Hill, who said he used to adhere to a dispensationalist theology, now describes himself as amillennial in his eschatology and penned the book, Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity, which argues that many in the early church held to an amillennial position.
“For most of my lifetime, the mere existence of Israel in the Middle East as a nation has been seen as an apologetic for dispensationalism, because it was viewed as a major fulfillment of prophecy: the simple fact that they're there means that God's timetable is moving forward and so forth," Hill said. "And I just think that younger people are further removed from the founding event of the modern state of Israel, and so maybe that argument doesn't make as much sense to them."
Hill said he was ultimately convinced of the amillennial position after his studies led him to "seeing the unity of Scripture and the unity of the people of God throughout Scripture."
"Those are very big for me, seeing that there's always been a spiritual Israel; that the land promises always had a typical function of pointing ahead to Christ and to His ownership of the world."
"For me, it was really coming to the conclusion that the apostles in the New Testament have a different hermeneutic than what I was getting in dispensationalism," he said. "And it was trying to follow the apostles' hermeneutic, their way of interpreting the Old Testament. And I found that I couldn't reconcile that with a literal-only interpretation of prophecy. It was more Christo-centric and not Israel-centric."
"I imagine that once they start looking into it a little bit more, some of them just find the amillennial and postmillennial views more satisfying," Hill added of the younger Evangelicals. "So, I'm sure there are a lot of things that are playing into this."
Nailed it right there. Most people who ascribe to Pre-millennial Dispensationalism do so because that is what that were taught and that is all they've known. It never occurs to them that that is not the only position on eschatology that Christians (now and in the past) hold.
The majority of Christians today (and who have ever lived, for that matter) do not ascribe to the Dispensationalist (earthly millennium, rapture-at-any-moment) interpretation of Scripture regarding the End Times. It was not developed until the early 19th century, originating in England but is mostly held by many (though not all) American evangelicals and fundamentalists.
I'm not saying there is no truth in it or that nobody should consider it, only that it is important to know that this is not the only or the historic interpretation or position among Christians. As the majority of Christians in the world are either Catholic, Orthodox and other Eastern Churches who do not ascribe to modern Dispensationalism vastly outnumber the American influenced Evangelical Protestants and Protestant Fundamentalists that are the ones who primarily embrace modern Dispensationalism, it is important to point out that it doesn't represent the views of most Christians. If you do ascribe to the above views and are not a professed member of a church that teaches something different, that’s OK, only that it isn’t seen as the only and definitive interpretation. We’re all entitled to our good faith beliefs about this and shouldn’t feel threatened or defensive about it.