It’s now official. Kirk Cameron’s been hanging around with Darren Doane and Gary DeMar. He’s left the erroneous theology of Tim LaHaye’s silly books behind and embraced the optimism of postmillennialism — the Biblical teaching that the gospel will be victorious in history, through self-sacrifice.
Cheer up, you dispies. It’s not the end of the world.
“…there is a historical difference between toleration and religious liberty, even if we sometimes use the two terms interchangeably today. Toleration puts up with minority religious believers because it is more convenient; religious freedom declares that they are allowed to practice their faith, privately and publicly, not because the government has given them permission, but because the permission is not the government’s to withhold.” — Nathaniel Peters, Should Christians Be Wary of Conscience Talk?
James Jordan is never afraid to throw a new idea on the table. As he says, “that’s my job.” But he’s also ever quick to remind his audience that what he has said is never the last word on a subject.
This post concerns the Covenant-literary structure of 2 Thessalonians 2. The context and audience are first century, but it amazes me how willing we modern Christians are to do intricate hermeneutical acrobatics to avoid the obvious conclusion that the particular “coming” of Christ referred to here was also a first century event – the end of the Old Covenant in AD70.
A reasonably close look at the text makes it inescapable. A very close analysis makes it inexcusable, especially once we are versed in the literary mechanics of the Bible Matrix. Continue reading
One of the hyperpreterist/full preterist [1] gents made a keen observation after reading my article Covenant is the Key: Moses vs. Hyperpreterism. My argument was that since the Revelation follows the Covenant structure laid down in the Torah (and echoed throughout the Bible), we should expect the final section of the book to concern the future, otherwise known as Continuity or Succession.
The counterargument was that this section did concern the future when John wrote the book, but that we are living beyond that future now, and there is no final event or consummation. The only consummation was AD70.
This is a really good argument, but it does two things. Firstly, it makes nonsense of their own argument that Revelation 20 is another viewpoint of the events surrounding the end of Judaism in AD70. Also, it fails to take into account the structure and contents of Revelation 20 itself.
The prophets were God’s “Covenant sheriffs,” hammering on the door with the broken contract like repo men from hell. They don’t want your car. They want your blood.
It should not surprise us when their words follow the Covenant structure. The first chapter of Joel is, once you know what you are looking at, a beauty and a terror. The prophet uses the Annual Feasts as a theme. It turns out that the Lord’s rebellious people will be the meat on the table.
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Everything the Lord does is like building a house. He forms it and then fills it. Man’s domain has boundaries, or external walls, and every delegated sub-domain is formed with internal walls. These are all spaces to fill.
“The modernist sees the Bible not as a revelation from God to man but as a history of certain (arbitrary) thoughts of men about God, wrapped in environment-friendly disposable packaging. Theology becomes a process of wringing the text for these abstract truths. These ‘truths’ are refined out of the ‘flux’ of the Biblical history and defined by their inability to contradict our own thinking.
Mike Bull is a graphic designer who lives and works in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia. His passion is understanding and teaching the Bible, and he writes occasionally for Theopolis Institute in Birmingham AL, USA.