Great question. First, I hear you about Beth Moore. She is very popular, and I know a lot of people who enjoy her stuff. Personally, I find some very troubling things with her teachings, but we’ll leave that at that.

Secondly, I am going to answer each one of these questions in future posts, taking one at a time, so hopefully those will prove to be some help to you, whenever it is that they end up getting posted.

Regarding resources, here are a few:
-An old post of mine which will get you started on some of the stuff I’ve written before: Eschatology: How we got here.
-The Eschatology page at Monergism.com is extremely good. This will give you all you need.
-Some excellent books on the subject: The Momentous Event by W.J. Grier (this one is the best I have ever read, as it is very short and concise); The End Times Made Simple, By Sam Waldron; and regarding Dispensationalism (Israel/church): Dispensationalism -Rightly Dividing the People of God? By Keith A. Mathison.

And, regarding some scripture, I’d encourage you to try and answer the questions of this post from these passages clearly teach: Matt 12:41-42; John 5:29; John 6:39, 40, 44, 54; Matt 13:30, 40-43, 49-50; Matt 16:27; Matt 25:9-10, 14-30, 32-33; Luke 19:11-27; 1 Thess 5:2-4; 2 Thess 1:5-10

I hope that helps. Feel free to shoot me an email if you’d like some of my notes on this subject or if you have any specific questions.

Hi Susan. Glad you found the questions helpful. The Montmartre in one of the banners is simply by coincidence. I grabbed all the ’sheep’ or ‘flock’ pictures I could find and put them up for the ’shepherd the flock’ affect.

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SDG

While your questions are good ones, I must say that the above line is disturbing. I suppose I could prove any theology by convincing my audience to neglect all passages that run counter to it. Is this really “the plain, literal, clear, precise teaching of the New Testament” that you make it?

Hi Jonathan,
No, you’ve misunderstood me. I certainly didn’t mean to say that we “neglect all passages that run counter to it”! God-forbid that we fail to test our theology against every single text of scripture!

Instead, I am encouraging my readers to start with the plain texts such as the gospels and the epistles, before they jump in and try to tackle the symbolic ones. This is built on a few assumptions that you’d probably agree with:
-Scripture interprets scripture. Many texts are easier to understand than others, and thus they shed light on the passages that are harder to understand.
-Scripture does not contradict itself. If a truth is taught in one place, a contradicting truth will not be taught elsewhere.

Thus, I’m encouraging my readers to use contextual exegesis (considering the immediate context) of any and all of the passages in the Gospels and Epistles which discuss Eschatology (the questions above), before they tackle the tougher passages like Revelation 20 (dragons, chains, pits, souls, etc.). Clearly, I believe that the Gospels and the Epistles teach a position that is contradictory to the premillennial interpretation of Revelation 20, not compatible with it.

Nevertheless, the questions were not posed with the understanding that any attempt to answer them must be limited to the Gospels and Epistles. Clearly, I believe that they can be answered in the right using any and all of scripture. I did, however, make special note to exclude ’systems’, for the dispensational/premillennial position will come out as more of a system, in my opinion, if we allow assumptions to enter our thinking. To give one example (not specifically related to my questions): Premillennialists believe that glorified people will be walking around earth with other mortals during ‘the thousand years’. Nowhere is this explicitly taught in scripture, but it rather comes about from implicit assumptions given their interpretation of Revelation 20. This by itself doesn’t make it wrong, but it does if there is some other explicit teaching which is incompatible with this assumption.

So, it is my desire that we lay aside assumptions from the texts, for the moment, and examine what scripture explicitly says. Once we know what it explicitly says, we are in better position to fill in the assumptions and the tougher, more symbolic texts.

Clearly, the scriptures always speak of the resurrection and judgment of both the just/unjust as taking place at the same time, on the same day, at the same trumpet so to speak. Splitting these up based upon assumptions, rather than explicit exegesis, is what I am trying to avoid.

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SDG,
Nathan

If I may mention one more point, your claim to the “plain, literal, clear, precise teaching” of Scripture has in times past been the trump card of the dispy premills. The progressive dispys have done a great job showing that this is fallacious. What is plain, literal, clear, precise, or normal to one person may not be that to another. This is why good and godly men and women disagree.

Yes, I have read both Sproul’s ‘Last Days According to Jesus’ and Riddlebarger’s ‘Amillennialism’. I would recommend Riddlebarger over Sproul, however, as I do not agree with Sproul’s preterism. I will say, however, that Sproul’s book is a good one, and I gleaned many things from his wonderful research.

I must say that, personally, I cannot stress enough how good ‘The Momentous Event’ by W.J. Grier was. It is very short and concise, and best of all, cheap! Here is Amazon’s price at 6.99. Check out those reviews.

