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Thanks, actually, I have a PhD article by a Westminster Grad from about 20 years ago that pretty much lays out the same stuff.

I haven't picked it up for years, as I really haven't been around many folks who buy into that system in a long while.

When I used to live in Texas, we met quite a few "bible church" people with strong connections to Dallas Seminary, and I used to talk with some strong dispensational types. I found Ryrie and Walvoord to be defensive, doctrinaire and dishonest when defending the system, and I developed a distaste for it largely because of the petulant style of these two men, besides the fact that it was almost completely unsupported by scripture itself (in my opinion).

My biggest problem with the system as a whole is that it demands a silly hermeneutic ("literal whenever possible") which is not supported by the scriptures themselves. Some passages are poetic, some apocalyptic and figurative, and some are historical. Any person without a theological axe to grind would look at many of the prophetic passages and say "this is figurative language....., I have to be careful here, as this is clearly NOT to be taken literally." However, the dispensationalist is not troubled by this at all. He ignores the context, grabs his hermeneutic ("literal whenever possible") and picks up the defense ("liberals who deny the scriptures allegorize everything"), and makes a silly Hal Lindsey MESS out of passages. One of the hallmarks of the protestant reformation was "scripture interprets scripture".... that is, scripture itself will teach you the hermeneutic (rule of interpretation) to use. Dispensationalists ignore this rule and insist on a (very selective) literalism when it comes to their key passages.

THAT is why there is almost no support for "dispensationalism" in early church lit, and why the reformers would have thought it a bizarre cult. In reality, it can only be possible to any large extent in America, where our loyalty to the bible is matched only by our ignorance of it.

Thank you for your reply!

Personally, I eschew the doctrines of tradition of men (Mark 7:7) whether Calvin, Arminius, the Pope, Billy Graham, Joseph Smith, esteemed theologians over the ages, etc.

The Scriptures are authenticated by the indwelling Spirit Who also brings them alive to me. Jesus Christ is the living Word of God (John 1, Revelation 19). He is all I want, all I need.

There is much contention among theologians but there is no confusion in Him.