We Might as Well Throw the Book Away and go Home

Maybe you had too much too fast.

Maybe you had too much too fast.

Or just over played your part.

Shakedown Street-Grateful Dead

After coming to the conclusion after so many years that the Bible did not prove to me to be inerrant or cohesive, I wasn't sure what to do. Over the course of several months I tried a few things.





I wandered into a somewhat brief foray with taking the Old Testament metaphorically, esoterically, as a huge parable. There are Gnostic Christians that believe such things and they make a good case, as good as any other case. Of course this stuff isn't meant literally, what was I thinking?







I also entertained the red letter or just Jesus idea for awhile, too. But who was He? Was He the gentle savoir who told the adulteress her sins were forgiven or the demanding Lord who asks us to sell everything and hate our own family to follow Him? Is He the one who asks his father to forgive his tormentors the One who will kick butt on Judgement Day? Why can't we raise the dead, heal the sick, and do all the things He promised? I found that whatever connection I had with Jesus, reading the gospels again with this filter caused me a lot of confusion. Some of the parables made absolutely no sense and the ones about Him casting out people who thought they were "in" were terrifying. How is this supposed to be comforting?



Not everyone that says "Lord, Lord" .....
Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth....
Better to have never been born...




As a dispensationalist, I could take what Jesus said and just dismiss it as being part of Israel's program, but that was not the case now. What in the world am I supposed to be doing?

Love the Lord your God with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. 

I put away trying to figure out the Bible for awhile and decided to do just that.



I found to my surprise that my worldview was taking a different trajectory. If the Great Tribulation already happened (which I now believed) then we don't need to be worried about the AntiChrist or the New World Order or the Mark of the Beast or anything like that. If I was to love my neighbor as myself, I could stop all this us versus them mentality. I wrote a notes to some of my family members who I had in the past bludgeoned with the "truth". I apologized for basically kicking them when they were down, told them that I loved them, God loved them and everything would be alright.








I completely lost all interest in current events (as far as they were fulfillments of prophecy) and any end times ideas at all. I am here now, this is my life. I wanted to be the light of Christ to the world around me.  I no longer worried about warning people that they were headed for Hell. I started to see the value and beauty of the here and now.






I'm not sure exactly where my husband was with all this. We rarely talked theology anymore.  When I mentioned that there were many Christians that didn't think the world was going to end in the premillennial dispensational way and I was now one of them, he was disappointed. This is it?  Not that the world wasn't going to end, but that the plain meaning of the book of Revelation that we had spent literally hundreds of hours studying may have been wrong. Not that my husband ran with every theology I came to see as new truth, I think we were both making similar discoveries in our own way. I was just much more vocal about it.

We had also been for the past few years "prepping" you know, for when it all went down. We had quite a bit of a pantry (or small stockpile if you will).  Our whole life had revolved around the fact that Jesus was coming back any time. We hadn't planned for the distant future at all as far as the kids' education, retirement, goals or plans. We were "looking up" for our redemption.





In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow after all.....







But for some reason it was like putting on reality glasses for the first time in a long time. I think my husband was starting to think that we'd been sold a bill of goods, and I so did I.

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The Infamous Slippery Slope

Today I found a message floating

In the sea from you to me

You wrote that when you could see it

You cried with fear, the point was near

Was it you that said

"How long to the point of know return?"

Point of Know Return-Kansas

Before leaving the church we last attended I was having lunch with a friend of mine who I enjoys theological discussions as much as I do. When the topic of Mormonism was introduced I asked,

"What of Joseph Smith? I saw a documentary about it one time and apparently his mom was one denomination and his dad another, he was desperately trying to find the truth, the One True Religion. An angel told him that neither of his parent's faiths nor anyone else's for that matter were right and that he would be shown the correct one. I always felt so sad for him. He was seeking with all his heart and God allowed him to be deceived? Doesn't Jesus tell us to seek and we'll find?"

"Oh, I think he was just wackadoo." she said dismissively.

source

Wackadoo!?

At that something inside me switched and I began to wonder. Who knows who the wackadoo ones are? Sure Mormonism is pretty strange to those of us who have nothing to lose by picking it apart, but what about our respective flavors of Christendom? When I was a Catholic I had to (though never really did) believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin and was somehow born without the stain of original sin. As a dispensationalist, I accepted a system that said God put a huge gap in prophecy in order to make the prophecies that were never fulfilled look as thought they still may happen. As a Calvinist I had to try to come to terms with the fact that God chose not to save some people (and by default send them to hell forever) just because (the "U" in TULIP).  As a Universalist I did other types of scripture selecting to get around some uncomfortable parts that seemed to say that some people are lost. Finally, when warming up to preterism I found a whole new world of theories, one in which there was no physical second coming of Jesus expected at all...it's all spiritual now.



