As a church we use the NKJV, personally I (Joshua) use the KJV, and I can't think of instances where eschatological error seems to have impacted the translation. There's a lot more than that, though, that goes into choosing a Bible translation. We have an episode titled "Making Sense of All the Bible Translations" where we get into a lot more detail.
One of the main issues I always find is that those that don't believe in premil often do not have a clear understanding of what those who do actually believe and why they believe it. Many times they go listen to those who believe premil, but do not have any real understanding of it instead of finding a good full study by a solid teacher that addresses all of their concerns regarding premil eschatology. While there are some who believe some of the wild accusations thrown around in this video, it is often used to throw all premil eschatology under the bus. When the people in videos on this put down people who believe a different eschatology, it is very difficult to finish and try to understand your side of things. Instead of insinuating that those that believe premil are ignorant or immature, if you just speak to the issues you have with premil and back it up with scripture, it will make it much easier to see your point of view. It is easy to tear down those who do not have a full understanding of premil eschatology and I get why you go after those people, but I want a solid full explanation of what is wrong with premil from a scriptural view that addresses a solid teacher's study instead of going after low hanging fruit. You guys are really solid on many subjects and I appreciate you taking your time to try to educate others. I have learned a lot from this channel and hope to learn much more.
I apologize for the delay in responding to you. My youngest child somehow got hold of poison ivy leaves and got the rash all over her face. A few other children got it as well along with my wife (who woke up to a bouquet of leaves on her nightstand which she sleepily grabbed hold of and possibly smelled before realizing what they were.) Long story, short, it was a busy couple of weeks.) But I do want to respond to two different aspects of your comment. The first is regarding whether dispensationalism is being accurately represented and the second is the method we are using to attack dispensationalism. 1. So I grew up in dispensational churches. I was a diehard dispensationalist until I was in my late 20s, and then for the next couple of years, I was probably much closer to a MacArthur dispensationalist (holding to Calvinistic soteriology, but eschatologically believing in the earthly promises to Israel, the rapture, the tribulation, etc) That lasted until my mid-30’s roughly and due to hermeneutical changes, dispensationalism stopped making sense, and I moved to some form of optimistic amillennialism. I say all that, because I want you to understand that I’ve read dispensational authors from the 1800s through to the 2000s and while I have no doubt that there are variations of dispensationalism that I (and the other panelists) are not familiar with, our main problem isn’t a lack of familiarity with the subject. The other issue with dispensationalism (that a lot of dispensationalists aren’t aware of) is that while dispensationalism as a view of the Bible was initially systematized and promoted by John Nelson Darby, a leader among the Plymouth brethren, the other thing that he brought to dispensationalism from the Brethren was a spirit of schismatism. Plymouth Brethren are known for being schismatic and continually separating into smaller and smaller groups over their differences and this attitude came to be very prevalent within dispensational churches, with localized “flavors” being very common. In some ways, John MacArthur has been good for dispensationalism because he’s been a unifying force. And because of his prominence I think it’s easy to say only his current, most modern view of dispensationalism is what matters, but what I’ve found is that often the “crazier” part of dispensationalism (what I think you would probably refer to as “wild accusations”) really are the logical conclusions of interpreting scripture according to the stated hermeneutical principles of dispensationalism. In fact, there was a podcast by a mid-Acts dispensationalist that a commenter mentioned to me about a month or so ago who walked through the history of dispensationalism, and what he said is that along the way, dispensationalism was being attacked by the Presbyterians and the Calvinists because they said, what you are teaching denies that all men are saved by the blood of Christ, and he makes the point that because of these attacks the leading dispensationalists changed their teaching so that the Jews were not saved by faith and works, but by faith alone in Christ. But then he said: And of course, we reject their version of dispensationalism because it is not consistent with how dispensationalism views the covenants and how we view the proper way to interpret the scriptures. So, basically, he argues that dispensational hermeneutics, properly applied, will conclude that Old Testament Jews were saved by faith and works, not faith alone. And I think he’s correct about where dispensationalist principles will lead you if they are followed consistently. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that John MacArthur has denied that Old Testament saints were saved by faith and works. I’m glad that he believes in election and God’s absolute sovereignty over salvation. But to get there, he’s had to hold inconsistent views on how he interprets scripture (particularly when it comes to Israel and eschatology). So, what I want to stress with my first point is this. I don’t want you to think we’re just picking up crazy or wild theories about dispensationalism. I can understand why you might feel like we’re being unfair, but I want to do my best to assure you that we aren’t trying to be sensational. And that leads to the second thing I wanted to say. 2. We ARE very purposefully trying to go after low-hanging fruit first. We talk a lot about strongholds on this podcast. My thought is that a stronghold is a set of wrong ideas that have been established over time. They become entrenched and harden their position over time. But as I was talking about in my first point, dispensationalism has always been fairly schismatic, and John MacArthur