Deconstructing the Deconstruction
Decades ago, the scholar A.B. Davidson signaled what he and many of his colleagues thought of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Specifically, predictive prophecy:
“The prophet is always a man of his own time and it is always to the people of his own time that he speaks, not to a generation long after, nor to us. And the things of which he speaks will always be things of importance to the people of his own day…”
Davidson wrote that in Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, in 1934! We err if we think the apostasy sweeping across the U.S. is very recent.
Almost a century before Davidson, J.A. Alexander left us with his insights into why such scholars do what they do:
“The successive writers of this modern school, however they may differ as to minor points among themselves, prove their identity or principle by holding that there cannot be distinct prophetic foresight of the distant future…it is really the proton pseudos of the whole school, and the only bond of unity between them.”
Much like Darwin’s friends in London the last half of the 19th century, these scholars simply decided that they personally did not like the idea of a wholly sovereign God. It’s why modern scholars like Greg Boyd push stuff like “Open Theism,” the absurd idea that God doesn’t know all the future. This is all utter blasphemy, and Davidson’s view in particular has brought us to the moment we are in now.
Some people don’t like to hear me muse about all this, but those scholars of yesteryear were the spiritual forefathers of the modern Church Growth Movement, in which true Bible study and Bible reading has been replaced by humanism. We don’t really need to know what Rick Warren or Malcolm Gladwell or Andy Stanley thinks about the world. We need to know the mind of Christ. We can only know Him and the Father through the Word, the written communication God provided to us.
Within that method of communication is the marvelous world of Bible prophecy. I must tell you here that I think our own community shares some of the blame for the lack of serious Bible study, as we’ve said too many times in the last 50 years that Jesus will come back by September. There is also too much emphasis on sensational aspects of prophecy—things that in many cases have nothing to do with the Bible or the Gospel. But people like to be titillated.
There has been a war on Bible prophecy in this country for some time. Israel is at the center of this. If one doesn’t have a proper understanding of Bible prophecy, one does not understand the specialness of the Jews, or their place in history, past and future.
These past false teachers have laid the groundwork for what is going on now. I’ve written in this space before about an article that appeared in Charisma Magazine(!) eight years ago. Titled, “What if Jesus Doesn’t Come Back This Year?” it is written by Margaret Feinberg.
Now, you have to understand, Charisma has been the flagship periodical of the Pentecostal movement for decades. The publisher, Steve Strang, has a reputation for being pro Israel. So then I wonder greatly why Feinberg was allowed to spew her anti-Bible prophecy agenda in its pages.
In the article, she recounts an alleged conversation with a young student who asks her, “Are we living in the endtimes?” Her answer is, in my view, diabolical. She clearly does not care for predictive prophecy, and so she does something insidious, reframing his question to move the conversation in another direction.
She writes then:
“I recognized something about the question. After you interview enough people you discover a simple but profound journalistic truth: If you ask the wrong question, then you’ll get the wrong answer. So I gently prompted the 20-something to reword the question.
“I think you mean, ‘What if we are living in the end times?’
“Without an exit sign in sight, I continued, ‘And that begs the question, What if we’re not?’”
Unbelievable.
What if we’re not.
If one reads the Hebrew Scriptures, then the New Testament, it’s clear that Israel is the centerpiece for the movement of history. Hundreds of specific, detailed prophecies point to the Jewish people returning to their ancient homeland in the last days. Yet commentators like Feinberg want to steer young people away from seeing that.
All this has left our culture in a precarious spot. I would bet that literally millions of people from all walks of life are now asking the original question the young man asked.
They aren’t getting answers.
Which brings me to the point this week, on the first day of 2022.
For some time, I’ve been involved in Christian publishing and media. My area of interest of course is Israel and prophecy. I’d like to ask the RaptureReady audience something I’ve asked from time to time:
Are you or your church interested in these subjects? Do you read and study? Do you want to watch webinars that discuss prophecy, Israel history, the Holocaust, and more? Are you interested in reading and sharing books and other literature?
If you are, would you be kind enough to let me know. I want to hear from a lot of you. Just email me and I’ll let you know what I’m up to, to counter the Scripture-attacking agendas plaguing our country. A shameless plug: my own new book on Bible prophecy, The God That Answers by Fire, will finally be released soon. My injury a few years back derailed a lot of things for me, but I’m back and ready to redeem the time.
Let’s do that together!