Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Description

[@philosophyze]

The more I hear Dr Gentry the more I'm convinced he's correct. I also am taking classes from Dr. Mike Heiser, a Hebrew scholar, that has come to the conclusion that there're too many presuppositions in all the positions to know for certain and God is not giving out enough information on purpose so the Principalities and powers won't know his plans for his return. But Dr. Heiser has accepted a late date. He's not focused on escatology (even though he taught it in colleges) so he's not spending much effort. He thinks an obsession isn't healthy and there is so much more that we need to correct in the church. Dr. Heiser's (drmsh.com) specialty is The Divine Counsel from Ps 82/Deut 32. Fascinating reframe of the Bible when you add the cosmic battle into the biblical narrative. So many passages suddenly make sense! It ties everything together! Interestingly his friend Brian Godawa is a Preterist and his novels convinced me the evidence for Preterism is strong.

[@ibperson7765]

Greg Bahnsen agreed I believe. Certainly postmil anyway. Makes a very strong case for postmil. And I agree. Although Ive never seen anyone who believes as I do that Luther was right about the 23 (24 now w Hebrews) apostolic books should have slightly greater weight and be authoritative when fairly direct apparent contradictions arise. One reason I feel that way is all the major contradictions go away that way, which I would propose is not a coincidence. It’s pretty hard to square James saying “So you see justification is not by faith alone but by works.” with the rest of the Bible. And it’s very hard to square Revelation saying gentiles will be herded into the outer court in Heaven with the rest of the scriptures. (“No Greek no hew, etc, in Christ”) (Incidentally there is another list of four books, those that were not scripture until almost 300 years after Christ, and only James makes both lists).

[@trevino37]

I agree as well. I was a dispensationalist in turmoil because no one could give me the supporting scripture to the dispensational narrative. After Hearing on preterist, most things made sense and most things fell into order. The mystery of Revelation was removed and the guessing was gone. Its unfortunate, today many dispensationalist remain with their eschatology yet never question it. They claim prophecies are being fulfilled today and the end times is at any moment. When I ask to please tell me which Bible prophecy has been fulfilled in the last 20 yrs and to share the verse to also understand, they all disappear and never return to answer my question 100% of the time. They accuse me with being divisive and unbelieving while they still can not use scripture in telling me which prophecies has been recently fulfilled to bring us closer to their rapture. They accuse me of having a false theology while I can show scriptural support for what I believe but they have no scripture to support their belief.

[@GodsTruthMinistries]

An excellent presentation and convincing argument for this method of interpreting the book of Revelation.

[@EspadaTriunfante]

No Brasil temos o livro - A série está baseada no livro de Herman Hanko: Retrato de Santos Fiéis - maravilhoso livro. Marcos Lopez

[@trevino37]

Why Do Ken Gentry believe that at the end, there will be New Heaven and Earth where all will be resurrected? What scripture does he hold to support this? He teaches what he teaches but does not teach the remaining theology which he holds; which may also help others. I am not a full preterist but the concept of the new heaven and new earth does correlate as a symbol that we are now a new creating where old things has passed and everything is new. This makes sense to have been fulfilled and initiated during the first century. However, I am not clear on how I can hold a new heaven and new earth concept for both the first century and still in the future.....I think that needs to be addressed with equal importance from Gentry.

[@crpc_rpcga]

This is but one lecture. You can't expect someone to address everything in one lecture. Dr. Gentry addresses many issues on his blog: postmillennialworldview.com

[@beehive9851]

Please watch Chuck Missler teach Revelation, on KZbin. Best out there!

[@arliegage1380]

Made more confusing....

