B&E: It seems with every new television season a show that mocks Jesus Christ and the Christian faith gets a pilot.
This season it is the CBS show ‘Living Biblically’ – a comedic take on the real life quest of a journalist to live his life “according to the Bible” for one year. From the preview scenes alone, it seems obvious that this show has no intention of representing the Bible accurately or bringing any actual serious discussion about the Christian faith.
Instead it seeks cheap laughs and gags all the while mocking The Lord God. more …
Opinion: After 2 minutes of ridiculing the Bible to canned laughter, the last scene of the video mocks how Christians are supposedly told to deal with adultery by stoning. We know that the Levitical laws of Moses literally have nothing to do with the church.
Two thousand years after Christ, most Christians are still following early church fathers who advanced an allegorical method of interpreting Scripture.
Many years ago, I was stumped by a friend who asked me if I, as a Bible-believing Christian, would smite my neighbor for mowing his lawn on Sunday? I didn’t know how to answer him because I hadn’t learned how to interpret God’s word rightly, in context.
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” 2 Timothy 2:15.
The late Clarence Larkin wrote (here) “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” (here) this:
While the “Word of Truth” is written FOR all classes of people, and FOR our learning, it is not addressed to all peoples in general, but part of it is addressed to the JEWS, part to the GENTILES, and part to the CHURCH. These three constitute the THREE CLASSES, into which humanity is divided. 1 Cor. 10:32. It follows therefore that while the whole Bible was written for the INSTRUCTION of the Church, it is not all written ABOUT the Church. The Church is not mentioned in the Old Testament. It was hid from the Old Testament prophets, and was a “Mystery” first revealed to Paul, and disclosed by him in Eph. 3:1-10. The Old Testament is mostly taken up with the history of one nation, that of Israel.”
The difficulty is getting the context of a passage or group of passages correct. For that we have giants of scholars like Larkin whose work is open for us to study.
When we confuse words and promises meant for Israel with the church all kinds of confusion comes.
Larkin: Some books are general. As for instance the Epistle to the Romans. No one would apply Romans 8 to the Jews, or Romans 11 to the Church, for in it Paul speaks not only to Israel but also to Gentiles.
All Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction (2 Tim. 3:16), and what happened to Israel was written for our Example and Admonition, (1 Cor. 10:11), but we must not apply to the Church what does not belong to it. We see then that to misapply Scripture is to not “Rightly Divide the Word” and tends to confusion and error.
Dispensational theology teaches that there are two distinct peoples of God: Israel and the Church. Dispensationalists believe that salvation has always been by faith—in God in the Old Testament and, specifically, in God the Son in the New Testament.
Dispensationalists hold that the Church has not replaced Israel in God’s program, and the Old Testament promises to Israel have not been transferred to the Church. They believe that the promises God made to Israel (for land, many descendants, and blessings) in the Old Testament will be ultimately fulfilled in the 1000-year period spoken of in Revelation Chapter 20.
Dispensationalists believe that just as God in this age is focusing His attention on the Church, He will again, in the future, focus His attention on Israel. Romans 11:1 “I ask then: Did God reject His people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.”
There are 7 Dispensations from Genesis to Revelation, representing God’s interaction with man at different periods of time:
- Innocence: Creation to the fall (Gen. 1:27-28)
- Conscience: Fall to the flood (Gen. 3:1-6)
- Human Government: Exit from the Ark to Abraham (Jews) (Gen. 9:6)
- Promise: Abraham to the Law (Gen. 12:1)
- Law: Ten Commandments to Calvary (Ex. 5:6, 19:3; Acts 1)
- Grace: Pentecost to the Rapture (Acts 2; Rev. 19:21)
- Millennial Kingdom: Imprisonment of Satan to the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:1, 22:7)
If we confuse God’s dealings with man, idiotic TV shows get a foothold.
I was going to lessen my responses to posts thus taking a longer hiatus between my “homilies.” However, I feel a few words are necessary:
1) It’s critical to have a differentiation between “early church fathers.” The apostles and the very early church (“primitive church”), for the first 250 years, were on the same page as Jesus regarding the basic truths of our faith – most of which is aptly described in the opinion above. It was through the “Alexandrian school” – steeped in Gnostic thought – that led Origen and later Augustine to take the Church away from truth to self importance. This, plus the church becoming almost over night the state church of power and position, which allowed it to declare itself the “kingdom on earth” (Augustine’s “City of God”) in the then crumbling Roman Empire. This is the starting point of the end of premillennialism and the beginning of replacement theology (the church is now Israel) that still predominates to this day.
2) There are still good Bible scholars that exist today – one or two that still appear on TV like Charles Stanley and ailing Jack Van Impe. Clearance Larkin was a giant of early 20th century in Rightly dividing the Word. However, one of the best works ever in the last 200 years is “The Theocratic Kingdom” by George Peters. This work is referenced by most of the giants of biblical truth – Ryrie, Feinberg, Toussaint, Chafer (Systematic Theology), Walvoord, and my favorite, Arnold Fructenbaum. George Peters work is a loooong 3 volume read – 2500 pages – but is worth every word! You will never be able to tolerate the nonsensical “The church is the kingdom” ever again! And Fructenbaum dares ask the question, “What is the prerequisite for Messiah’s 2nd coming?” It has nothing to do with the church!
BTW, you can download Peters work from the internet. Volume 1 alone will provide more than enough “ammo” to arm you against some of today’s modern church nonsense to include modern “Pharisaical” garbage coming from many of today’s seminarians. All sincere Christians should take two basic seminary courses: Prolegomena (Beginnings) and Hermeneutics (Interpretation). YOUR EYES WILL BE OPENED!! Tyndale has an excellent online program for those who want to pursue a degree, or less expensive, more leisurely, continuing ed. I Just completed a Masters from Tyndale in 2 years. But I am also retired.
As a Christian, over the years I have learned two important things that every Christian should know in order to assist one with a proper and effective Christian lifestyle. Those two things are: do not watch television, and never listen to so-called “Bible scholars” when studying the Scriptures.
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