I sat there in her living room thinking...I can't do this anymore, it's making me crazy.




I honestly wished I could be one that could go to a nice women's Bible study, learn some selective (Titus 2 or Proverbs 31 perhaps) scripture on how to be a better wife and mother and then go home and sing  "Jesus Loves Me" and feel good and not think about the details.




But I just couldn't.




I had to be intellectually honest. I had to find a way to deal with all my doubts about the Bible and the faith if I was going to keep trying to hang on. Trying to fit everything into varying and hodge-podged systematic theologies just wasn't working anymore. I had to make the whole entire Bible make sense to me if I was going to keep believing any of it.  I considered the possibility for the first time, that maybe, just maybe, the Bible wasn't without error.






I didn't know where to go from there.



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The Wrath of the Lamb

On the first day of the first month in some distant year 

The whole sky froze golden 

Some said it was the aftermath of the radium bomb 

While others told of a final retribution 

A terrible revenge of the gods 

When the Walls came Tumbling Down- Def Leppard

Something that my husband could not get past in the Universalist idea was that Paul said that there would be wrath to come. If everyone is saved then what of the wrath? What about eternal destruction? I mentioned that Paul also said that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, so that the world was reconciled. We are all saved, it will just take certain levels of refining (torment) to get us all to conform to His image.






As far as words like "eternal" and "everlasting", there were some ways around this. In fact, I can't believe I hadn't come to this conclusion years earlier while debating with someone about the Mosaic law. In a post I wrote in 2010, I examined how forever in the Levitical law cold not possibly be forever forever. The same could also be applied to the forever terms in the New Testament.




But what about the wrath? And what about the book of Revelation that is none too light and fluffy? I had to take a hard and serious look at it and as much as I wanted to hold onto things like the Rapture, the millennium and the futurist ideas, I didn't see how they could possibly fit into this new framework.




I found a couple of good online discussions about meshing dispensationalism, God's sovereignty, and Universal salvation, but the events in the book of Revelation just made absolutely no sense anymore. Something was going to have to give.




One question that always bothered me was that Jesus said that all things that he talked about were to happen before the end of the age (world) would happen in "this generation." I knew very well the two main ways to dismiss that Jesus was actually talking about the generation he was speaking to. One was that the generation was referring to the Jewish people in general. There would always be people of Hebrew decent until the end. Another was  that the generation could have also meant the one to see the actual end times begin. They wouldn't pass until the second coming. I never could make peace with either of those although I chose to believe them since I was pretty set on my eschatology.




I knew that Catholics were partial preterists, meaning that they believe everything except for the second coming happened in the past, when Jerusalem was destroyed.  I never agreed with that, but with my new openness to peek over the fence at the other viewpoints, I looked into this preterism thing.  The funny thing I found was that it actually made a lot of sense.




I started to search it out and found that for much of Church history, it was widely accepted that the Great Tribulation was in fact a past event. The hope of the Church according to the Nicene Creed was that:

He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

This whole futuristic, left behind, dispensational stuff was for the most part a later interpretation (with a few exceptions of course). As I learned more about the 70 AD "end of the world" (age) thing, I was amazed how little needed to be explained away, reinterpreted or dealt with from a specific systematic theology. It made sense. The Old Covenant was done done. God was done with Israel and now the Church was called to be ministers of reconciliation to all people groups until the Lord returned. I looked into some of Josephus's writings as well and I felt so relieved that the "Great Tribulation" happened 1900+ years ago.

source

The wrath was the destruction of Jerusalem. Paul was writing of the destruction to come, the end of the Old Covenant and the Temple. It was bittersweet giving up the eschatology that I had become so fond of, used to, and quite frankly obsessed with, but I felt like I was making real progress.





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Keepin' It Real

Same thing I've always heard from you

Do as I say, not as I do

Dyers Eve-Metallica

A friend of mine and I were having a lunch/play date with our kids one day a couple of years ago. She is a believer and very smart and asks questions, too and one day presented this to me.