[@JohnnyDoe1012]

The post-70 A.D. dating of the book of Revelation renders all preterist thought null and void. The earliest Christian historian who recorded the church's knowledge of the Domitianic dating of Revelation was Hegessippus in 150 A.D. (around the time when most of those who would have known John had likely already died), and this continued to be the unanimous view until about 4 centuries later with the Syriac Peshitta NT manuscript in which someone wrote that John was exiled under Nero. It is sometimes claimed that the Neronic dating is in the original, but this is impossible since the original lacked the book of Revelation. From what I've been able to gather, there is no source or reasoning given for this change in that 6th century manuscript. This is problematic at best, and lacks the authoritativeness that would be required to credibly make such a huge revision to what was commonly accepted and passed down from the end of the first century/beginning of the 2nd. The same can be said for the Muratorian Fragment, which is the 7th century copy of the 2nd century original, with no way to prove the Neronic dating was in the original. There is no record of any of the early church fathers holding to the Neronic date of Revelation. A fascinating glimpse into the early church fathers and what they believed on a variety of topics is in 'A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs', over 700 pages compiled by David Bercot. In addition to Hegessippus (who, notably, wrote this some 30 years prior to Irenaeus), Tertullian , Eusebius, Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, and a number of other church fathers both before and not long after the council at Nicaea all confirm that John was exiled to Patmos by Domitian where he received Revelation. The lack of any dissenting view naming Nero in place of Domitian until the 6th century should give early-date advocates pause. So at least most of the events of Revelation are still in our future (some view the messages to the churches as having already been strictly for them and completely fulfilled, while some view each church as symbolic for a different time period, and of course there could be room for double-fulfillment of most of those first 3 chapters). There was a celebration on Patmos in 1995 commemorating 1900 years (approximately, as in 95 or 96 A.D.) since the Revelation Jesus gave to John. Also, what other events in the 1st century A.D. are ever claimed as taking place 2 or 3 decades earlier (or later, for that matter)? With all of the accurate records kept during the Roman Empire era and surviving today, there is little room for such a vast difference being feasible. It's commonly believed that Jesus died around 30 or 33 A.D., Paul and Peter were martyred in the 60's, Nero lived from 37-68 A.D., etc. No one says Jesus died in 3 A.D. or 60 A.D., or that Peter and Paul were martyred in the 30's A.D. or 90's A.D., or that Nero actually reigned around the time of Jesus' ministry as recorded in the Gospels. The majority of scholarship places John's writing of Revelation in the mid-90's, but somehow preterists think it's ok to go against the overwhelming consensus of the past 2000 years? The great fire of Rome took place for nearly a week during 64 A.D., but no one places it in 54 A.D. let alone 34 A.D. A powerful earthquake in 60 A.D. devastated Laodicea. And yet no one ever says that earthquake took place in 30 A.D. 30 years prior. With the vast majority of evidence to the contrary, preterism literally rests on this single pillar of the dating of the book of Revelation. And, really, that is no pillar at all in light of the historicity of the late date.

[@I.m_glad_you.re_here]

