Rapture Fever: Why Dispensationalism Is Paralyzed

by Gary North

Book Overview

Rapture Fever: Why Dispensationalism Is Paralyzed This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0930464656
• ISBN13: 9780930464653
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Inst for Christian Economics
• Length: 246 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Don't be fooled

This is a great book, buy it!Many make claims about North and those in the Covenant camp as using a "non-literal" hermeneutic. This is a great way of saying "I don't really have an argument, so I will use some big words to make you think that I am smarter than you so that you will trust what I say." Dispensationalists say that a literal meaning is the wooden straight forward meaning. But only when is fits their system. Matt. 24:34 is not given the literal meaning by Dispensationalists. Neither is Daniel 9:24-27. Dispensationalists look at symbols in the bible and try to come up with a meaning that fits their existing system of belief. Honest Bible readers look at the symbols in the N.T. then try to find similar language somewhere else in the Bible to compare and then realize that if it meant one thing in one place, it means the same thing in another. Finding a "literal" meaning is the meaning in relation to the kind of "LITER-ATURE" it is written in. When the Bible says 1/3 of the stars fall from heaven and hit the Earth, Dispensationalists say "not really stars, but meteorites, and not really 1/3 of the number of stars the earth would be destroyed." So where is the literal hermeneutic?? It is thrown out if it does not fit. However, if you look to the O.T. (Isa. 13:9-10; Ezek. 32:7-8; Isa. 34:4-5; Amos 5:18; 8:9) the same language is used and it is symbolic of rulers loosing their place of prominence. That is the "literal" interpretation! Don't be fooled by dogmatic statements, ask someone who makes a statement like "Only a grammatical-historical hermeneutic can fully understand the Scriptures" to explain what they mean and to give you some examples. To claim total literalism you would have to say that David not Christ will sit and reign over the millennium. You have got to get the meaning out of scripture and not guess or bring your own meaning to the text "Das ist der beste Lehrer, der seine Meinung nicht in die sondern aus der Schrift bringt." Scripture must interpret scripture, not preconceptions. If you interprit the Bible in a wooden literal way, you get nonsense, if you interpret the Bible totally symbolically, you get soup for the soul. If you take the historical meaning of a text by comparing it to the O.T. then you get the gospel, not Dispensationalism which was NEVER EVER a belief of ANYONE in all of church history until the 18th century!!!

The sociological implications of premillennialism

No one does it quite like North does it here. His examination of the sociological implications of dispensational premillennialism is both on-point and damning. If his opponents actually read this stuff, they might not convert, but they'd darn sure lose some sleep. Powerful and entertaining at the same time.