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Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!
However, nothing I've heard or read has swayed me from still thinking mostly in Dispensationalist terms, that is, there will be an "hour of trial" to come upon the whole earth, then there will be rapture(s), and Jesus will return to set up His thousand year kingdom on earth, and His elect will rule and reign over the earth with Him.
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I still see validity in some amount of dispensational thinking, but I believe there is some error in it as well. I am significantly literal in my views and interpretation, but I can poke holes in a strict literal approach. I do think God has dealt with man under some "phases" of His administration, but I do not fully agree with how dispensationalists have handled what I call the "Audiences of God".
Every prophetic speaking is addressed to an audience. As I read my Bible over the years, I began to realize that I could connect most of these audiences (directly or indirectly) back to Genesis 10 (aka "table of nations"). This table includes both God's OT people, the enemies of God's OT people and other more distant lands who didn't interact with God's OT people.
Even now, there remain unfulfilled prophecies to various "Audiences of God" that were composed under one "dispensation". The transition to a new "dispensation" has not invalidated God's word or the audience it is addressed to. We have to map forward these audiences captured in the Old Testament to the equivalent audience in the time the prophecy is fulfilled. For this forum topic, we are interested in how these audiences map to the End Times.
I have thought quite a bit about how this type of mapping can work. For example, let's use one particular audience to think about the mapping process... Greece.
Genesis 10:2-5
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2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 And the sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5 From these the coastland peoples spread out through their lands, each according to his own language by their own families, in their nations.
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Greece comes from the 4th son of Japheth, Javan. Greece is part of the coastland peoples as denoted in Genesis 10:5 ("from these the coastland peoples spread out"). Historians and Bible scholars agree that the name "Javan" mutates to "Ion" (i.e. the Ionians) who are the peoples of Greece. Greece is a nation that has been known down through the ages up until the present time. They are also a culture (Hellenism) that has influenced many other cultures throughout the ages. The Greek culture and way of thinking is important in New Testament time as seen through Paul's writings (ex: 1 Cor 1:22 - Jews ask for sign miracles and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified).
Here are a few examples of references to Javan, Greece/Greeks and the coastlands. This is not a full list of references:
- Javan - see Isaiah 66:19 and Zechariah 9:13 (both of these were prophetic when spoken)
- Greece/Greeks - see Daniel 8:21, Joel 3:6, Romans 1:16
- part of "the coastlands" (Genesis 10:5) - see Isaiah 11:11, Isaiah 49:1, Ezekiel 26:18
If you review these examples, you will see that God is specifically targeting prophetic speaking to the Grecian/Greek "people grouping" established in the "table of nations" of Genesis 10. Some of God's targeted prophetic speaking HASN'T HAPPENED YET. So, how do we map God's speaking forward in time???
Methods of Mapping
1. Is it Future bloodline lineal descendants which may not be identifiable as a grouping in modern times?
2. Is it a Future nation, people grouping, and/or culture with the same or changed name?
3. Is it a Future nation, people grouping, and/or culture under the same spiritual dominion with the same OR different name?
4. Is it some combination of #1-#3
I know I cannot give a fully definitive answer and say it is only #1, #2 or #3 or even a combination (#4). I have seen passages that could work with any of these mappings. I have seen other passages where only one of these "methods of mapping" seems to make any sense. I do not presume to be able to resolve this challenge, but instead I hold the relevant scripture in my mind "loosely" as God's word that will be fulfilled exactly as it was said to "Audience of God" to whom He directed it.
I don't let my ideas of "dispensationalism" override the direct prophetic speaking of God even though I cannot fully comprehend the meaning of some of these prophetic speakings. The main point of sharing this in response to your comment about dispensationalism is to introduce the idea of the "Audiences of God" and that as I have read what The Author of these prophecies has said and the audiences that The Author uses I find that I rarely even consider the word "dispensation" or "dispensationalism". After a while, I realized that some of what I was learning sometimes cut through dispensational thinking. This doesn't destroy the idea dispensationalism. I have just learned to put "dispensational thinking" in it's place. It is a conceptualization of man (not God) about the truth of God's word and its application across the ages which may not hold up.
The ("I don't think there is a resurrection") Saduccees found out about how their reasoning and conceptualization of the topic of resurrection held up when they spoke to The Author.
Matthew 22:29
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But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God!
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I know it may not seem relevant to focus on the "Audiences of God" in prophecy, but when we change our example from Javan/Ionian/Greece (or Greek) to the people groupings in Israel it becomes very interesting. When I started reading the Bible with the "Audiences of God" and further understanding these audiences, the entire history of Israel changed in my understanding. As my understanding changed, so did my interpretation of some End Times prophecies.
Matt
p.s. next comes the rapture...