What of 1 Corinthians 13, you know, the LOVE chapter? If God is love then why the disconnect especially in the matter of damnation?

Love is patient
Love is kind
It does not boast
It is not proud
It is not rude
It does not dishonor others
It is not self seeking
It is not easily angered
It keeps no record of wrongs
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects always trusts always hopes and always perseveres

Love never fails





I seriously considered referencing scripture here that showed places where God was acting in opposite these qualities, but you can decide for yourself. I'm trying to keep it real, but I don't want to go too far into offence. But this video does a nice job of it.  If you are a student of scripture, I don't need to tell you anyway.


Her point was (and I'm sure she had no idea that I was taking it this way and I'm almost positive she didn't mean it this way) was God wasn't exhibiting this description for love in many instances throughout the Bible.



I experienced then a very unnerving feeling, it was uncomfortable and a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt was able to take hold. Doubt of what exactly I didn't know yet. If God is Love and yet scripture shows that God sometimes (or often) didn't act loving, then what?


The Bible was becoming to me an almost impossible puzzle.




In lieu of taking the kids to Wednesday night Bible club at church, we wanted to be the ones to teach them. Plus, my husband worked a lot of hours and we felt we couldn't commit to a weekly weeknight evening deal. Every night before bed, we would all sit down in the living room everyone with their little age appropriate Bibles and my husband would take them through verse by verse style. We, being the good Pauline dispensationalists that we were, started with Romans and planned to go through all of Paul's letters. We got through Romans which took several weeks. Then it was on to 1 Corinthians where the wheels fell off.





I can't remember exactly what it was that stopped him in his tracks, but he didn't want to try to teach the kids anymore. It wasn't making sense. It didn't all fit together like the Bible teachers insisted that it did. We had run into issues before with the Genesis chapter 1 and 2 creation story discrepancies. We could also never sort out the 70 weeks of Daniel to fit into the time that Jesus was to show up in history without a whole lot of fudging the numbers. We were looking so heavily into trying to prove that the Bible was inerrant  in order to convince his parents that Sola Scriptura was the correct way to go. We were not finding that to be the case and had no explanation as to what some of what Paul was saying in his letters meant. We stopped reading to the kids and just popped in a Through the Bible with Les Feldick instead for some time.





And then that stopped, too.




Maybe my husband was more disillusioned at this point than I was, he never said, but I found that his private study time was decreasing and he started to pick up his guitar again.




I, on the other hand, I was constantly (and I mean several hours a day every day) listening to apologetic shows or sermons or reading websites and books that tried to explain away all of the apparent contradictions I was running into. I listened to and read books of the Bible over and over again. I prayed without ceasing for understanding and sometimes I felt a breakthrough, but then something else would pop up. This consumed me. This all had to make sense somehow.





While at our new church I was one that looked down my nose at people who didn't study the scriptures morning, noon and night. I figured something must have been seriously wrong with their walk if they didn't constantly have their nose in the book. I was always in it.  I could think of nothing better than spending every spare second trying to figure out the mind of God through the Bible study. But I was getting tired and very frustrated.


I decided to step back for awhile to see if I could get a fresh perspective.




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I'm a Dispensationalist

.

Who can stop what must arrive now? 

Something new is waiting to be born

Dark as the night you're still by my side

Shining inside 

Crazy Fingers- Grateful Dead

In the fall of 2007, we attended my sister's wedding. After the Catholic Church denied their petition for the Sacrament of Matrimony, my sister (who is one tough chic-don't mess with her ever, seriously) started calling around to see what other churches would be willing to marry them. Of all the places she called only one got back with her, a United Methodist Church with a lady pastor.




The church was pretty fancy, an old building right in the heart of their large town. There were stained glass windows, a tiny baptistery bowl in the corner (no immersion there) and an alter in front. My nephew, my sister's son from her first marriage, served as the ring bearer and my seven year old daughter was the cutest little flower girl ever. After all the turmoil that went on internally about whether it was a sin to go or not, it was such a relief that now it was really a non-issue. We were not Catholic anymore. We didn't know what we were, but were sure that God would be patient with us as we figured it all out.


It was back to the Bible for us and as I wrote about here, a lot of Christian TV and radio also came into the picture. It became clear pretty early on that there were some conflicting, or at the very least unsettling things going on in scripture, but I knew there had to be an answer.


As I mentioned before, I became very pleased with the way dispensationalism cleared up the problems for me. It had some bugs to work out, but I liked the idea of it very much.



