Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10094 Both historic premillennialism and dispensational premillennialism affirm that Christ will return before the Millennium and reign on earth for a thousand years. On this they agree, and the agreement is significant. But the differences between the two positions are substantial enough that conflating them produces real confusion. Understanding where they converge and where…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10090 The question of whether the Church is promised deliverance from God’s wrath is not a secondary curiosity within eschatology. It goes to the heart of the pretribulational position and has direct bearing on how believers understand their relationship to the coming Tribulation period. If the Church is destined to endure the Tribulation, the…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 10009 Few questions in theology carry more weight than this one, and few have generated more confusion. The idea that the Church has permanently replaced Israel in God’s purposes, a position known as replacement theology or supersessionism, has been the majority view in Christian theology for most of the Church’s history. It has also…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10007 The New Covenant occupies a unique position among the biblical covenants because both Israel and the Church claim it as their own, and the question of how it relates to each has generated sustained theological debate. For covenant theology, the New Covenant is evidence that the Church has inherited the promises originally made…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 10001 Few theological terms generate as much confusion as dispensationalism. For some, the word conjures images of elaborate prophetic charts and date-setting speculation. For others, it represents a relatively recent theological innovation that should be treated with suspicion. Neither reaction does justice to what dispensationalism actually is, or to why it matters for how…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 10003 Dispensational theology and covenant theology represent two of the most influential frameworks for reading the Bible as a unified whole. Both are held by genuine, committed Christians who affirm the authority of Scripture, the deity of Christ, and the gospel of grace. The differences between them are real and consequential, particularly in how…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10051 Amillennialism is the belief that there will be no literal thousand-year earthly reign of Jesus following His second coming. The “a-” prefix means “no” or “not,” so amillennialism means “no millennium” in the sense of a future earthly kingdom. Instead, amillennialists believe the “thousand years” in Revelation 20 symbolically represents the current church…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09002 The word “church” is one of the most familiar in the Christian vocabulary, yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. In popular usage it refers to a building, a denomination, or a vague spiritual community. The New Testament has something far more precise in mind. Understanding what the church actually is,…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09045 The phrase “Messianic Jew” describes a Jewish person who has come to faith in Jesus (Yeshua) as the promised Messiah of Israel. This is not a modern invention or a fringe movement. It is, in fact, the oldest form of Christianity there is. Every apostle was a Messianic Jew. The entire early church…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09090 The idea of formal church membership strikes some believers as an unnecessary bureaucratic addition to what should be a simple, Spirit-led community. Others regard it as so obviously biblical that the question itself seems odd. The reality is that the New Testament does not contain the phrase “church membership,” does not describe a…