All Things Seen & Unseen

As an evangelical Christian I join with many others and am part of a tradition that takes the Bible seriously. In saying that, I am not dismissing authorities such as human tradition and reason; but these are subordinate authorities. I believe the scriptures to be the word of God written given to show us the way of salvation (2 Tim 3.15). The scriptural Word points to Jesus the Word (Jn 1.1;1.14) who points us to God the Father.

The revising of dispensationalism we talked about in the last post in turn gave way to a th ird form of dispensationalism wh ich began in the 1980s called progressive dispensationalism (PD).  One of the major features of this new dispensationalism was that its adherents began to subject one of C. C. Ryrie's defining criteria -literal interpretation- to closer examination and found it wanting. At the same time, dialogue took place between some dispensationalists and nondispensational 1 theologians which brought about more understanding and greater unity between the two opposing groups. The PD group believes that God has one plan of salvation. T hat plan is being unfold ed through a series of different ad ministrations (dispensations) but they emphasise the unity of the dispensations.  However, the PD group still hold s to the main dispensational tenet that Israel and the Church are distinct ; nevertheless, they also h o ld that both receive blessings through the A brahamic...

'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me' (Phil. 4.13).   All sorts of nonsense unfortunately have been inferred from these words of the apostle Paul in Philippians. One bit of silliness is the preaching that every saint of God 'can do all things they wish to do' in Christ.  I suspect that th is teaching comes from the 'health and wealth' theological quarter but wherever it comes from, that type of m otivational preaching that seeks to use this verse to encourage God's people to 'reach for the star s ' and 'fly like eag les', etc. is unsound.