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I would really like to understand dispensationalism a lot better than I do. I know there's different kinds. Who here is a dispensationalist and what kind are you? What caused you to adopt your version of dispensationalism?
Yours truly in Christ,
sojourner
Do you call it The Church age or the age of Grace, or both. I am not sure about defining this as the age of grace as all are saved through grace from the beginning.
One more question. In this age, are we chosen of God, or do we choose Him? I have heard some good scripture and arguements both ways. Personally, I think free will is so important to having a heart for God that I have trouble with any predestination ideas.
Lets get some good dispensational discussion going and make this thread honest again.
The present dispensation can be called either the church age or the age of grace. Most dispensationalists call it the dispensation of grace. The name is not that important, what matters more is recognizing the beginning (Acts 2) and end of the present dispensation.
Dispensationalists believe salvation has always been by grace through faith. Grace has always been present in God's relationship with mankind, from Adam onward. So the dispensations are not different ways of salvation.
The present dispensation is called "grace" not because of the absence of grace in previous dispensations, but because more has been revealed. The Messiah is now known and a new body created, the church, with both Jews and Gentiles as co-heirs.
The question regarding free will/predestination (or Calvinism/Arminianism) is "outside" dispensationalism - that is, dispensationalists take a variety of views. There are Calvinist dispensationalists and Arminian dispensationalists, and those who choose to take neither side.
IMO both are true. God has chosen us and we have chosen him.
I'm more than happy to engage in a straightforward and honest discussion.
LDG
I'm a dispensationalist, a progressive dispensationalist to be more exact.
Dispensationalism can be sliced many different ways. Theologically, there are the mainstream dispensationalists, which consist of traditional and progressive varieties. There are two additional minority groups, classical dispensationalists and what is referred to as ultradispensationalists. Ultras include the variety of Mid-Acts views (9-13) and the rare Acts 28 view. The mainstream and ultra camps rarely have anything to do with one another: each has separate churches, schools, etc.
LDG
I have been a dispensationalist since the mid-1970s. I was a traditional dispensationalist until 1992. That year, while I was in seminary, I listened to Bock and Blaising explain the progressive dispensationalist view. I've been a progressive dispensationalist ever since.
LDG
I had the privilage of hearing Pastor Paul Van Noy lecture on his modle of the dispensations. Since I was mostly ignorant of the idea I can't say I learned much. But what I've seen leads me to the conclussion dispensationalism is good for teaching, biblical context, and viewing the progression of the relationship between man and God, but it should in no way be involved in personal beliefs or tied to faith. Inside or outside of dispensations "Mere" Christianity remains the same.
I don't know what I am in the class of, as I just got saved by a miracle when my sis [Southern Baptist preacher's wife] interceded in intercessory prayer for my soul and the LORD answerd her prayer of travail and gave me New Birth in Him -though we did not converse on the matter and she lived 2500 miles from me -and no one had internet or cheap telephones to freely talk, or to often talk together; we poor folk communicated by letters back then, sent by US Postal services.
And I do not believe that anyone is saved by doctrine, but by Jesus Christ, only; and I do not believe that these things are salvation issues, that is, the pre-trib rapture of the Church and the gifts of the Spirit to the Church.
I had not heard any suggest a distinction between traditional and classical... Maybe I just don't understand what you posted?
What did they present that caused you to become a PD? Oh yeah, what Seminary?
The earlier dispensationalists such as Darby and Scofield are called Classical dispensationalists. Later dispensationalists such as Walvoord and Ryrie revised some of the beliefs and works of these earlier dispensationalists. Walvoord revised Chafer's Systematic Theology, and in the 1960s, a committee of dispensationalists revised the Scofield Bible.
These revisions occurred in large part due to the shifting emphasis to a literal hermeneutic. Many of the early classical dispensationalists held to a "dual" heavenly/earthly type of hermeneutic, where for example an OT passage might have both a literal meaning for Israel and a "spiritual" meaning for the church. Some even spoke of a sharp eternal duality between God's earthly people (Israel) and God's heavenly people (Church). For the later traditional dispensationalists, the eternal state was seen as a dispensation where there was no eternal duality.
Today there are a few dispensationalists who still adhere to the classical camp. Miles Stanford is one. He often refers to his view as Pauline dispensationalism, which has often been confused with Mid-Acts "Pauline" dispensationalism. But Stanford is not Mid-Acts. Like traditional dispensationalists, Stanford says the church began in Acts 2. Unlike traditional dispensationalists, Stanford said that there is nothing regarding the church in the OT, and that the church was still a mystery until it was "doctrinally" revealed by Paul. At Stanford's site, he goes into more detail with what he disagrees concerning traditional dispensationalism.
LDG
The seminary is Dallas Theological Seminary. Prior to hearing Bock and Blaising speak, I had been wrestling with Acts 2, where Peter preached his sermon and quoted Joel 2. The first part of the quote concerned the pouring out of the Spirit, the second part concerned the end-times signs in the heavens, and the third part concerned salvation - (Acts 2:21 says "and everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved."). Also Peter didn't quote Joel exactly, and I was puzzled by these changes.
The interpretations I had run across were either/or with regards to fulfillment. Either Peter's quote of Joel was completely fulfilled or it wasn't fulfilled at all. So either the pouring out of the Spirit was emphasized as fulfilled and the end-time signs were glossed over, or the end-times signs were emphasized as unfulfilled and the pouring out of the Spirit glossed over. These interpretative explanations were unsatisfactory to me, so this was in the back of my mind where there were/are a lot of other unresolved issues.
Bock and Blaising's explanation of Acts 2 and the quote of Joel 2 was something which put all the pieces of the interpretative puzzle together and made a lot of sense to me. They explained why Peter made certain changes in the quote. They explained that the passage is an "already but not yet" fulfillment - that the pouring out of the Spirit was an initial event that happened on the day of Pentecost, but that the end-time signs were not yet fulfilled on Pentecost. So there is tension between initial fufillment and future (final) fulfillment.
LDG
Thank you for you nice words, Jerry, in the prior post.No one is saved by doctrine, yet doctrine is important, in that it is how a person takes the teaching of the Scriptures and makes it his or her own. The Bible is not organized doctrinally, that is you don't find issues under different headings, justification is spread throughout all the pages of Scripture, doctrine is finding them all and putting them into order, we all must build our own doctrine what does the Bible say about truth that all is doctrine, what does the Bible say about sin, that is doctrine too, yet it is scattered throughout the Bible and we have to hunt it down and tie it all together, that is doctrine. We make our decisions for life from this foundation of doctrine. Should I pay all my taxes??? The Bible does not directly address this issue, but our doctrine which we build from Biblical consepts gives us the answer, No we must not cheat on our taxes. More later
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