Quote:
Originally Posted by Raptor
Here is a summary of premill. from gotquestions.org. (Concerning their view point in their ministry, gotquestions.org supports premillennialism and rejects amillennialism and postmillennialism.)
"Premillennialism is the view that Christ’s second coming will occur prior to His millennial kingdom, and that the millennial kingdom is a literal 1000-year reign of Christ on earth. In order to understand and interpret the passages in Scripture that deal with end-times events, there are two things that must be clearly understood: a proper method of interpreting Scripture and the distinction between Israel (the Jews) and the church (the body of all believers in Jesus Christ).
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First of all, I am not disagreeing with your post (Raptor). I follow your thinking and most of what you share. But...
When this article from gotquestions.org says that there are two things that must be clearly understood, it means that there are two assumptions required for accurate analysis. It makes a "methodology" (proper method of interpreting Scripture) and a "belief" (distinction between Israel/the Jews and the church) central to understanding something. What this means is that if the "methodology" or the "belief" are wrong then everything that follows MAY be off.
I would suggest that both of these two areas are improperly OR insufficiently understood by 99% of christians. Yeah, I know that is a bold statement and I really mean it. I do not say it in a way of condescension, but it is intended to surprise and ask the reader to "think again" and to challenge your "assumptions".
1. The primary method of interpreting Scripture in our modern age is based on a kind of "scientific method" applied to the Bible. The Bible itself does not support this as the exclusive means of interpretation. I think it is possible that the Bible actually teaches against it when it talks about "the Greeks" and their methods. Paul demonstrates a more allegorical approach in several cases and Paul also teaches that we must understand spiritual things with spiritual tools (1 Cor 2:6-15).
Quote:
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1 Cor 2:14 But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (i.e tested).
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The spiritual matters Paul addresses here are beyond the reach of the "natural man" using tools that are constrained to a kind of "scientific method" applied to the Bible. These spiritual tools and the Holy Spirit (as our teacher) do not cast aside our minds or mental abilities, but our method of interpreting Scripture should not be presumptively constrained to a methodology germinated from the realm of science which can only accept as truth the things that are objectively and independently verifiable.
2. The distinction (or lack thereof) between "Israel (the Jews) and the church (the body of all believers in Jesus Christ" is heavily misunderstood. This misunderstanding forms a core pillar of assumption brought into eschatological teaching which is not correct. To get some idea of what I mean here, see the posts titled (
Israel of God on Prophecy - The End Times).
Based on what I have been learning, seeing (i.e. being shown) over the past 20'ish years I can no longer put myself in the bucket of "covenant theology" or "dispensational theology". These frameworks are abstracted conceptions of Scripture which are misleading. Many people construct their beliefs on unreliable foundations (i.e. assumptions) without realizing it.
Lastly, I do not claim to have a perfect view, but I can say that I am able to "tear down" some other views to the extent that it is hard to hold on to these "extra-biblical" abstracted conceptions as truth and as "guiding lights" for understanding the Lord's Second Coming. My journey started, in part, by setting aside these abstracted conceptions (covenant theology and dispensational theology) and reading what God said. This has been a much slower process. God spoke a lot about the End Times, so it has taken years of reading and talking to God for something to form in me that I no longer ascribe to an abstract conception with a label. I take it as person to person communication from another being (God) and I avoid these abstract conceptualizations because they are misleading (at least in part).
Matt
Dear Moderators, I know we have veered a bit off-topic but these underlying concepts that are used to support various interpretations are critical to all interpretations of End Times / Second Coming teachings.
