Tag Archives: heretics

2 TIM 3 (# 10): PERSECUTION OR PROGRESS?

Last Days, Pessimism February 2, 2015 Leave a comment

Persecution 2PMT-2015-015 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

In my ongoing survey of 2 Tim 3 we have seen that Paul is dealing with first-century issues in this pastoral epistle. He is not writing to his beleaguered ministerial associate Timothy about events to occur 2000 years in the future. He is not sending him the rules for playing pin the horns on the Antichrist. He does not have him guessing the date of the rapture for fun and profit. He is directly confronting the heresies and immorality that are currently afflicting the Ephesian church in Timothy’s day.

(Important aside: Note that Paul did not attach to his second letter to Timothy a four-color, 8 foot long, 3 foot high parchment time-line chart of the rapture, great tribulation, battle of Armageddon, return of Christ, and millennium. This is proof that he is not dispensational: what dispensationalist could resist the temptation to create a chart? I rest my case.) Continue reading →

2 TIM 3 (# 8): DESPAIR OR HOPE?

Last Days, Pessimism, Preterism January 28, 2015 Leave a comment

False facePMT-2015-013 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

The Apostle Paul presents us with helpful insights into the postmillennial hope. We see some of his strongest material (which serves as a good foundation for the postmillennial hope) in Rom 11 and 1 Cor 15. And yet Paul makes some statements that cause us to wonder about his long-term view of history. Second Tim 3 is deemed by the adherents to pessimistic eschatologies to be destructive of postmillennialism.

What are postmillennialists to say in response?

Introduction

This is my eighth article in a study of this famous “last days” passage. Basically I have been pointing out that Paul is speaking to Timothy about issues he is facing in the first century. As with all of the New Testament Scripture, we may apply his statements beyond the first century — when similar conditions prevail. Yet, I do not believe Paul is prophesying that history will always be filled with “difficult times” until the end. Continue reading →