It goes like this;

Mom; Let me give you this (book, tape, Messianic Jewish calendar, etc.)

Me; I probably won't read it.

Mom; Why won't you let me give you anything good? I'm just trying to give you a gift. Why would anyone argue with the Bible? I listen to Sproul sometimes and don't agree with him, why can't you listen to this? I feel insulted. (pause during which I suspect she's crying) Well, goodbye, dear.

This time she said she knew I wouldn't like the tape, but wanted to give it to me anyway. She pointed out that she's given me Reformed stuff in the past, and says this is as good, but she knows I won't like it. She said if I don't have a tape-player to play it on, she'll buy me one. (I have two, can't use that excuse anymore. Guess where I got them.)

I need to hold the line and not let anyone disqualify me by trying to add something to the Gospel, but isn't there a way to do this that doesn't involve lying or making old ladies cry?

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The man who is disposed to think of his sin as a great calamity, rather than as a heinous crime, is not likely either to reverence God or to respect His law. - John Kennedy, 1873
Meg
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Take it, browse through it, discuss your issues with it when she asks. When she complains that she doesn't like your stance on the issues tell her she should stop giving you things unless she expects to hear what you think of the issues they deal with.

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Adam - Pennsylvania - Baptist

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Good idea, thanks!

You know, that brings up an interesting question: why does dispensationalism create such a heavy emotional investment in believing it?
I mean, it has very little practical application (apart from the politics of supporting Israel).
It has nothing to offer for comfort.
It does not make Scripture interesting, merely sensational.
It is not about Jesus.
Why do people get attached to it?

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Ruben
Moderator
F.P.C.I.
Indiana

Vanities and disguises have covered us, and thereby we are naked; licenciousness hath inflam'd us, and thereby we are frozen; voluptuousness hath fed us, and thereby we are sterved, the fancies and traditions of men have taught and instructed us, and thereby we are ignorant.
John Donne

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Calvinistas Conversando
Teología en Mexico
The Howling Wilderness

Here are a few thoughts that immediately come to mind:

1. I think the pretrib rapture is very comforting to some people.
2. It has been pitched as the literal interpretation and everything is else is therefore seen as liberal.
3. The creation of the political state of Israel gives the teaching some plausibility on the surface level.
4. It is alleged that Reformed theology is "replacement theology" and anti-semitic.
5. Many people are into sensationalism.
6. Things appear to be waxing worse and worse, which is to be expected if the teaching is to be believed.

[Edited on 8-26-2006 by Pilgrim]

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Christian
One Pilgrims Progress

I guess the pretrib rapture could comfort you in an escapist sense. That would also provide a voyeuristic pleasure in thinking about how other people are going to get toasted while you skip out.
I guess some people buy that insane 'literal' line --it's just hard for me to see how a system based on ignoring 50% of Biblical statements about the relation of Old and New Covenants is literal.
I guess the anti-semitism could make you afraid to drop or question it --but honestly, if you are going to say that at least be consistent and call Jesus anti-semitic.
I guess I don't understand how something that is not about Jesus gets ahold of Christian minds and hearts. Dominion theology types sell it (not opining one way or another about the validity of this) by making it about Jesus; ditto postmillenialism.

I used to be into this pre-trib stuff big time. I was one of those people who was comforted by this notion of getting snatched out just in time and being rescued from what was to come.

Now that I've learned the truth, I am so much more comforted by a God whose grace is sufficient for those who live through the worst of what this life has to offer or for those who meet their death on such occasions.

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~Jay~
Husband of ENS, father of J II. | Indian Trail, NC
disabled - cancer
Communicant Member, Precentor | Presbyterian Reformed Church of Charlotte, NC | Presbyterian Reformed Church

zzzzzz ...

And Reformed theolgoy doesn't???
EVERY faith creates a heavy emotional investment in believing it.

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Ben
Chaplain, US Army
Ft. Riley, KS
TE Ohio Valley Presbytery, PCA

In a word: certainty.

Adherents are given the secret (gnostic!) key to unlocking the Scriptures. Suddenly, an otherwise incoherent collection of stories about being good and "having faith," suddenly hangs together. It's about national Israel and what God is doing and what's more, we can see it in the newspapers.

