What You Believe About the End Shapes How You Live Now

Kymberli Cook: 

Welcome to The Table Podcast where we discuss issues of God and culture. My name is Kimberli Cook and I'm the Assistant Director here at the Hendricks Center. And today we are going to be talking about eschatology, so the end things. And particularly, we're going to be focusing in on why what we believe about the end times matters for our Thursday, that it actually impacts how we live day to day. And so we are joined by Dr. Michael Svigel, who is the Department Chair and Professor of Theological Studies here at Dallas Theological Seminary. Welcome. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Thanks for having me. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Dr. Svigel. He has been my professor for about 15 years, so I am not going to be able to call him Michael. And then there's Darrell, who's my boss, who I have no problem calling Darrell who's the Executive Director for Cultural Engagement here at the Hendricks Center and Senior Research Professor of New Testament at Dallas Seminary as well. 

Darrell Bock: 

Good to see you, Kim. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Thank you for being here with us today. 

Darrell Bock: 

Anytime. 

Kymberli Cook: 

So it seems like in church history, there's kind of an ebb and flow as far as an interest, a widespread interest let's say in eschatology. Sometimes the church is really, really interested and it's all it's talking about or it's one of the major things it's talking about. And other times, people are like, "Yeah, Jesus is coming back. We're not really sure beyond that." But it seems to me that there is also, so in a parallel sense, there's also this nerve running through the body of Christ where it always matters. And if you push on it wrong, it will set certain people off. 

So I just want to make clear that today, as we're talking about eschatology, we aren't looking so much to argue for a specific position, though we are DTS and are historically and continue to be committed to dispensationalism, a dispensational view. But our emphasis more is trying to surface or trying to look at essentially the musculature that eschatology provides the believers as they live daily. I think it underlies so much of what we do, and we don't actually know or recognize that it does. And even more frightening, the two might be disconnected. So we might think we believe one thing and we're living in a different way. 

So hopefully people listening will say, "I want to be more intentional about what I believe and how I live?" So that's where we're headed today. But before we get fully to that conversation, I want to talk to you gentlemen about how did you end up thinking through the eschatology area and yeah, we'll start there. Dr. Svigel, how did you start thinking through it? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah, I mean I came to the Lord out of a mainline denominational tradition, which we didn't really talk about it at all. In fact, we were discouraged from talking about eschatology or end times things. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Really? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Other than just Jesus is coming back someday, resurrection of the dead, eternal life. That was it. And then when I became a Christian, the pastor who led me to the Lord was a pre-millennialist, interested in end times things, but it really hit me in Bible college when I started looking at that into that myself and had classes. I had Charles Ryrie for eschatology back in bible college. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Did you really? 

 Michael Svigel: 

I did, yes. 

Kymberli Cook: 

That's awesome. 

 Michael Svigel: 

And then really my study of patristics, the early church really influenced my thinking on that, especially at a more practical level, 'cause it was very, very important for them for not just right thinking, but right living. And I think that's something that I've tried to carry with me into my ministry. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Fun aside, I learned who Darby was because of a paper I had to work on with Dr. Svigel for my internship. So maybe we'll hit Darby a little bit later. All right, Dr. Bock. Darrell, look at that. Im getting in a mode. How did you end up thinking about eschatology in these areas? 

Darrell Bock: 

Well, I lived in the '70s, came to the Lord in the early '70s, in the shadow of Israel having won the six-day war. And so eschatology was a nerve. It wasn't just the little strand that went through. Everyone was in back pain, because of trying to figure everything out. What's going on? What could be next around the corner? Is Jesus coming soon? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then I went to Dallas, and the one thing you couldn't do at Dallas in the late '70s is not think about eschatology. 

So I was kind of surrounded by it, would be one way to say it, and then trying to process eschatological hope in imminence, Jesus the next thing, could be the next thing that happens. We could be gone before the podcast is over, all the way over to the fact of well, people have had that expectation and we're all still here and trying to deal with what is that very natural biblical tension that we all have. 

So yeah, so it's been an interest ever since. And then the monkey wrench in the whole thing was realizing that the term eschatology, the way we use it popularly is actually probably not the best biblical definition for the term, because we have been in the last times ever since Jesus showed up. And so, it isn't a matter of talking about the eschatology that is yet to come, 'cause we're in the eschatological times already, which most people don't even think about. So I hope that didn't confuse you, but that's how it happens. 

