Categories
The End of Many Books

Forsaking Israel

I haven’t read that many books about Dispensationalism. My Dispy beliefs come from a few basic definitions I’ve read and then reading the Bible (without bringing a system with me) and seeing God’s promises to Israel. This book was recommended to me by a friend, and it is great. The authors provide more than mere primer on the Millers (Premillennialism, Postmillennialism, Amillennialism), but in a way that is accessible for a lot of interested beginners. I appreciated the demonstration of how the church has read “Israel” from the early church fathers and through the Reformers, and I appreciated the explanations of how Covenant theology needs to come to different conclusions about “Israel.”

I’m holding back one star more as a personal problem, ha. I’ve come to really want more said about the fact that dispensational premillennialism insists that God’s promises are working in “human history on this fallen earth,” and yet so many Dispies are very bad dualists. We shouldn’t be, on principle (hence Kuyperianism). Anyway, I do recommend this book to get familiar with many of the terms/arguments, and I’ll be following some of the footnotes for further reading.

4 of 5 stars

Categories
The End of Many Books

Revelation 20 and the Millennial Debate

This book by Matt Waymeyer is about as perfect as it could be for its purpose. It’s a brief look at Revelation 20, which is the crucial passage in Scripture related to the “thousand years,” the millennium. Waymeyer compares the three main approaches: Premillennialism, Postmillennialism, and Amillennialsm, and provides the proposed answers of each view to the interpretive questions required to understand each paragraph. In his introduction he states, “the primary contribution of this book rests not so much in the area of original though as in its presentation of the arguments of writers who have gone before.” And it is a great contribution and service to the reader. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to know what’s in Revelation 20 more than what they need to bring in to it.

5 of 5 stars