispensation of the millennium. Why are Dispensationalists Pre-Millennial? Why do Dispensationalists deny Amillennialism? Why do Dispensationalists deny Post-Millennialism? Find out in this podcast! For more information on The Shining Light Podcast, please visit theshininglightministries.com For more information on The GK Podcast Network, please visit gatekeepersonline.com Follow The Shining Light Podcast on Twitter at twitter.com/shininglightpc Follow The GK Podcast Network on Twitter at twitter.com/thegkonline

The great tribulation is something that has been at the center of the eschatological debate for years.  Dispensationalists demand it is future and is the 70th week of Daniels vision where the church age is a parenthesis between the 69th and 70th week.  In other words, God pressed paused and went with plan b, the church, and at some point (the fullness of the Gentiles) will unpause and the end will come.  All that being said, allowing scripture to interpret scripture (and looking at historical writings outside of it), when we read the words of Jesus answering the questions of the disciples in the first century, the evidence is clear, the time of great tribulation would occur in their lifetime and an event this bad is to never happen again.  In other words, there is no indication in scripture that the great tribulation is future for us (2,000 years removed from the time Jesus spoke of it) it has happened, John was part of it (Rev 1) and we can see that Matthew 24 in its entirety was concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. Help Support: https://paypal.me/thekingdomproject YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs6iFjfgzzajleMLL2F99Rg Join the group: https://www.facebook.com/thekingdomprojectpodcast Email: thekingdomprojectpodcast@gmail.com

Meredith Kline was very critical of Dispensationalism.  This week, Todd and Chris discuss Dispensationalism compared with covenant theology or biblical theology.  First, we talk about how Dispensationalists interpret the Bible.  Next, we talk about how Dispensationalists understand types and their fulfillment.  Finally, we talk about how Dispensationalism is at odds with the gospel.  We also talk about the millennium.   Show Notes:   Give us a 5-star rating on iTunes!  (Click “View in iTunes” and “Ratings and Reviews”) Kingdom Prologue by Meredith G. Kline Kingdom Prologue pp. 340 - 355 Jeremiah 30:9 Hosea 3:5 Romans 11 Ephesians 2:19 Hebrews 11 Hebrews 12:22 Revelation 21 Hebrews 8:13 Matthew 5 1 Corinthians 3:21 Galatians 3:19 Isaiah 60 1 Corinthians 10 Judges   Connect with us on: Facebook Twitter YouTube Spotify iHeartRadio Feedburner  Stitcher Libsyn iTunes Gab Minds Steemit

Introduction: This sermon forms a part two of this morning’s sermon on Romans 14:17-19. We promised to do a deeper look into the idea of the kingdom of God and that is what we are going to do. You will notice that I am using the whiteboard, and this is because it is often easier to illustrate it than explain it. The kingdom of God is a very important and misunderstood concept, and in Christianity you will find different brands and explanations of it. The three main millennial positions all have a different view on the kingdom of God for example. Postmills believe that the kingdom will come in an upswing in Christendom before Jesus returns so that Christianity can expect to have a worldwide effect impacting all the major institutions of society. This leads to a politicised approach, the culture wars becoming a battleground, and the great commission including all sorts of other things other than planting churches. There are Charismatic versions of this which like Bill Johnson see this as an age for miracles as an expression of the kingdom among us. Dispensationalists have traditionally seen the kingdom of God as the kingdom of Israel where the Davidic king would sit on the throne in Jerusalem and rule over all the nations of the world. The older schools of thought taught that Jesus came to set up this kingdom but Israel rejected Him so this plan was put on hold, while the age of the Gentiles goes on, and then in the Millennium we will see a fruition of the various prophesies that pointed to this kingdom coming to pass literally. The Amill position like the Historic Premill sees the kingdom come in an already-not yet fashion. We believe in a case of inaugurated but not consummated eschatology... Read More Source

**I made a mistake in part of this when mentioning the time of Jesus' birth and the start of His ministry.  So many numbers and talking fast can do that and I apologize.  However, this does not mess up the overall timeline and explanation!** Part 2 of the Eschatology Series takes a look at Daniel 9 and the 70-week prophecy (or 490 years).  Dispensationalists misinterpret this prophecy and say the church is in a parenthesis time because God has paused the prophetic timeline.  Marcuss explains this error and shows how to see this prophecy more clearly and how it has been fulfilled already!  Yes, the 490 years or 70-weeks of Daniel are over and in the past! Facebook.com/thekingdomprojectpodcast Email: thekingdomprojectpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode, Kenny covers the topic of "replacement" theology, which is the term that Dispensationalists use when they are referring to concept that the Jews are no longer God's chosen people. That the church has "replaced" Israel. Dispensationalist typically embrace the idea that the Jews are still God's chosen people, that they still have a special covenant with God (which is separate and distinct with God's covenant with the church), and that the Jews still have special blessings and rights that other nations do not have access to, including the rights to the "promise land" (the property which makes up the contemporary nation of Israel). Orthodox Christianity has traditionally held to the idea that any person who places faith in God is declared righteous and therefore is invited into the group of people that are in covenant with God; and there is only one group of people that are in covenant with God (known as God's "covenant people"). The Jews were the group that God was in covenant with, but that has been expanded in the New Testament to include Jews and Gentiles. The New Testament also makes the point that not all of the Jews were ever actually in covenant anyway (see Romans 9:6-7). Ethnic Jews should not be viewed as God's covenant people, but instead anyone with genuine faith in God ought to be considered a part of God's covenant people; and this has not replaced the "old way" of viewing God's covenant people because this is ho we ought to have always viewed God's chosen people.

Part 2 of Chris Date’s discussion with Dr. Robert Taylor, author of Rescue From Death: John 3:16 Salvation, to discuss differences among conditionalists and why consistent Dispensationalists will believe in the annihilation of the unsaved. Referenced Resources Rescue From Death: … Continue reading →

Dr. Robert Taylor, author of Rescue From Death: John 3:16 Salvation, joins Rethinking Hell contributor Chris Date to discuss differences among conditionalists and why consistent Dispensationalists will believe in the annihilation of the unsaved. Referenced Resources Rescue From Death: John … Continue reading →