PMW 2022-033 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
Below is a humorous article on dealing with dispensationalists. Continue reading
God's Hope for God's World
PMW 2022-033 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
Below is a humorous article on dealing with dispensationalists. Continue reading
PMW 2021-036 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
Evangelical laymen love to hear about the book of Revelation. Unfortunately, they tend to approach it as if it were a child’s toy. Many of contemporary dispensationalism’s best-sellers focus on Revelation. In a childish, shallow way.
We must recognize that even the trained, diligent scholar must approach Revelation with extreme caution, humbly recognizing that he is opening a book that has perplexed the finest minds and confounded the most godly saints throughout Christian history.
Gaius of Rome (d. 296) laments that “having formed an idea of it as a composition exceeding my capacity of understanding, I regard it as containing a kind of hidden and wonderful intelligence on the several subjects which come under it. For though I cannot comprehend it, I still suspect that there is some deeper sense underlying the words. And I do not measure and judge its expressions by the standard of my own reason, but, making more allowance for faith, I have simply regarded them as too lofty for my comprehension; and I do not forthwith reject what I do not understand, but I am only the more filled with wonder at it, in that I have not been able to discern its import” (Dion., Works 1:1:3). Continue reading
PMW 2019-063 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
Dispensationalists are prone to boast that Revelation 20 presents their system in clear and certain terms. They often declare that they can go to one text of Scripture and find their system. Unfortunately, this is not the case. This text actually presents them with serious problems. Consider the following.
First, the concluding period of earth history, which experiences the glorious victory of Christ, is a thousand years long, but its length appears in only one chapter of the entire Bible. Continue reading
PMT 2014-046 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
Revelation is a book as fascinating as it is difficult. Unfortunately, it is made more difficult by approaching it in the wrong way and viewing it through out-of-focus lenses. In our day the naive dispensational view is the dominant evangelical approach to eschatology — despite its many and continuing failed predictions of the date of the rapture and its erroneous identitifying of the Antichrist.
So many Christians have been raised in this system that they cannot even understand any other approach. This makes reasoning with them extremely difficult. In fact, reasoning with a populist dispensationalist is a lot like saddling a cow: It is a whole lot of work and there is not much point in it. Continue reading
PMT 2013-031 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
I am continuing a critique of dispensationalism’s gap theory for Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophecy. In my last posting I presented four of their arguments with my rebuttals. I will continue now with the fifth and final dispensational argument.
Fifth, the order within the prophecy: “In the record of the prophecy, the destruction of the city [v. 26b] is placed before the last week [v. 27a].” 1 Since this occurs in A.D. 70, we must allow a gap to account for it.
This argument overlooks the peculiarities of Hebrew poetic style. Oriental expression often confounds the Occidental concern for chronological succession; the Western framework may not be foisted upon the passage. This “revelational pattern” 2 allows a parallel rehearsal and expansion of the topic without requiring actual succession in time. Even classic dispensationalists understand that some prophetic passages do not flow chronologically. 3 A better understanding of the relation between verses 26 and 27 is given above. Continue reading
PMT 2013-030 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
Dispensationalism interposes this gap or parenthesis between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth weeks; it spans the entire Church Age from the Triumphal Entry to the Rapture.1 The dispensational arguments for a gap of undetermined length between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks are not convincing. Let us consider the leading arguments for this gap. I will state the argument briefly with some documentation and then respond.
First, the peculiar phraseology in Daniel: Daniel places the cutting off of the Messiah “after the 62 ‘sevens,’ not in the 70th ‘seven.’” 2 This allows for a gap between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks. If the cutting off does not occur in the sixty-ninth or the seventieth weeks, there must be a gap wherein it does occur. Continue reading
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