Gary was recently interviewed by Steve Deace about Bible prophecy and eschatology. In this first part, Gary defines terms and gives a brief lesson on hermeneutics.
The claim is made by those who teach the pre-tribulation rapture position that God cannot deal with Israel and the Church at the same time in the same way. The Church is said to be a new redemptive entity that was not prophesied in the Old Testament. But as we’ve seen, there is no postponement of the 70th week, no gap in time, or insertion of a parenthesis called the Church Age found anywhere in the Bible.
What does the New Testament say about the Church being something unforeseen and new? The Greek word ekklēsia, translated as “church,” is not something new to the New Testament. The word ekklēsia was used many times in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament (the Septuagint or LXX) for the translation of the Hebrew word qāhāl. Both qāhāl and ekklēsia are best translated as “congregation” or “assembly.” Earl D. Radmacher writes, “[T]his Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures was the Bible of the early church…. Thus, when the writers of the New Testament, whose Bible was the Septuagint, used ekklēsia, they were not inventing a new term. They found the term in common use and simply employed what was at hand.” G. K. Beale offers a similar interpretation. “The word church … must be … understood against the background of the Greek Old Testament, where the word repeatedly refers to the gathered congregation of Israel…. In this light, the Thessalonian church was part of the true Israelite congregation of God’s people who had been established by Messiah Jesus’ latter-day redemptive work.”
The Rapture and the Fig Tree Generation
-Did God stop the prophetic clock regarding Israel, thereby postponing the 70th week of Daniel’s 70-weeks-of years prophecy by inserting a nearly 2000-year gap called the “Church Age”? -Does the Bible teach a distinction between Israel and the Church where the Church is a new redemptive body of believers because Israel rejected Jesus as its promised Messiah? -What is the fate of Israel in the pre-tribulational rapture interpretive position, and why would God wait nearly 2000 years to deal with Israel again and then lead the chosen nation into another holocaust? These and many more relevant questions are answered in The Rapture and the Fig Tree Generation.
Buy NowGary was recently interviewed by Steve Deace about Bible prophecy and eschatology. In this first part, Gary defines terms and gives a quick method of interpretation (hermeneutics) for Christians to follow as they read their Bibles and encounter difficult passages. It’s not wise to always rely on the “experts” (who have been wrong over and over and over again).
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