I pray that no matter what position my readers hold, that they would at least read some quality stuff like Grier’s treatment before they speak out for their particular view.

Taking a step back, I think this really illustrates the point that the relationship of the testaments is a major issue between our systems.

You said: The basic issue I see with Nathan’s approach is that he is prima facie eliminating large swaths of Scripture from the initial discussion because he believes they are unclear.

My intention is to encourage the layperson, who is not well-versed in the Greek language, biblical interpretation, etc., to start with gospels and epistles before moving onto the OT and Revelation. Ignore my advice if you like; it is a personal recommendation, not a rule of engagement concerning this subject. Have I ever said otherwise?

You said: it just so happens that those Scriptural references are not believed to be unclear or symbolic by those who object to his view.

That is fine; I don’t consider them to be unclear either. Symbolic, well, yes, when I read Revelation, I see ample amounts of symbolism, even in the all-important Revelation 20 (dragons, bottomless pits, chains, keys, etc.), I’m sure you’d agree.

You said: Hence, my disagreement over his use of language such as “plain, literal, clear, precise” to describe passages that he perceives to be such (which is subsequently agreed over).

Let’s not try to define literal at this time. Let me simple say once again that I believe the gospels and the epistles were written in much more simple language, say, then the book or Revelation. That’s all I’m saying; feel free to disagree, as this is not a breaking point in the discussion.

You said: How can we “lay aside” the OT prophecies from the initial discussion when they are the very foundation of the NT?

I am not going to address this specifically, but I hope you understand that this is a presupposition that readers may or may not agree with (at least in extent). If I say “I believe that the New Testament sheds light on and explains the true meaning of the Old Testament (for example, Malachi 4:5)”, then that likewise would be my unproven presupposition that would color this discussion. Maybe this presupposition colored my questions, or maybe not. But my intention in encouraging lay readers to first bypass the OT stuff when starting out is so to avoid reading these NT passages with unproven, OT presuppositions firmly in mind.

You said: I think I might get the same response from you if I told you from the outset of our debate which passages you were allowed to use and which one’s you were not, which passages were clear and which ones were not.

I certainly feel that you are putting words in my mouth and then tearing me apart for what I really didn’t say. Where did I say ‘allowed’ to use, not ‘allowed’ to use? I thought I clarified by saying that every scripture is open to the questions. However, you’ve got me on the ‘clear’ point, as I (and probably most) don’t believe that a verse by verse exegesis of Revelation is as ‘clear’ or ‘easy to understand’ as a verse by verse exegesis of 1 Cor chapter 15.

Jonathan, in my post I said: If you are interested in the truth, these questions will lead you to it. If you are not, then these questions will probably frustrate you, as they will expose the holes that are in every man-made system of eschatology.

Personally, and I mean this in all love towards my premillennial brothers in Christ, many of who are far more-learned than myself in both faith and practice, I believe that anytime the teachings of the gospels and epistles are closely looked at, the premillennialist gets really nervous. Admittedly, if one starts with the gospels and epistles, they will know nothing of some supposed earthly millennium in which Christ is present here with glorified believers. This concept is read (and forced) back into the gospels and epistles, not from exegesis of those texts, but by an erroneous interpretation of Revelation 20 and making that fit where nothing of the sort is explicitly taught. Honestly, how many ‘last’ trumpets, ‘appearings of our Lord’, ‘judgements’, ‘resurrections’, and ‘Days of the Lord’ are there? We can say, ‘well, since there is a 1000year golden age in here, we got to make it fit’; or we can go with what texts like Matt 12:41-42; John 5:29; John 6:39, 40, 44, 54; Matt 13:30, 40-43, 49-50; Matt 16:27; Matt 25:9-10, 14-30, 32-33; Luke 19:11-27; 1 Thess 5:2-4; 2 Thess 1:5-10; etc., appear to say at face value. Contextual exegesis of these passages contradicts the premillennial interpretation of Revelation 20; it does not support it. And that, my brothers, is probably where the breaking point is between where we agree and where we don’t

Bingo! This one statement really gets at the heart of the matter. As I said in my previous comment, the relationship of the testaments is key. Nathan, thank you for a great discussion. I have the utmost respect for you and your eschatological position. The greatest heroes of the faith are of your perspective, but I humbly disagree. Warm regards,

Note, however, that I didn’t disagree with your presupposition regarding the OT; I was simply noting that OT presuppositions can and often do color the position.

Thus, read the OT all you want! Just make sure your presuppositions on that portion of scripture are accurate. Whether or not that is really the ‘key’ to this discussion, I would probably disagree with, but it can sway opinion, no doubt.

What does the scripture explicitly say, rather than what many believe it implicitly says…is what I purposed all along to communicate.