Pondering, Thinking Out Loud...

So why is it that the multi-generational view of families, jurisdictional views of church and govt, and an understanding of dominion didn't come out of the pre-trib camps?...

I don't think that being a pre/post or ah/believer in trib. or mill. view keeps you from functioning in terms of dominion or multi gen. Per Se... That they are mutually exclusive somehow.

It's just that from the wing of the church that the premil view came from, they had already walked away from what was established understanding of mainstream Christian thinking and beliefs. 150 to 180yrs ago roughly. That movement eventually became what is understood to be modern evagelical Christianity. It's part of my heritage.

This stream of thought internalized what had been an outward understanding of creation and the believers role in it. To one of internalized faith, the whole focus turned inward towards man and getting him saved as the highest goal of a believer and the church. So what had been the understanding of the Church's role, the families role, the governments role, became lost or marginalized.. The focus shifted from God to man. From here came the idea's of "you don't polish brass on a sinking ship". Don't worry about this temporal stuff (Ignoring Genesis, Colossians:1:15-20 , Rom 11:36-12:2 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever.) We have to get man saved, that's whats important. In the process we lost what had been a biblical understanding of how to function in relation to all of God's creation. We lost an important perspective about our being human.

It is just a continuation of this type of thinking to see how the modern church has taken on the appearance of a human psyche trauma ward. How most ministries are aimed at restoring man to some kind of wholeness. The modern Church in so many ways is running along side the Opra show in trying to help man and his needs. In caring about man.

But the answer to man's "issues" can only be resolved in aligning (obedience) to God's defining orders and definitions. He wrote the owners/operator manual for humanity. But God's ways seemed restrictive and out of touch with modern man and even seemed to hinder bringing more men to Jesus so we have kinda made an ad Hoc understanding of what it means to walk as believers in the churches and in our personal lives. Pragmatism, not God's Word became the guiding light. I am not saying that men said "forget about God's Word". But the world view that was brought to God's word made it almost impossible to see what was really there. IE if this is all gonna burn anyway, it cannot be important.

But even if we have it straight, that it is only through Christ that we may be restored to the Father we seem to be slow in understanding that not only is he the gate but that afterwards we must "walk in the way". His way. There is this belief that once your saved you can now just wander any all way up the hill into God's Kingdom (NOTE: this has nothing to do with earning our salvation) that God hasn't left really anything like instructions that we can use to guide us, so just follow the Spirit and if anyone should point out any scripture, don't worry, their just legalists. Now they might be legalists, but that doesn't equate to there being nothing to guide us from his Word...in how we should live.

But everyone who has helped deepen my walk in a way that wasn't just "personal", but rather in terms of God's view of the family, multi-generationally, my understanding of marriage, a more biblical view of the role and function of the church, a vision for applying the crown rights of King Jesus to every area of life have been from a "post" person. And it was after that, that all of a sudden my wife could actualy function as my help meet and I really started to lead my family and a lot of the "fog" of life blew away.

So going back to the topic... I think that most of the pre-camp doesn't see how God cares about a lot of creation, except that people be saved, rather than their "pre position" alone that keeps them from so many areas, that many of us are now trying to make sense of. IE the pre-position might just be another symptom of this shifting of focus, rather than a source.

All I ever heard from "pre" guys was "that's cool", don't sweat it, God loves you. The understanding that God not only prescribed the means, but the method is pretty foreign to the modern believer on the whole. I know I am functioning more in line with the owner's manual. I'm not using a hammer to try and change the tires anymore. It's only by God's grace.

Now for centuries the Christian did see instructions and guidance, As I have mentioned before, it was this "world view" understanding of scripture and man's place in creation that the believers made modern science, universities and thought about what a biblical gov't should be like. It's only been a since modern evangelicalism that things became "complicated".

Let me pass on an example of how Chrisitans used to see themselves in relation to their culture as compared to todays Christians. This is from RC Sproul Jr's book "Eternity in Our Hearts". A section entitled the "Acts of the Apostles". RC was sitting in an amphitheater in Gallalee.

"our guide who was showing us around Palestine, explained to us that the first century believers would not attend the various games and festivals in the stadia that dotted the land: that does'nt suprise us. But then he explained that at the founding of the Church Chrisitans did not steer clear in order to avoid the violence of the gladiator games: nor did they avoid them because some girl in a bikini might walk aroung between rounds carrying a sign. They didn't go because they weren't interested. It was no first century boycott, but a true show of indifference...

The first century Christians didn't go to the games because the games didn't matter. And of course nobody came up with the brilliant strategy of being His witness by carrying a sign and wearing a rainbow wig to the game".

Something to think about......

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