Kymberli Cook: 

No it didn't confuse me. 

 Michael Svigel: 

And in a sense from day one, the whole plan and purpose of God has been forward-looking. So every age of God's plan of redemption has had an eschatology. So we got to know where we are in the story, so we know how to live and what to believe. 

Kymberli Cook: 

It's kind of the, you are here? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Exactly. We need to know where we are. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Arrow? So why do you all think that eschatology in general strikes such a nerve for some? 

Darrell Bock: 

Because a lot of people have a lot of different views about what's coming. 

Kymberli Cook: 

What do you think is driving that? 

Darrell Bock: 

Well, I think it's a natural human ... When God made us in His image, He gave us the ability to think and reason and think, not only look back but look forward and wrestle with where we're headed and all those kinds of questions. And so I think people naturally want to know, "Okay, so where's this going? Not just where am I going, but where's this going?" And in the midst of thinking about that and then having an array of answers that everyone says is biblical, which is confusing, okay? 

Kymberli Cook: 

In a variety of topics, yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

You're off and running. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah. And you had different eschatological expectations pre-Christian. The Jewish people had different ideas, the Greeks had different ideas how this was all going to end. Somewhere a little more heavenly and spiritual, some more earthy. And then, you get into the early church, you inherit some of those same tendencies. So by the second century, you had a diversity of opinions just on big questions like the millennium, and then get into the details of end times events and how literal and how spiritual to take things. So the diversity that you're seeing in evangelicalism is not new. We've been dealing with it for 2000 years. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Interesting. So with all of those people having different opinions, different interpretations, some people tend to hold them very, very strongly. So in light of where we're headed with the rest of this conversation, what might be y'all's exhortation to those who have a very specific opinion on what the end things is, what is going to happen even now should be happening now and headed until the end of all things? What would be y'all's word to those listeners? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah. I will first start out by saying, we need to understand what the main things are. Even though there have been a variety, dozens, hundreds of different views on details from order of end times events to nature of the millennium to identity of the two witnesses in Revelation 11, there are still these things that the church has always believed from the beginning in near unanimous consensus. And that's simply that someday in the future, Jesus Christ is coming back as Judge and King, there's going to be a resurrection of the dead. This world is not going to be the same as it always is. There's going to be a restoration of creation and eternal life, banishment of sin, death, devil, suffering. 

I think we can reemphasize those basic foundational hopes of the Christian faith as a starting point. This is something we all have in common. Now, we can start talking about legitimate diversity of opinions and knowing the difference between those two things, if you can get that settled, it'll cut down on a lot of the vitriol, I think. 

Darrell Bock: 

I very much agree. I was going to say you step back and you say, "What do we hold in common?" We hold in common that Jesus is coming back. We hold in common that this is a hope. We hold in common that this hope means the restoration of the way the creation was originally intended to function. There are lots of things that go into that bucket that we share, that actually are at the core of what we're hoping for. And so, that's to be focused on the one hand. And then the differences are kind of in family conversations. I love my sister. I don't always agree with her about everything that she ever did in her life, and she certainly feels that way about me. So that kind of thing. 

Kymberli Cook: 

And at the same time, you can also, if you have a posture of humility, you're able to learn potentially more about the faith and more about scripture and the Lord, and perhaps even, some end things if we're willing to kind of hear what the other perspectives have to say. You don't have to accept it all wholesale, but there is learning that can happen, especially if it is your interest. 

So what about the people on the other end of the spectrum? So the people who are like, "Listen, I do not have a journal with a bunch of charts. I don't have anything that I am looking for the news to happen." 

Darrell Bock: 

You're missing so much in life. 

Kymberli Cook: 

"I know I don't really care," like Dr. Svigel just said. Jesus is coming back, that's probably all I really care about." What might you say to those who would find themselves a bit agnostic about this conversation about the end things? 