in as much as he has unified many dispensationalists, has also (unintentionally) weakened dispensationalism as a coherent and cohesive system of thought (by rejecting some of the basic tenets of classical dispensationalism). Today, many people who call themselves dispensationalists now only mean that God is going to restore Israel and that there will be a rapture. They don’t bother dividing history into all these dispensations, they don’t talk about each “administration” as if grace was given differently, they just view them as God teaching man different things throughout history. So, in a real sense, I see dispensationalism as a systematic view of scripture as falling apart. And to knock down a structure, you don’t have to topple every part of it, you just have to collapse one or more central supports. To disprove a theory, you don’t have to deal with everything it claims, you just have to point out its fundamental problems so that people abandon it. For me, what established my optimistic view of eschatology was a study of Deuteronomy. I realized that God’s law had power. And that if the reign of Solomon could exist through the means of the law and Old Testament shadows without the people of Israel being converted then why couldn’t Christ through his Holy Spirit and his word subdue the world without bringing salvation? But dispensationalism as a system had been overturned in my mind years before when I realized I could no longer recreate it from scratch by reading the Bible. I would read the covenants and see not some temporary administration but promises that, to me, were clearly fulfilled in Christ. And so, I readily want to admit that we are trying to point out fundamental problems with dispensational eschatology. Having said all that (and I’m sorry for the length), I don’t want us to give the impression that we look down on dispensationalists. And I do think it makes sense to do some episodes dealing with John MacArthur’s version of dispensationalism. It might make sense to do a more in-depth look at dispensational hermeneutics perhaps by looking at the writings of Dr. Michael Vlach (a doctor at Master’s Seminary and author of books on dispensationalism that are sold through Pastor John MacArthur’s ministries. I have one of his books on dispensationalism and I think that could be useful. Let me know what you think and if it’s worthwhile.
@@TheConqueringTruth no need to apologize! I am so sorry to hear about your daughter and wife! I hope they are feeling better now. I have not listened to much of John MacArthur's revelation study personally and have not read that book. I do believe there are a lot of wrong views in the dispensational camp and it is important to address those, I have just struggled to find any real critique of a solid "leaky dispensational" (as John MacArthur calls it) view. The best study I have personally come across is the study by Stephen Armstrong from Verse by Verse Ministry International which is free. I want to know where the hermeneutics he uses break down if they do. I am willing to change my view if given solid biblical evidence to support a change of view, I just have not found it. Everyone is likely wrong somewhere in their interpretation of scripture so I am open to other viewpoints. I think my expectations for this video were likely too high. I look forward to future videos. Thank you guys for taking the time to do these as they have been enlightening.
I think the word "Dismantling" probably set the bar too high in some ways. It's always difficult to title these both engagingly, and descriptively. It's amazing what the difference between a good and bad title can do for a video. I struggle with it because we want to be honest and marketing often feels "icky" but is a very real part of the world that God has made.
I appreciate that rather than referring to the pre- mill nature of dispensationalism, you guys continue to refer to the issue of dispensationalism. I would consider myself partial purist post mil. I do find more than premillennialism that dispensationalism is potentially if not, obviously heresy. I would be curious, as to whether you would condemn it that strongly or not
This series of visions was given to John to report to the churches. How can we possibly take seriously some nut who tries to ride on a horse balancing a bunch of crowns on his head? And clearly this is a circus freak show, because this guy on the horse has eyes like a flame of fire. And who is going to show himself with dirty clothes? And he seems to have a banner with his name but so cheaply written that it is illegible. And can you imagine if OSHA saw this; this guy rides a horse with a sword protruding out of his mouth! Talk about a circus act! Yes, this is the vision that John saw, but it is so freaky, so ODD that we can just dismiss this freaky character! But he is just one of many characters that we can laugh off. You are correct, a literal physical metal chain will not restrain Satan, a spiritual being, therefore we can totally dismiss the notion that Satan will be prevented from deceiving the nations for any length of time. God must be pretty inept if He tries to restrain Satan with a physical chain! And what a push over God is, to attempt to lock some kind of bottomless pit with a key! Ha Ha. Oh, yea, and the guy on the horse kills people with the sword in his mouth! I wish that I could have shared this story with my buddies in the Marines. I did need to carry a large blade in my mouth once for climbing. But I didn't intend to kill anybody with it. That's what my 45 was for. And, sure that thousand years certainly doesn't exist at all. Thousand is a strange number. Don't remember anybody ever using the number thousand. What a joke. And resurrection; get serious! Keys, chains, Satan, lots of other nasty very distasteful characters, bottomless pits, guys on horses with firey eyes and swords in their mouths, resurrections of lots of headless people.. sure! This looks like a set for a film version of a JRR Tolkein novel. So I agree with you guys. This is all a myth. Nothing here to be taken seriously. After all, the physical chain in John's vision could never be intended to represent a spiritual chain which God might design that actually could restrain Satan. We can be sure that God's capabilities are not that extensive. And, anyway , do we really believe that God is actually, really able to restrain Satan? I doubt that!
