Last night, the Thursday night Bible study was yet another doozie. Folks, this group is so hung up on Premillennial Dispensationalism that it’s disgusting.
First, they know that I disagree with them on eschatology; therefore, lots of prayers were offered that the Holy Spirit reveal the Truth to them by fiat. Intense study of the Bible is not an option for them because they already think they know it so well. This is kind of weird to me, but they really dig the milk of the Word and like spending time in the theological Kiddie pool. (Cue music to Servant playing Shallow Water.) Also, they cannot see the text except in terms of Scofieldism as a preexisting template that they impose onto the Bible.
I managed to get in a few well-placed barbs last night. This is my goal every time that I attend. I don’t fight every battle but hit a topic or two each meeting.
They insist on an artificial division of the Church and national Israel as per Scofield, but I did ask if that meant that Jesus has two Brides—the Church and Israel? Nobody really responded to that question. It didn’t compute.
There was a whole screed about Jesus is preparing a place for us—as if that is all he can do until the Rapture. Yep, he can create the world in seven days by speaking it into existence, but it takes him 2,000 plus years to prepare a place for us? How is that even logical? What is he doing now?
This portion of the discussion presupposes another tenant of Scofield, that Jesus offered the Kingdom of God then the Jews used free will to thwart the plan of God and then God rolled-out Plan B—the Church—until such time as national Israel will listen to Jesus.
Oh, a corollary of said Scofield doctrine is that 2/3 of all Jews on the planet will have to die before being so grateful of their mass slaughter that they will turn to Jesus in gratitude. This is a farcical idea, but for them it’s a doctrine.
So as this topic was being discussed, I asked, “Whose world is this?”
Without missing a beat, the person sitting next to me said, “Satan’s.”
My reply was, “Then what did Jesus accomplish at the Crucifixion?”
Several folks mumbled and finally one guy replied, “He defeated Satan.”
To which I quickly agreed. This threw the room into confusion because under Scofield, the world is still Satan’s not Christ’s. A few folks then said, “But, blah, blah, blah …”
At this point they have no answer because it’s not one that Scofield has a response to. Therefore, the point I was making simply bounces harmlessly off of them because their presuppositions don’t include a reply to the question. It does not compute, so it becomes discarded information.
Oh, but the Spirit is supposed to lead them into Truth when they are not open to it! Go figure!
My argument is we are in the process of seeing Jesus make all his enemies his footstool now. (See Psalm 2 and 110 amongst others.) This happens not through the mass slaughter of people, but through their mass conversion.
In a previous meeting of this esteemed group, it was stated without much dissent that God would kill all unbelievers during a worldwide, seven-year tribulation and only believers would be left on the earth. We would not convert the masses; they would be slaughtered. God will separate the sheep from the goats at the point of the sword. Thus, only the saints will inherit the millennial Kingdom once it finally gets here.
In fairness, I don’t think Scofield ever taught this idea, but the members of this Bible study were certainly ok with it.
Oh, the text last night was Micah 5 for the second week in a row. Another nugget of nonsense was the explanation of the word “stand” in verse 4. Per the leader of the group, this part of the prophecy had a quadruple fulfillment. Yep, double prophetic fulfillments are common in Dispensationalism but fulfilled four different times? That’s about a record.
Verses 2-5a are clearly a prophecy of the first coming of Christ and the incarnation but nope, not good enough. It has to somehow also involve the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming too. Scofield must futurize everything.
“The Assyrian” introduced in verse 5 also was proclaimed to be the Antichrist according to members of the Bible study. The fact that Isaiah chapters 36-37 talk all about the defeat of the Assyrian King Sennacherib and the death of 185,000 of his warriors was just coincidental and had little, if anything, to do with an historic explanation of the prophecy and its fulfillment.
In this group never left facts, especially historical ones, get in the way of a good conspiracy theory involving some future cataclysm.
I know that such people can be frustrating. I get that. Thankfully, the church’s pastor has denounced Premillennial Dispensationalism from the pulpit. However, he has yet to say what should take its place. Leading sheep like this must be frustrating for him. God has put me in this congregation for a reason. If nothing else, it gets me looking harder at the Bible to have a reason for the hope that is in me.
If there is a “silver bullet” that can lift the veil of Scofieldism, I have yet to find it, but I feel called for now to try and expose it in my own humble way.
Folks, I don’t see any way forward for Christianity until the Church repents of its unbelief and realizes that Christian civilization is the Kingdom of God in action. The West once believed this and changed the world, but we have forgotten God and reduced our faith to simply the salvation of souls and not the discipling of nations. A task that we need to start doing again.
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