Johnny Doe, if you so desire, would please put the book of Revelation on a shelf for 30 minutes and think about the message of Christianity without it. What was Paul preaching? Wrath of God? No, it was reconciliation to God! What was Jesus Christ Himself teaching? How about prophecies regarding Jesus’ reign? Is there an end to that? (Isa.9:7) How about the rock, which smashed feet of an idol which Nebuchadnezzar saw? Will rock stop growing? (Dan.2:44) What about prophecies about the reign of the Seed of David? (1Ch.17:14) Looking at this how can you explain antichrist in our future? Kingdom of God is expanding now more than ever. The events of the book or Revelation must have happened in the past, when the rock was smashing the feet of that idol because the above prophecies, along with parables of the yeast and others, do not hint an end to the Kingdom of God where Jesus will reign forever. Take a look now at the book of Revelation itself. In the new heaven and the new earth, described in Rev.21,22 there are “dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Rev.22:15). Is John talking about the heavens where, after the events of John 20, there’s still sin and other uncleanness? Or does the whole book of Revelation talks only about the prostitute, the divorce process similar to Ezekiel 16 (prostitute in this case is Jerusalem), and the Christ’s wedding to a new bride - New Jerusalem, which will never past away? In hindsight the Rev.4-22 talks about destroying the Old Covenant and inaugurating the New Covenant. If that is not so, then another thought for you: at what time does the New Covenant has the Wrath of God? Where in the New Covenant does it talk about Wrath of God? This is not an insignificant point. Think of all the places in the Bible and find Wrath of God in the agreement terms of the New Covenant. At what time shall God pour out His wrath in the New Covenant. When does God promises to pour out His wrath in the New Covenant? What do New Covenant believers must do to invoke God’s wrath? Irrespective of Bible translation you’ll find the beginning wrath of God in Exodus (beginning of the Old Covenant) and it is finally finished in Rev.15:1. I cannot find the conditions under which the wrath of God should be invoked under the terms of the New Covenant, so the words of Rev.15:1 must be regarding the wrath of God that started to burn at the conception of the Old Covenant and was finally finished with the destruction of the Old Covenant. This confirms my point regarding the Old/New Covenant transition described in the book of Revelation. One more detail I wanted to point out is Rev.17:10, which speaks about kings, that are part of this vision, and five of them (at the time of receiving the God’s Revelation from Jesus through an Angel) have already fallen, sixth is reigning at the time of receiving of this revelation, and seventh still hadn’t come yet. To me, with all of the above, the text says what it says - seven kings are seven people reigning in the row with five people already passed away, sixth reining, and seventh coming right after the sixth. Not millennias later... If you are still hang over the fact that the book was written after the events in AD70, then consider the Rev.1:9, where John says he ‘was’ on that island, which means that at the time of writing he was no longer there. Looking at the urgency of the letter we’d think that John wrote everything down right away, yet it could be years after John was returned from that island. There is no way to prove it either way, so I guess we will keep disagreeing... 🙂

[@JohnnyDoe1012]

@@I.m_glad_you.re_here You didn't really address any of my points. In fact, in the very first sentence of my comment I said this: "The post-70 A.D. dating of the book of Revelation renders all preterist thought null and void." The overwhelming evidence of a late date for the book is enough to destroy preterism at its core. Also the Old Covenant was done away with at the cross. I went into more detail in another comment here on this video (reposted below) The belief about the last days of the Old Covenant being in 70 A.D. is a lie, and one of the founding mistruths of preterism. And it's about 40 years too late. You can't reverse-engineer Scriptural interpretations based on a lie. Take a look at a preterist pillar, Hebrews 8 vs 13, in its proper context: "In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete." It was already rendered inoperable at the time of the New Covenant being enacted by Jesus. In the 2nd half of the verse, it says "Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." The Old Covenant was already obsolete long before Hebrews was written. It wasn't growing obsolete. This 2nd half of the verse is a generalized statement about things that are growing old and ready to vanish away. Now the very next chapter speaks of the supremacy of Christ compared to the Old Covenant, how much better the New Covenant is vs what the Old Covenant was. The law was a shadow of the good things to come (Hebrews 10:1). The Old Covenant was eclipsed by the New, and not only eclipsed but removed entirely as it says in 10:9. "“Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second". This is a very significant statement: He takes away the first that He may establish the second. There could not possibly have existed both the Old and New Covenants side-by-side. There was no room for the Mosaic Covenant after Christ. It was completed. It was all a shadow pointing to Jesus. "11 Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? 12 For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. " Hebrews 7 vs 11-12 The priesthood was changed. The law in effect was changed from the Mosaic to the New Covenant. The Mosaic Law was no longer in effect. For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. "18 For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, 19 for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God." Hebrews 7 vs 18-19 The Old Covenant was annulled to make way for Jesus coming in to cut the New Covenant, sealed in His blood. All of these verses and more in chapters 7 through 10 surround Hebrews 8 vs 13, so you can't just pick and choose a verse in the midst of all this and spin it into something that's diametrically opposed to what Hebrews is all about. Which part of the Mosaic Law was still in effect after Christ died and rose again? Christ is the end of the Mosaic law for all who believe in Him. There was nothing left to still be in effect after the cross. The laws of purification were superseded by the Jesus' blood. There is no longer a requirement to stone those who don't celebrate the Friday night to Saturday night Sabbath. Those who celebrate the Jewish feasts and holidays are on equal footing with those who don't (Romans 14). What was left to still be in effect for about 40 years from the cross until 70 A.D. with the fall of Jerusalem? Sacrifices? Jesus was the last sacrifice, and there was nothing forgiven under the animal sacrifices that took place after the cross. To say otherwise is blasphemous to what He accomplished for us. The animal sacrifices after the cross until 70 A.D. were not authorized to forgive sin and were an insult to the cross. Remember Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 when they brought unauthorized sacrifices? They died horribly, by fire. No such thing took place after the cross. Why is that? It's because the Mosaic law was finished, and the New Covenant of grace was in effect and showing mercy to give them time to repent in Jerusalem before it fell. Had the Old Covenant somehow still been in effect, there would have been mass casualties at the temple since Jesus was the only way to forgiveness going forward. This falsehood of the last days being the last days of the Old Covenant ending in 70 A.D. is a lie straight from the pit of Hell. There was no more Old Covenant after the death and resurrection of Christ. It was finished. This fact alone is enough to sink preterism to the bottom of the Dead Sea.