Good stuff for the most part... I have to say as a former pre-trib dispensationalist for fifteen years, I nor anyone I know or knew who were dispensationalists and or pre trib Ever used that escatology as a reason to justify sinning or to not preach the gospel. I have many things against pre trib dispensationalism, But I find your missed characterizing Dispensationalist when you say That purifying themselves isnt important to them cause they think the world is just gonna get worse... I'm sorry that's just not true, That's not what they say or think.
It isn't that dispensationalist overtly think that they aren't seeking Holiness or purity. It's that dispensationalism teaches that God is planning to bring the work of the church to failure on Earth (in the sense of how it impacts the world and constrains sin) and that thinking causes you to think differently about the power of God's word.. so it's sort of like if a person didn't think that a stain could be gotten out of a garment they wouldn't keep scrubbing, they would just be satisfied when it got to the level of clean that they think of as reasonable. And at least for me, one of the ways that God used his word to wake me up to the errors of dispensationalism was by becoming aware of the dissonance between how God's word talked about the power of his Word and His Holy Spirit and how I thought about it. I hope that makes sense.
@@TheConqueringTruth how you thought about it? Sounds like sin that you should have repented of and forsaken. Let the Holy Spirit do His job. It appears that you never really understood dispensationalism, from your ignorant criticisms. Your attacks are based on your evil imaginings of what YOU might think, not on what dispensationalism actually teaches.
What translation doesn’t have eschatological problems?
As a church we use the NKJV, personally I (Joshua) use the KJV, and I can't think of instances where eschatological error seems to have impacted the translation. There's a lot more than that, though, that goes into choosing a Bible translation. We have an episode titled "Making Sense of All the Bible Translations" where we get into a lot more detail.
@@TheConqueringTruth gotcha thanks.
One of the main issues I always find is that those that don't believe in premil often do not have a clear understanding of what those who do actually believe and why they believe it. Many times they go listen to those who believe premil, but do not have any real understanding of it instead of finding a good full study by a solid teacher that addresses all of their concerns regarding premil eschatology. While there are some who believe some of the wild accusations thrown around in this video, it is often used to throw all premil eschatology under the bus.
When the people in videos on this put down people who believe a different eschatology, it is very difficult to finish and try to understand your side of things. Instead of insinuating that those that believe premil are ignorant or immature, if you just speak to the issues you have with premil and back it up with scripture, it will make it much easier to see your point of view. It is easy to tear down those who do not have a full understanding of premil eschatology and I get why you go after those people, but I want a solid full explanation of what is wrong with premil from a scriptural view that addresses a solid teacher's study instead of going after low hanging fruit.
You guys are really solid on many subjects and I appreciate you taking your time to try to educate others. I have learned a lot from this channel and hope to learn much more.
I don't want you to think we're ignoring this. We really appreciate replies like this. I should be able to respond in the new couple of day.
I apologize for the delay in responding to you. My youngest child somehow got hold of poison ivy leaves and got the rash all over her face. A few other children got it as well along with my wife (who woke up to a bouquet of leaves on her nightstand which she sleepily grabbed hold of and possibly smelled before realizing what they were.) Long story, short, it was a busy couple of weeks.)
But I do want to respond to two different aspects of your comment. The first is regarding whether dispensationalism is being accurately represented and the second is the method we are using to attack dispensationalism.
