The term "ISRAEL" is used 2,566 times in the Bible - more than any other subject next to the Lord Himself!
The misunderstandings and various interpretations of this unique word moves us to a careful investigation of how it is used in the Bible...
The word "millennial" is from the Latin - meaning a thousand years" a term which occurs in Revelation 20:2-7 a total of 6 times. The word "Pre-Millennial" refers to the belief that Jesus Christ will come again at the end of the tribulation and destroy all nations who will come against Israel and Jerusalem and will occur before the thousand years begin and the kingdom of the Messiah is established upon the earth...
In my years as a professor of systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary I saw the gradual introduction of progressive dispensationalism into the seminary, and into the evangelical community at large. Though I did not agree with this change in the theology of the seminary while there, in fact, this was a position I held before the term "progressive dispensationalism" was coined...
Passage: 1 Thessalonians 4 & Matthew 24
One of the many battlefields often frequented by eschatological combatants is the question as to whether the coming of our Lord spoken of in the Olivet Discourse (most fully given in Matthew 24 but also provided in Mark 13 and Luke 17) is the same coming as discussed by the apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4. Attendant to this dilemma are the similar idea presented in 1 Thessalonians 5 and 2 Thessalonians 2...
At the entrances of many Gothic cathedrals throughout Europe one may observe female statutes which are personifications of Ecclesia (the Church) and Synagoga (the Synagogue). One notices that Ecclesia wears a crown, looking straight ahead, holding her head in a triumphant pose. On the other hand, Synagoga, her head bowed, having lost her crown and holding a broken staff and wearing a blindfold, stands defeated and rejected.[1] These personifications symbolize the consensus perspective of the church from the middle of the second century A.D. until the present day, with few exceptions...