Things like the The Rapture, The Great Tribulation, and The Millennial Kingdom were central to this way of thinking and I jumped in with both feet. My husband was a bit more cautious before going all in with this, since being burned before, but I knew it would be different this time.




It was the first time I was exposed to the idea that Jesus in the gospels was still operating under the Old Covenant. I had never in my Christian life heard that, but I found that it was true enough in my own studies. The New Testament did not begin at the beginning of the book of Matthew, but after Jesus's death, according to the writer of Hebrews. One thing that gave me a slight pause was the fact that many dispensational teachers will say that Jesus's earthly ministry has absolutely nothing to do with the Age of Grace that we are now in. In fact, nothing that Jesus said was to us at all. There was something that just didn't feel right about that.




Paul is who we are to listen to, not Jesus, according to this theory. As crazy and perhaps blasphemous as that sounds, after reading the arguments, it started to make a lot of sense. Jesus came for Israel to set up the earthly kingdom that was promised in the Old Testament, most of Israel rejected Him (which was preordained, but anyway), God raises up Paul to preach the Heavenly kingdom to the Gentiles and to Jews who would believe it. After the fullness of the Gentiles came into the Body of Christ, God will rapture the Church, send the Great Tribulation on earth, and then the 1000 year reign of Christ will begin, with Jesus on earth as a literal king. We saints, both the Raptured ones and the Tribulation Saints who didn't take the mark of the beast, will reign as high officials in the Millennium. After that, Satan comes back again, the final battle is waged and then the Great White Throne judgement, and eternity.




As you can see, the main focus is on the future. And that's where my head and heart were, ready to be with the Lord. After my husband started to warm up to this, we became very excited about the imminent return of Jesus, just trying to hang in there while the End Times revved up all around us. I was very thankful that God had taken us out of the Catholic Church when He did, so that we would not be deceived when the One World Religion showed up. It was all starting to fit together.

Scofield Study Bible baby!

There were two gospels then: one for Israel and one for the Church. There were some holes* in this that I could never really get any satisfying answers to. But for the most part, I thought we were really right on track. I did quite a bit of End Times watching and was convinced that we were close to Armageddon. I was excited, but a bit worried since I was now pregnant with our sixth child.

Here is a short post I put here back in 2010 regarding dispensationalism.

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*For the sake of brevity, I won't go into all these here, but am open to discussing it in the comments if they are addressed.

Sunday Bible Time

I'm staying home from church with one of the little 'uns, so I have to get my meat online:)

Sermon Sunday - Rightly Dividing Or...

...what should we have for breakfast?

This is an oldie but goodie.

Some of you have already seen these (Susan;)). I had them posted on our old forum, but that is lost in the nothingness of deleted domain cyberland, so I wanted to re-post them somewhere.

I really like Pastor Jordan's teachings, although I don't agree with him on every point. But I do think he takes the scripture seriously.

He can be rather funny, too:)

Don't let the four videos scare you. They are only about 5 minutes each.

Life of the Messiah Notes- The Unpardonable Sin

I'm still working my way through the Life of Messiah series.

This one is probably my favorite.

Having heard many many explanations of what the unpardonable sin is, I have to say that this one really makes the most sense.

Here's how Arnold Fruchtenbaum defines it:

The national rejection by Israel of the Messiah-ship of Yeshua while He was present here on Earth on the basis of being demon possessed.

He goes on to explain this as it relates to the context of the passage and how this sin is not unforgivable in a personal salvation way, but in a national punishment way.

He then sites examples of such a thing is Israel's past including the refusal of Israel to enter into the promised land and the Babylonian captivity.
 
It makes a great deal of sense when one notices how much Jesus uses the phrase "this generation" after this happens.

He explains that it is at this point that Jesus begins speaking in parables.

The parable of the leaven

The two reasons He does so is to keep the unbelieving portion of Israel blinded and to introduce the mystery kingdom (the church) to his disciples.

This particular session helped to clear up many things for me.

Even if you aren't interested in the entire series I highly highly recommend making time for this one.  

You can listen or download it here.

Life of the Messiah Notes- The Sermon on the Mount

... or as Dr. Fruchtenbaum puts it: Messiah's authority to interpret the Law.

The Mount of Olives

This is an interesting look at this passage as most of us look at it as a kind of rule book, and in a way it is, but this sermon was spoken under the Old Covenant and for a different reason than many of us usually think.