To challnege disepnsationalism is to disturb that rock of certainty and the evidence of God's present activity in the world.

That's why its strongest adherents are so threatened by covenant theology because it offers a comprehensive alternative with a quite different organizing principle: Christ!

If God's gracious salvation of his people through faith in the obedience of the Son is the focal point of Scripture then the entire dispensational scheme collapses.

Of what relevance are the newspapers now? Where can one find evidence that God is really "active" in the world? What about the "Palestinian crisis?"

All we can offer is a Christ-centered (rather than Israeleo-centric) gospel, Christ-centered sacraments, and and Christ-centered discipline.

For devout adherents to dispensationalism, the trip to covenant theology is a frightening crossing.

rsc

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R. Scott Clark, D.Phil
Westminster Seminary California
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Ben, I think you missed my point altogether. Of course people get invested emotionally in their theology. The question is "how" and "why" in each particular case? For instance, I am rather emotionally attached to my hermeneutic. Why? Because my hermeneutic is about Jesus and I happen to like Him. I think Jesus is a legitimate reason for an emotional investment.
I don't understand what the 'hook' is in dispensationalism to attract you and create that initial emotional attachment.

I guess relevance, understanding and escapist types of comfort are intelligible; but it still doesn't seem to be about Jesus.

As a former hard core dispensationalist the emotional "hook" are the ethnic Jewish people. You believe that the bible demands you bless them, support them, etc. and in return you will be blessed as well.

"God's chosen people" are the driving force behind this eschatological belief and it's a strong emotional tie. I'm not certain if others outside dispensational thought even grasp how big this is. It's so big, that if anyone who believes as I once did would read what I am writing here it would deeply trouble them, some would even immediately call me anti-semetic, and mean it 100%.

The Jewish people and thier land, customs, holidays, and entire calander are CENTRAL because all we are is the time God's spending as he awaits to return to His original chosen ones. We are to do all we can to bless and prepare them for the soon coming day when the "prophetic clock" turns to week 70 and FINALLY the Jews are God's focus again.

Any belief outside of this is at the very least scary, and at the very most evil, vile, anti-semetic, and non-Christian. Trust me, I felt this way for many, many years. It's that extreme passion that turned me against it. Before I stopped being dispensational I was critisized for even believing other end times views COULD have some merit.

From experience I can tell you that's true. I was terrified that God was going to punish me with some horriffic thing like a car accident or being attacked if I dared to become Presbyterian and amillenial- even though it wasn't happening to the other Presbys I knew. After all, they didn't know better, I did. Boy, was I superstitious!!

Ahhh, so we're back to somehow putting God in our debt, are we? You may be onto something here. There's definitely something that smacks of paganism and gnosticism about it.

Adam, that makes sense to me. I still wonder how they sell it to people who love Jesus, but I suppose not thinking a lot about Him is not too uncommon in today's Christianity.

Simple, Jesus was a Jew.

Rubén,

You asked a great question. Christ and Him crucified is the emotional source for the Christian as you say.

"I don't understand what the 'hook' is in dispensationalism to attract you and create that initial emotional attachment."

If not Christ and His Gospel then what is it? I think its the same "hook" it always is, the hook of some form of the Law. That entrained part of us that hooks to the legal side of religion can be very powerful and is at length why, say, Muslems can murder by way of suicide under great emotional strength.

If you note Adam's helpful insight that is immediately what jumps out at one, .

As you said the Christian's emotions should be for the Jesus that died and gave Himself for us, that should be our center, but often it is not for many "rabbit trail" versions of Christianity, He's there but there is always some other "centrality" to the system other than the Cross of Christ. Now many would deny that so plainly and explicitly stated but the system itself at length will reveal what is "central" to it.

This legal "bone" is a strong magnet that holds its adherents (even in our own individual legalism, which we all battle with independantly).

At the end of the day of the only two religions in the world today, "Grace" and "legal ways or strains" (by any other name), have one or the other driving all of its emotional train.


L

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Larry Hughes
Geologist
Tates Creek PCA
Lexington, KY
PCA

Galatians 4:29, "But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also."