Book review: Israel the Church and the Middle East

Paul Henebury's book review HERE

BTW, he's doing a series on The Primacy of Revelation. The following is a quote from the first installment:

The doctrine of revelation does not promote autonomy but dependence on God; dependence on God not just for our everyday needs, but also for our everyday thinking. This outlook is inextricably bound to the Bible and our faith in it. ~ Paul Henebury.

Inerrancy was Really the Issue

The weeks prior to the recent meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention saw a strange phenomenon that surrounded the controversy over Paige Patterson. Everyone seemed willing to pitch in and pile on. Molly Marshall smelled blood in the water and made her comments about the Conservative Resurgence as a guise for maintaining male domination of the theological world. Brian McClaren entered the picture with a renewed criticism of the unhealthy authoritarianism and narrowness that undergirds the spirit that seems to need an infallible authority. Others have revisited the CR with suspicions that misogyny always lay behind the quest, while the prized Elysium of political control always overshadowed the effort. Certainly personal power and prestige must be the true driving motivation for such a disruptive and challenging movement. Now, so they say, all of these motives have been revealed and have turned on their original propagators with ironical justice...keep reading

Futurist Pre-Wrath Post-Tribulationist?

What is a Futurist Pre-Wrath Post-Tribulationist? The question stems from a brief discussion I followed on a prewrath forum. Some of the folks there seemed confused about this alleged self-description by Joel Richardson.

One lady suggested that Richardson was referring to prewrath/posttrib without committing to either camp. This lady has a YouTube ministry followed by the prewrath/posttrib folk. I once asked her a question which - I think - exposed her posttrib position. Either that or she's confused. Yet she wouldn't commit to a position when asked directly. Her response was that they were similar and that her goal was to confront pretribulationism.

I get that. The similarity lies in the fact that both views see the church going through the great tribulation, contra pretribulationism (and midtrib). However, the views are quite different.

Back to Joel Richardson: I may stand to be corrected but I believe he's now a proponent of the prewrath view. If that's the case his self-description is appropriate.

Richardson is a Futurist because he takes a futurist view of prophecy (Revelation etc). He's Pre-Wrath given the name is a distinction of the Van Kampen-Rosenthal view (rapture before wrath of God), and he's posttrib because he sees the rapture occurring after the church has gone through the great tribulation (wrath of God after tribulation & rapture).

The Gnostic World of John Walton

Walton has become accessible to a broader range of "prophecy enthusiasts" via the writings of Michael Heiser. In fact Heiser has been complementary to theistic evolutionist Peter Enns. But that's best left for a possible future blog. For the moment, the following article discussing John Walton is very interesting and important:

The history of the church includes well-meaning scholars who introduce ideas that undermine Biblical authority. This is the case with the gifted Old Testament professor Dr. John Walton.

Dr. Walton teaches at Wheaton College. Last November, in preparation for a campus showing of our film Is Genesis History?, he provided a paper for professors to pass out to students. Entitled “Is Genesis Real History?,” it outlined his unique perspective on how to interpret the book of Genesis. (You can read it here.)

A number of students were troubled by what they read. Dr. Walton seemed to be questioning whether the Bible could be used to know what actually happened in the past. His ideas were complex, however, and some students were not sure what to make of them.

One student asked if I would respond. Although there are a number of observations I can make, his paper should first be placed in context of his prior work and affiliations...keep reading

Walking in the Spirit - Sinclair Ferguson

Can we know about prophecy?

Eschatos Ministry recently spent some time addressing the question about whether we can know about prophecy HERE.

Obviously there are some things where I am in disagreement with Alan. He's more confident of his rapture timing position than I am in mine. There may be some curve balls coming but the Bible is clear regarding future Israel and a future millennium. Moreover, as Alan Kurschner notes, Jesus expected the disciples to know about Him through reading Moses and the prophets.

People like William Lane Craig and even Michael Heiser are prophecy agnostics. I find it ironic especially with Dr Heiser given that he's quite sure of some things in the Bible concerning his particular realm of interest. Perhaps in the future I might blog some more on this.

The Unseen Realm

Can We Trust Prophecy?

Jeff Durbin Responds To Andy Stanley

A long one but worth watching.

The Only True God

I first came across Brad Klassen through a recent book High King of Heaven which I reviewed HERE. His chapter contribution was titled Christ and the Completion of the Canon (p 193).

Grace Church has made available a series of Klassen's lectures on the attributes of God under the title The Only True God. Each sermon can be downloaded as an MP3 file.