What I find very interesting and what really makes a lot of sense is that as the series goes on, we will see a distinct division in the things Jesus said and did before the official rejection of the Jewish leaders and then afterward.

The Sermon on the Mount is given early in Messiah's earthly ministry when he was offering the kingdom (the actual physical earthly kingdom) to the nation of Israel.

You can listen or download this teaching here.

The entire series is found here.

Life of the Messiah Notes - The Old Testament Interpreted in the New

I am slowly working my way thorough this series again after recommending it and I'm so glad that I decided to give it another listen.


Back in an earlier post in the Romans Study as well as another  I discussed that I was a bit concerned about some Old Testament passages that seemingly were out of context when applied by New Testament writers.

Dr. Fruchtenbaum addresses those issues at the beginning of this teaching .

What he says about Jewish exegesis agrees with the information I found online previously, but with his thick Hebrew accent, Arnold sounds so authoritative:)

At the end of the hour, he discusses baptism.

The Life of Messiah - A Jewish Perspective

The Life of Messiah From a Jewish Perspective

Is this an awesome picture or what? (source)

We did this study in our adult Sunday School class a couple of years ago. I wanted to post it here for anyone interested in the historical background of things during the time of Christ's earthly ministry.

This is a refreshing and well-studied look at the gospels in a way that I had never seen them before. Seeing some of these things through a Jewish lens adds a fullness to the gospel accounts.  Dr. Fruchtenbaum uses A. T. Robertson's A Harmony of the Gospels as a guide in this series.

I found the link to the free audio at Dean Bible Ministries. The DVDs are also for sale at Amazon, or at Ariel.org.

Dr Fruchtenbaum addresses such topics as:

• What "born of water" means.

• Why the Pharisees really should have known Jesus was the Messiah.

• What the giving of the keys to Peter meant and how he used them.

• What the unpardonable sin is. 

• Accounting for "three days and three nights" in the Friday crucifixion (I'm still undecided on this myself, but Dr. Fruchtenbaum defends the Friday position).

• Supposed contradictions in the gospel accounts are explained.

There are over twenty hours of audio here, but I think it is well worth it.

Since we're coming up on the Resurrection Day celebrations, this may be an excellent time to devote to such a study.

Israelology and Plank of Woodism With Pastor Jim

Jim McClarty has just started a new Wednesday night series in which he is going through Romans to see what the book actually says about the church and Israel. I am really enjoying it so far and highly recommend it to anyone with questions about this issue.

This week was part two Heir of the World.
He challenges a very famous pastor's exegesis (if you want to know who is is, you'll have to listen :) ) of Romans any explains why we as members of the Body of Christ are not spiritual Jews. 

If I were near the Smyrna, Tennessee area I would be there Wednesday nights with bells on, but since it's really not within reasonable driving distance, I will have to settle for the audio teachings online of which I am extremely grateful.

Follow along out there if you're interested in this sort of thing. I will probably come back to this and highlight particularly interesting parts in the coming weeks and months.

Here Jim briefly explains his own hermeneutic system so you know where he's coming from:

Is the Church Spiritual Israel?

 Since I'm right in the midst of this now, I thought I'd go ahead and post what Jim McClarty had to say in a recent audio Q&A. I appreciated the exegesis on the go-to passages for a replacement model. It's well worth the listen:

Calling the Church Spiritual Israel

Sermon Sunday- Saying What Is Right About God

Job and his friends

I always enjoy Jim McClarty's messages. He has just been back in the pulpit after some medical issues, and he was really missed.

This sermon is an introduction to a study on 1Timothy, but I don't think he ever got there. What I love about Pastor Jim is that he can get up and say what is on his mind and whether edifying or convicting, you always come away with something.

An issue that has been on his mind lately has been the frustration he has with  hermeneutic systems and eschataological and Church/Israel issues in the reformed community. He certainly gives us some thought-provoking points in this sermon.

Saying What Is Right About God

Have a blessed Sunday!

You Might Be A Dispensationalist If...

Just to show that I can poke fun at my own theologies, I saw this over at Dan Phillips Biblical Christianity blog and put a humorous two minute clip from the introduction to the message below:

Yes, this book is in our house ;)

All kidding aside, Michael Vlach does a good job in giving an overview of what dispensationalism is and is not. If anyone is curious about knowing what this strange and oft ridiculed system is all about, I would suggest listening to the entire message:

http://www.shepherdsfellowship.org/media/details/?mediaID=5200

Also from the Biblical Christianity blog there is this humorous and apologetic post:

Twenty-five stupid reasons for dissing dispensationalism

I love this one:

14. I think Hal Lindsey is stupid, and I like to make fun of him. Really? I think Harold Camping is stupid and, well, he is pretty easy to parody. Is this helpful?