1. So I grew up in dispensational churches. I was a diehard dispensationalist until I was in my late 20s, and then for the next couple of years, I was probably much closer to a MacArthur dispensationalist (holding to Calvinistic soteriology, but eschatologically believing in the earthly promises to Israel, the rapture, the tribulation, etc) That lasted until my mid-30’s roughly and due to hermeneutical changes, dispensationalism stopped making sense, and I moved to some form of optimistic amillennialism. I say all that, because I want you to understand that I’ve read dispensational authors from the 1800s through to the 2000s and while I have no doubt that there are variations of dispensationalism that I (and the other panelists) are not familiar with, our main problem isn’t a lack of familiarity with the subject. The other issue with dispensationalism (that a lot of dispensationalists aren’t aware of) is that while dispensationalism as a view of the Bible was initially systematized and promoted by John Nelson Darby, a leader among the Plymouth brethren, the other thing that he brought to dispensationalism from the Brethren was a spirit of schismatism. Plymouth Brethren are known for being schismatic and continually separating into smaller and smaller groups over their differences and this attitude came to be very prevalent within dispensational churches, with localized “flavors” being very common. In some ways, John MacArthur has been good for dispensationalism because he’s been a unifying force. And because of his prominence I think it’s easy to say only his current, most modern view of dispensationalism is what matters, but what I’ve found is that often the “crazier” part of dispensationalism (what I think you would probably refer to as “wild accusations”) really are the logical conclusions of interpreting scripture according to the stated hermeneutical principles of dispensationalism. In fact, there was a podcast by a mid-Acts dispensationalist that a commenter mentioned to me about a month or so ago who walked through the history of dispensationalism, and what he said is that along the way, dispensationalism was being attacked by the Presbyterians and the Calvinists because they said, what you are teaching denies that all men are saved by the blood of Christ, and he makes the point that because of these attacks the leading dispensationalists changed their teaching so that the Jews were not saved by faith and works, but by faith alone in Christ. But then he said: And of course, we reject their version of dispensationalism because it is not consistent with how dispensationalism views the covenants and how we view the proper way to interpret the scriptures. So, basically, he argues that dispensational hermeneutics, properly applied, will conclude that Old Testament Jews were saved by faith and works, not faith alone. And I think he’s correct about where dispensationalist principles will lead you if they are followed consistently. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that John MacArthur has denied that Old Testament saints were saved by faith and works. I’m glad that he believes in election and God’s absolute sovereignty over salvation. But to get there, he’s had to hold inconsistent views on how he interprets scripture (particularly when it comes to Israel and eschatology). So, what I want to stress with my first point is this. I don’t want you to think we’re just picking up crazy or wild theories about dispensationalism. I can understand why you might feel like we’re being unfair, but I want to do my best to assure you that we aren’t trying to be sensational. And that leads to the second thing I wanted to say.
2. We ARE very purposefully trying to go after low-hanging fruit first. We talk a lot about strongholds on this podcast. My thought is that a stronghold is a set of wrong ideas that have been established over time. They become entrenched and harden their position over time. But as I was talking about in my first point, dispensationalism has always been fairly schismatic, and John MacArthur in as much as he has unified many dispensationalists, has also (unintentionally) weakened dispensationalism as a coherent and cohesive system of thought (by rejecting some of the basic tenets of classical dispensationalism). Today, many people who call themselves dispensationalists now only mean that God is going to restore Israel and that there will be a rapture. They don’t bother dividing history into all these dispensations, they don’t talk about each “administration” as if grace was given differently, they just view them as God teaching man different things throughout history. So, in a real sense, I see dispensationalism as a systematic view of scripture as falling apart. And to knock down a structure, you don’t have to topple every part of it, you just have to collapse one or more central supports. To disprove a theory, you don’t have to deal with everything it claims, you just have to point out its fundamental problems so that people abandon it. For me, what established my optimistic view of eschatology was a study of Deuteronomy. I realized that God’s law had power. And that if the reign of Solomon could exist through the means of the law and Old Testament shadows without the people of Israel being converted then why couldn’t Christ through his Holy Spirit and his word subdue the world without bringing salvation? But dispensationalism as a system had been overturned in my mind years before when I realized I could no longer recreate it from scratch by reading the Bible. I would read the covenants and see not some temporary administration but promises that, to me, were clearly fulfilled in Christ. And so, I readily want to admit that we are trying to point out fundamental problems with dispensational eschatology.
Having said all that (and I’m sorry for the length), I don’t want us to give the impression that we look down on dispensationalists. And I do think it makes sense to do some episodes dealing with John MacArthur’s version of dispensationalism. It might make sense to do a more in-depth look at dispensational hermeneutics perhaps by looking at the writings of Dr. Michael Vlach (a doctor at Master’s Seminary and author of books on dispensationalism that are sold through Pastor John MacArthur’s ministries. I have one of his books on dispensationalism and I think that could be useful. Let me know what you think and if it’s worthwhile.
@@TheConqueringTruth no need to apologize! I am so sorry to hear about your daughter and wife! I hope they are feeling better now.