[@I.m_glad_you.re_here]

Johnny Doe, thank you for your long and detailed message. I can tell that you rightfully earned your doctorate degree from some prestigious Bible university or the like. However, we are talking about different things, or coming to look at the same thing from different perspectives: you are focusing on one doctrine, and I’m trying to see the big picture... Reading your words reminded me of a cartoon, loosely based on Rev.3:20, where Jesus knocks on a door and has this conversation with a person inside: - Who’s this? - Jesus. Let me in and I’ll save you! - Save me from what? - From what I will do to you if you won’t open. Funny, right? Or you see nothing wrong with this picture? In the garden of Eden God gave the message of hope to the people and the message of destruction to the serpent. This message of hope for the people, having taken a few variations along the way, finally resulted in Jesus Christ, who showed us God (John 1:18, 17:26). The message of destruction for the devil and his pupils resulted in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt.25:41). Not for people. Will some people be thrown in there? Sure! But that is not the Gospel! In the big picture the message is God’s love. Would you please, I ask for the second time, please find in Gospels the promise of the wrath of God, which was finally poured out in Revelation 15:1? Where does the wrath of God is promised under the New Covenant? Under which conditions the wrath of God must come in effect? You allowed church traditions, church historians, and church fathers to date the book of Revelation for you. This way the Gospel, the message of love, became the message of wrath and the message of judgement. Through this you are “making the word of God of none effect through your tradition...” (Mar.7:13). Are you still surprised why non-believers aren’t filling up your churches yet? Because the message of hope for the people became the message of destruction for people. By looking at details you missed the big picture... I am convinced once again that eschatological views are guiding the theology of a person and today you are the example of that. It is crucial to have the right view of the end in sight in order to preach the correct message of love.

[@JohnnyDoe1012]

@@I.m_glad_you.re_here again you went way off topic and failed to address any of my points, and you're asking me to respond to a question unrelated to the topic at hand in the comments you replied to. This is not a discussion about whether or not the wrath of God is a reality post-Calvary. I could say more but it wouldn't be anything I haven't already said. Take care and God bless.

[@Nobo35]

Do you go to every video on KZbin that disagrees with your dating of revelation and leave negative comments? We know that the dating of Revelation is not provable. You can make arguments for pre and post 70ad. It’s not a salvation issue. If you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior you are granted eternal life. The early dating just just agrees with what Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse and what John said in Revelation regarding the immediacy of these prophecies. I’ll take their word for it over Irenaeus who has been proven to be inconsistent with his information. God bless.