 Being that I embrace the five points (mostly, still working on that 4th one) and also embrace much of dispensational thinking, I find his site to be good encouragement to know there are a few of us out there...Semper Reformanda!

Preach the Gospel To Every Creature

Mark 16 15-20

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.

This passage is where much confusion can come into the great commission. Jesus says some things here that don't really line up with the things that Paul says about salvation.

The Mr. wonders if the gospel spoken of above doesn't have more to do with this:

Isaiah 11
 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and  a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth: with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

That is Kingdom talk. I am unashamedly premillennial (I'm not talking rapture stuff here). I do believe there will be a restoration of national Israel and a physical kingdom on earth where Jesus will rule from Jerusalem.

If there was not to be a literal Kingdom, one would think the Lord would have said so here:

Acts 1: 6-8 

 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Certainly none of these things concern salvation, so many people don't think this issue is important and just shrug off eschatology completely. I'm not one of those people. Maybe I want to know too much for my own good, but the future is something I am very interested in.

What I have been studying is that it may be possible that what the disciples (pre-Paul's conversion) were told to preach may be different from what Paul (and perhaps afterward by the rest of the apostles) was told by the Lord Himself.  I know this gets some very upset, the idea of "two gospels." But there really are many gospels throughout the Bible...more on that later.

There is a very well written but downright lengthy article about this here:

Israel's Kingdom Gospel and Our Grace Gospel

It is well worth the time for anyone interested in such matters.

MARANATHA!

Dispensations and Apple Pie

We really enjoy Through the Bible with Les Feldick. We were watching last week and he was using an illustration in rightly dividing. We got a chuckle out of it. I put a short two-minute clip below.

A Wife and A Bride

Just in time for our watch day today, our Sunday School class is in Hosea in our survey of the "minor" prophets. Our teacher is using Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum's outline as a guide and yesterday put these verses on the board about the divorcement and remarriage of Israel and the betrothal and marriage of the Bride of Christ.

Click on the picture to be able to read it... Thanks Cherie!

But a wife and a bride? I am still trying to figure this one out for myself.

Why would there be two sets of God's elect?

I remember that  another one of our favorite teachers pointed out that in the Abrahamic covenant, he was promised:

Genesis 22:17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which [is] upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

He sees this as two peoples: a heavenly and an earthly. We the Bride of Christ would be the heavenly and redeemed Israel (the restored wife of Jehovah) would be the earthly people.


Where else do we see the mentioning of the heavens and the earth?

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Revelation 21:1    And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea

There are many many more passages as referenced above, so I can see a case for this.

After all, we (the Gentiles) are meant to make Israel jealous:

Romans 10:19 But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by [them that are] no people, [and] by a foolish nation I will anger you.

And the mystery that Paul talks about:

 Ephesians 5:31-32   For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Israel was promised earthly blessings and the Church was promised heavenly blessings.

Daniel 12:13 But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.

Ephesians 2: 6-7 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

But as our Sunday School teacher said, it really comes down to whether you are a 'lumper' seeing Israel and the Church as one people of God, or 'splitter' seeing the distinctions between the two. I think a strong case for two can be made, but I also agree that the other side can add some insight.

I could go on and on (I'm good at that) but I'll let you do your own research on the matter. Either way, as we wait for our Savior from Heaven it is my prayer that we would all be open to the wisdom that the Spirit gives us and the peace of God.


MARANATHA!

Plank of Wood

Here is one of my favorite Bible teachers discussing the difference between covenantalism and dispensationalsim. He finally gave up trying to reconcile the Scriptures with either system and calls his theology "Plank of Wood".

While I agree with the idea that neither system totally solves all the problems it raises, I will say as someone who leans to the dispensational side of things that not all of us adhere strictly to Darby or Scofield type theology so I think Pastor Jim is broad-brushing dispensationalism just slightly.

Here are some youtube videos that were put together by Reformed Voices:

If you don't have the time now to sit and watch all six parts here, the free mp3 download is in the Grace Christian Assembly archives here:

I love Pastor Jim's work and will be posting more of his stuff in the future!