I have not listened to much of John MacArthur's revelation study personally and have not read that book. I do believe there are a lot of wrong views in the dispensational camp and it is important to address those, I have just struggled to find any real critique of a solid "leaky dispensational" (as John MacArthur calls it) view. The best study I have personally come across is the study by Stephen Armstrong from Verse by Verse Ministry International which is free. I want to know where the hermeneutics he uses break down if they do. I am willing to change my view if given solid biblical evidence to support a change of view, I just have not found it. Everyone is likely wrong somewhere in their interpretation of scripture so I am open to other viewpoints. I think my expectations for this video were likely too high. I look forward to future videos. Thank you guys for taking the time to do these as they have been enlightening.
I think the word "Dismantling" probably set the bar too high in some ways. It's always difficult to title these both engagingly, and descriptively. It's amazing what the difference between a good and bad title can do for a video. I struggle with it because we want to be honest and marketing often feels "icky" but is a very real part of the world that God has made.
I appreciate that rather than referring to the pre- mill nature of dispensationalism, you guys continue to refer to the issue of dispensationalism. I would consider myself partial purist post mil. I do find more than premillennialism that dispensationalism is potentially if not, obviously heresy. I would be curious, as to whether you would condemn it that strongly or not
What Bible version do you guys use????
NKJV
This series of visions was given to John to report to the churches. How can we possibly take seriously some nut who tries to ride on a horse balancing a bunch of crowns on his head? And clearly this is a circus freak show, because this guy on the horse has eyes like a flame of fire. And who is going to show himself with dirty clothes? And he seems to have a banner with his name but so cheaply written that it is illegible. And can you imagine if OSHA saw this; this guy rides a horse with a sword protruding out of his mouth! Talk about a circus act! Yes, this is the vision that John saw, but it is so freaky, so ODD that we can just dismiss this freaky character! But he is just one of many characters that we can laugh off. You are correct, a literal physical metal chain will not restrain Satan, a spiritual being, therefore we can totally dismiss the notion that Satan will be prevented from deceiving the nations for any length of time. God must be pretty inept if He tries to restrain Satan with a physical chain! And what a push over God is, to attempt to lock some kind of bottomless pit with a key! Ha Ha. Oh, yea, and the guy on the horse kills people with the sword in his mouth! I wish that I could have shared this story with my buddies in the Marines. I did need to carry a large blade in my mouth once for climbing. But I didn't intend to kill anybody with it. That's what my 45 was for. And, sure that thousand years certainly doesn't exist at all. Thousand is a strange number. Don't remember anybody ever using the number thousand. What a joke. And resurrection; get serious! Keys, chains, Satan, lots of other nasty very distasteful characters, bottomless pits, guys on horses with firey eyes and swords in their mouths, resurrections of lots of headless people.. sure! This looks like a set for a film version of a JRR Tolkein novel. So I agree with you guys. This is all a myth. Nothing here to be taken seriously. After all, the physical chain in John's vision could never be intended to represent a spiritual chain which God might design that actually could restrain Satan. We can be sure that God's capabilities are not that extensive. And, anyway , do we really believe that God is actually, really able to restrain Satan? I doubt that!
Good stuff for the most part... I have to say as a former pre-trib dispensationalist for fifteen years, I nor anyone I know or knew who were dispensationalists and or pre trib Ever used that escatology as a reason to justify sinning or to not preach the gospel. I have many things against pre trib dispensationalism, But I find your missed characterizing Dispensationalist when you say That purifying themselves isnt important to them cause they think the world is just gonna get worse... I'm sorry that's just not true, That's not what they say or think.
It isn't that dispensationalist overtly think that they aren't seeking Holiness or purity. It's that dispensationalism teaches that God is planning to bring the work of the church to failure on Earth (in the sense of how it impacts the world and constrains sin) and that thinking causes you to think differently about the power of God's word.. so it's sort of like if a person didn't think that a stain could be gotten out of a garment they wouldn't keep scrubbing, they would just be satisfied when it got to the level of clean that they think of as reasonable.
And at least for me, one of the ways that God used his word to wake me up to the errors of dispensationalism was by becoming aware of the dissonance between how God's word talked about the power of his Word and His Holy Spirit and how I thought about it.
I hope that makes sense.
@@TheConqueringTruth how you thought about it? Sounds like sin that you should have repented of and forsaken. Let the Holy Spirit do His job. It appears that you never really understood dispensationalism, from your ignorant criticisms. Your attacks are based on your evil imaginings of what YOU might think, not on what dispensationalism actually teaches.