Another package arrived from Grace to You yesterday. That's a fairly common occurrence at our house, since we've supported that ministry on a monthly basis for almost twenty years. I can't adequately express the impact John MacArthur's teaching has had in our lives over that time period. We have hundreds of his sermon tapes and CDs, which I consider to be a wealth of expository preaching. We've also received most of his books as complimentary gifts to ministry donors, and they have been instrumental in molding our understanding of Scripture. Bottom line...John MacArthur is unusually gifted by God in the area of Bible exegesis. So what's the dilemma? The book we received yesterday is titled John MacArthur Explains the Book of Revelation...Because the Time is Near. When I opened the package, my heart sank. I told Joel, "I don't remember returning the form indicating we wanted this book, but I guess I did." I turned the book over to look at the back, and I glanced at the names of the endorsers. It's not the usual list of names associated with MacArthur...Sproul, Piper, Bridges, Mohler, etc. This book is endorsed by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, authors of the Left Behind series. My heart sank even further. I thought, "It would have been better for him to go without than to resort to using those men." Teaching on the end times...this is where we part company with MacArthur (though we were in the Dispensational camp before becoming Amillennialists).
So we're trying to decide what to do with this book. We're really not interested in reading it, or even having it on our bookshelf, so should we just "dispose" of it? If any of you locals would like to have the book, just let me know. I won't hold it against you...as long as you don't go around spouting nonsense about the secret rapture and a seven year tribulation period. ;)
The last we knew, MacArthur wouldn't have agreed completely with the LaHaye camp. MacArthur's book makes me mildly interested.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever posted on why you landed on Amil? Or to be more precise, once you ceased to be a dispy how did you come to land on the amil position as opposed to a historic premil or a postmil position? In the interest of full disclosure I'll go ahead and say that after spending a long time as an amil advocate, I eventually became a hard-core postmillenialist so I enjoy hearing the thought process others went through.
ReplyDeleteBlessings.
I knew it...I knew it...I knew it. Someone *ahem* would ask me to explain why I'm Amil. That would be a piece of work, but I'll think about putting a post together down the road. :)
ReplyDeleteI know I can't wait. :)
ReplyDeletegrannyof9
I'll look forward to it! I certainly wasn't after a tome. :) I was just curious if there was any particular book, author, or line of thought that especially influenced the decision. It is so much fun to see the paths that others took.
ReplyDeleteI want to draw your attention to the crucial words "I'll think about putting a post together." :) For the time being, I can tell you that I read Sproul's The Last Days According to Jesus and Riddlebarger's The Case for Amillennialism. So what books influenced you?
ReplyDeleteA good intro book was John Davis - The Victory of Christ's Kingdom: An Introduction to Postmillennialism Much of Kenneth Gentry's work was influential, especially He Shall Have Dominion: A Postmillennial Eschatology, and Thine is the Kingdom: A Study of the Postmillennial Hope. Greg Bahnsen and Gary North have written much that influenced me but the single book that provided the best overview and most concise argumentation was Kieth Mathison's Postmillennialism. An Eschatology of Hope. More recently, much of what Dr. Peter Leithart has written is amazing.
ReplyDeleteGreat selection, Jeremy. The book that started me down the road of the Hope of the Church was Gentry's _The Beast of Revelation:666_. Incontrovertible proof that the Beast was Nero, which shattered my dispy premil illusions. I've studied eschatology for 30 years or so, and wound up in the Postmillennial camp like you. I'm eagerly awaiting Gentry's forthcoming commentary on Revelation, but he'll have a long way to go to outdo Chilton's _Days of Vengeance_.
ReplyDeleteAre you the Wes we know?
ReplyDelete