Category Archives: Optimism

WHY THE LOCAL CHURCH IS TRENDING UP

Church, missions, Optimism July 5, 2016 Comments: 2

PMT 2016-048 by Brian DouglasUPward

Fear for the church’s future is trending. It’s almost too easy nowadays to fall into despair: Christians’ interactions with culture and politics can often seem clumsy or foolish, and you don’t have to look far for biblical compromise, destructive power-plays, or “scandal du jour” moral failure. Compounding the problem is the fact that the modern church has been shattered into 30,000 to 42,000 denominations (depending on which study you read)-a degree of division that further damages its credibility. Continue reading →

MUSLIMS TURNING TO CHRIST

missions, News, Non-eschatology Studies, Optimism June 17, 2016 Leave a comment

Muslim Christian 2PMT 2016-043 by David Garrison

(Ken Gentry: The following article by church historian David Garrison, Ph.D., was published in The Aquila Report (June 7, 2016). It contains encouraging research regarding Muslim conversions, which would fit postmillennial long-term expectations.)

Ten-year-old Nadia wasn’t surprised when her father signed her marriage contract, nor when she had to move in with her 20-year-old husband two years later. Nadia’s experience is not unusual in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It also wasn’t out of the ordinary when her husband became an opium addict (Iran has the highest rate of drug addiction in the world). Two of Nadia’s brothers also succumbed to drugs. One was sentenced to prison for killing a man in a drug-related dispute, the other committed suicide. One day Nadia’s cousin who had recently become a Christian quietly gave her a New Testament in the Persian language.

Nadia prayed, ‘Allah, show me your truth.’ As she read it, Nadia said, ‘I felt my heart open like an old door. Inside I felt very warm and thirsty. It was like drinking cool water, and I wanted to drink it all.

‘From that time on,’ Nadia recalls, ‘Jesus’ work started in me. It was a strange happiness like nothing I’d ever known.’ Within a week she’d led her husband and three children to faith in Jesus. Continue reading →

THE GREATEST TURNING OF MUSLIMS TO CHRIST

News, Optimism December 9, 2015 Leave a comment

Behead ChristiansPMT 2015-148 by Lucinda Borkett-Jones (The Aquila Report)

Despite the daily news of the persecution of Christians around the world by Islamist groups, there is another, lesser-known story of growing numbers of Muslims around the world who are turning to Christ as Lord.

Missionary David Garrison’s book, A Wind in the House of Islam, charts this phenomenon, which he says demonstrates that “we are living in the midst of the greatest turning of Muslims to Christ in history”. Continue reading →

GOD’S WORD AND OUR HOPE

Optimism November 16, 2015 Comments: 2

Bible light 2PMT 2015-137 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

We are postmillennialists not because our hearts long for a better world for our children. We are postmillennialists not because we judge from the progress of history that things are better today for Christianity than they were in the days of Nero. Rather we are postmillennialists because God’s word presents us with the hope of the conquest of the gospel in the world.

God’s word is creative, providential, prophetic, and restorative. History truly genuinely “his story.” God creates the world and man for his own glory (Ro 11:36; Rev 4:11). Continue reading →

MAJOR MINISTRY OPPORTUNITY FOR AMERICAN VISION

Optimism September 25, 2015 1 Comment

PMT 2015-115American Vision

This is a republication of a recent American Vision newsletter notice. It speaks to the concerns of postmillennialists. It is written by Joel McDurmon. Here it is:

For some time, we at American Vision have considered expanding our ministry to a more international scope. Over time, we will certainly do this in a more official capacity, but sometimes God makes your plans for you. Sometimes He just places things in your path and makes you deal with them before you thought you were ready.

We already have readers and partners all over the world: many parts of Europe and the UK, several countries in Central and South America, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, a few countries in Africa, and more. But this has always been informal. Continue reading →

MUSLIM REFUGEES CONVERTING IN DROVES

Optimism September 23, 2015 Leave a comment

Iranian converts to ChristPMT 2015-114 by Kirsten Grieshaber

BERLIN (AP) — Mohammed Ali Zonoobi bends his head as the priest pours holy water over his black hair. “Will you break away from Satan and his evil deeds?” pastor Gottfried Martens asks the Iranian refugee. “Will you break away from Islam?”

“Yes,” Zonoobi fervently replies. Spreading his hands in blessing, Martens then baptizes the man “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”

Mohammed is now Martin — no longer Muslim, but Christian. Continue reading →

IS WORLD VIOLENCE DECLINING?

Objections, Optimism August 28, 2015 Comments: 4

Obama work donePMT 2015-103

Postmillennialism’s distinctive element is the conviction that Scripture teaches that the gospel and righteousness will dominate the world for a long period of time before Christ returns. And that this will occur as the Great Commission progresses in its saving work among men. This is also its most doubted and debated point. Each of the other eschatological perspectives predicts the world will get worse until Christ comes to rescue us out of it and effect the Last Judgment.

Postmillennialists have a powerful response to those who see no improvement in world conditions since the first century and the Neronic persecution of Christianity as a minority class. Continue reading →