As many of you know, I am candidating for the postion of Pastor at Eganville Baptist Church. The vote is December 11 (prayers appreciated). They recently had me up to do a Q&A session on various theological topic. I've decided to post these here in order to foster fellowship/conversation etc...
Some answers may be edited from the original.
1. Do you believe
in the rapture?
2. Are you premil or almil?
2. Are you premil or almil?
I lumped the first
two questions together because they are asking very similar
questions. Essentially what my belief is on last things and what I
think the timing is of those things. So I thought what I'd do here is go over the Fellowship's own statement of faith, and then I'll
elaborate a bit: We believe in the personal, bodily and glorious
return of the Lord Jesus Christ; in the bodily resurrection of the
just and the unjust; in the eternal blessedness of the redeemed and
in the judgment and conscious, eternal punishment of the wicked.
That's it, that's not
an excerpt, that's the whole thing, and I'll tell you this, I agree
with that 100%, as to the specific details of when the rapture is,
who is raptured, when the millennium is, when the tribulation is, all
of that, there are good solid arguments on all sides of the issue and
you're more than free to choose any of them. My recommendation is
that you don't let your concern for the future and the end distract
your ministry and mission today.
That's my answer, what do you think? What's your position on last things?
-Kevin
It's interesting that questions 1 and 2 were about eschatology...
ReplyDeleteI feel much the same way as you Kev, but I can tell you that giving a vague answer (or using the old pan-mil joke) will not be sufficient for some people. The general notion being that it's a significant issue in scripture and so we need to have studied/wrestled with it in depth. I forget who but either Dr Fowler or Dr Barker once said in class that he'd have a hard time with someone going before an ordination council if they hadn't come to an informed decision on the topic.
ReplyDeleteMy advice for the future would be to pick which view you find you lean most toward and have an explanation ready as to why, and then lead into that with your explanation about why you hold the view very loosely. My 2 cents.
Oh, and as for my view, I also hold mine very loosely due to the many good arguments for each view and the many wise men who have held differing views.
ReplyDeleteI lean towards pre-mil mostly due to the fact that the other 2 views don't seem to deal with Revelations 20 to a satisfactory degree for me.
Thanks for your insights Bill, it's always good to hear your dissenting voice :)
ReplyDeleteI tend to stick to a Historical Pre-Mil as well. Only because of extra-biblical (read church fathers) evidence that seems to suggest that that's where the Apostles landed, then again they thought Jesus was coming back "like next week?" I also don't buy the notion of a literal 1000 year reign before "eternity" really starts...
Also I'd be really surprised if it was Stan who said that.
I dunno man, it might've been Stan. I say that cuz I've got an eschatology class I'm auditing right now that he's teaching and it might've been a comment he said back at the beginning of the semester. Except he's Stan so he'd have said it in a smarterer way than me ;)
ReplyDelete