dispensationalism

Kick Him Out of Church!

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Two Introductory Stories My mom and dad fondly tell the story of one of the first times my dad visited my great-grandmother’s old, back-country Oklahoma, Pentecostal church. My mom and dad were dating at the time, and my dad was not familiar with Pentecostal churches at all, so this event really stuck out to him. After the speaking in tongues and whooping had subsided, and the preacher had gotten into his groove, he was passionately talking about “…a man who comes to church on Sundays and greets people at the door and shakes hands, but on Saturday night he was … [Read more]

Starts with an E ends with a Y and WILL MESS YOU UP!

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Starts with an E ends with a Y and WILL MESS YOU UP! That’s right. You know what I’m talking about. It’s a little pill your friends might make you swallow, and you wonder to yourself if it’s a good idea at the time, but then you get to where you can’t resist it, and you have to keep going back because of the intoxicating effects. You can’t get enough of it. You start craving it more and more, until finally you overdose, and those same friends have to hold you back from starting fights and convince you that the … [Read more]

The Day the Music Died

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“As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”[1] A chilling quote from the letter sent from the Justice Department to all the school districts in the United States. It is the letter that represents a monumental day in my mind: the day the music died. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, “The Obama administration [has issued] a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender … [Read more]

What is Dispensationalism?

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I’ve recently explained this to a few different people and thought, “I can just write a blog post about this to clear it up a little.” Before I get into this, let me refer you to the best book to understand dispensationalism called, appropriately enough, Dispensationalism by Charles Ryrie. This book is clearer and cleverer than I can ever be. However, if you’re looking for a shorter summary of the concepts, I suppose this blog post can suffice. Okay, what is dispensationalism? Here’s the outline of the post: (1) What it is. (2) The opposites. (3) What usually comes along … [Read more]

Christians Don’t End Up in Heaven

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  I said off-hand in a different blog post that Christians weren’t going to heaven, and I got some lip about it. But before I start explaining myself, let me narrow the audience for you. This post is directed at Christians. The “yous” in this post are “readers who have believed the gospel that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ of God, and by believing, have life in His name.” Okay, lets get back to the point. Christians don’t end up in heaven. “Of course we’re going to heaven!” you say. “That’s the gospel, Stephen! We’re going to go to … [Read more]