Dispensationalism

Bad Eschatology, Part 4 – Pretrib History

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The Pretribulation Rapture theory arises from an honest mistake and a corrupt fable – at a time when advances in printing made crazy ideas accessible. Books were the Internet of their time, and an information-starved populace couldn’t get enough. And, when Scofield put Dispensationalism everywhere in his ‘study bible’, it was the final blow.

The Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Seventh Day Adventism, Communism, Eugenics, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, and the Flat Earth movement – all owe their rise to the steam-powered printing press and a 19th century desire for a good story.

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Bad Eschatology, Part 3 – The Pretribulation Rapture

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My favorite pastors believe in a pretribulation rapture. I currently attend a church that holds to a pretrib eschatology. So, my disagreement with this view is no reflection upon anyone’s faithfulness to God. In fact, I normally like pretribbers more than post-tribbers.

However, as your brother in Christ, I am required to point out where you get things wrong, especially if such errors put you in harm’s way.

Just remember what I wrote last week about our tendency to blindness. We are all vulnerable to error, and it’s hard to undo the mistakes that we were taught.

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Bad Eschatology, Part 1 – Introduction

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I dedicated much of my life to the Redemption of Israel. During my 15 years in Jerusalem, nothing was more important. It would be miraculous. It would be awesome. I wanted to be a part of that work of God. But then, our Lord dragged me off to Taiwan, and that’s when I began to see something serious:

The suffering and death of five billion people.

My hyper-positive focus on Israel had left me unable to see a vast catastrophe that would crush our civilization and kill billions. And, because of our bad eschatology, we aren’t able to see what’s coming.

Let’s dig in to all that badness.

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Bad Eschatology And An Announcement

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After getting both books out a month ago, I went looking for what other people believe about Last Days. It has been a fascinating journey through some really bad eschatology. Worse, very few seem to understand why they believe what they believe, and even fewer seem able to understand why people would disagree with their position. That’s bad.

Our pastors have not been giving us the tools to help us understand the Bible, to rightly divide the word of Truth (2 Tim 2:15). And, because we are unable to do so, Christianity has devolved into a team sport, where ours is always right and yours is heresy.

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