Darrell Bock: 

My guess would be that in stepping back from considering what the end is like, that you're missing some things that you need to know and understand and appreciate, in order to understand who you're supposed to be now. And so the lack of interest in where we are headed may actually create an inability to appreciate who we're supposed to be. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Anything you'd add? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah, I would say the same thing. I would also say that just to kind of reiterate, there is a feedback loop as you are thinking about details of the end and how this is going to work out, how it's not going to work out, how do we get there? These are all questions that are answered by the details of eschatology. Is this something that we have to establish in our own age prior To Christ's return? Versus is this something that we have another mission until Christ returns? Or is it a little of both? How you answer those questions is going to affect if you're consistent with your eschatology, how you live on that Monday morning or I guess Thursday morning as you brought up earlier. 

Darrell Bock: 

In fact, the failure to understand where eschatology takes us probably makes us more nervous in this time, and then we're more likely to make mistakes. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Interesting. So you talked about, we've been referencing all these diversities of views. We're definitely not going through the hundreds, but in four or five big categories, what would you all, for those who are listening who are like, "All right, I didn't really care but you just told me that I should, so I'm listening." What are kind of the big interpretational camps for eschatology views? Just start throwing them out? We can work our way down a spectrum? Or we can just throw them across? 

 Michael Svigel: 

The way I teach my eschatology class is I begin with the things that we all hold in common. So Jesus Christ is coming back as Judge and King, resurrection, the things we mentioned. And then I say on top of that, "You've got a diversity of opinions on the next big issue, which is the question of the millennium, the nature of the kingdom, how much of it is not yet? How much of it is already?" And it's kind of like a sliding scale to some degree in different areas. But the three big views traditionally have been the amillennial view, the pre-millennial and the post-millennial. Again, these are on a spectrum and they overlap with each other. And the problem is there's varieties of amillennialism and varieties of pre-mil and varieties of post-mil. 

Darrell Bock: 

You just went from hundreds to three, so now we're in trouble. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Right? So I'd like to think of them as three continents that are overlapping and they have their own little cities, and there's some things that are in common. And I think there's even probably at least a theoretical spot where they all sort of overlap with each other. So that's if you look at the history of that, but how you view the coming kingdom, the messianic age does affect how you live today. And whether you think it's mostly or all heavenly or mostly or all earthly, mostly present or mostly future. I think that's the first kind of grid where you have to sort of figure out where you land and then work from there. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Okay. So let- 

Darrell Bock: 

Can I try and fill in with each of the three? So if you're amillennial and you believe Jesus can come back and form the new heavens and the new earth, you're less likely to be concerned about the role of Israel and the plan of God, just by that default. If you're pre-millennial, you're going to be concerned with figuring out, "Okay, so when is Jesus coming back to set this all up?" If you're post-millennial, you're going to be working hard to fix things until we get there. And so those break out into three very different general approaches, depending on which space I'm in. I like to compare views to plate tectonics. They rub against each other and they build pressure. And then when you get too much of a pressure, you get an earthquake. 

Kymberli Cook: 

That's the ebb and flow. 

Darrell Bock: 

That's the ebb and flow of our conversation. 

 Michael Svigel: 

And let me fill in even further then. So I feel like we're looking at it from the planetary perspective and then we're zooming in. So just to take amillennialism and varieties of that, this is basically saying the kingdom, the millennium as described in Revelation 20, actually began at Christ's ascension and comes to a conclusion with His return. So it's happening now. Well, in the history of that, some really emphasized it as a heavenly spiritual kingdom, and some emphasize it more as a present earthly reality through the church or somewhere in between. And depending on which one you take on that, your goal is to die and go to heaven and you have not a lot of concern about the present earth, or it's to realize that as much as possible in the earthly realm. 

Same with post-millennialism. In the history, there have been what I would call passive evangelistic post-millennialism, where you just preach the word and eventually miraculously, there'll be this pouring out of the spirit and the world will convert. But then there's on the other extreme has been militant post-millennialism, where our job is to pick up the pitchforks and the spears and overthrow the king in the church and establish a perfect society. 

Kymberli Cook: 

To make happen. 

 Michael Svigel: 

And then everything in between. So how you answer those questions just by those examples has been very, very important to your day-to-day living, how you view the mission of the Christian. 

Kymberli Cook: 

So just bringing that in a smidge more. So we were just in the countries, let's bring it to the cities. How might that impact somebody like an accountant who is a parent, has kids at their school, they attend church regularly, and they listen to The Table Podcast? 

Darrell Bock: 

So can I play with your question and tweak it just a little bit? 

Kymberli Cook: 

Sure. 

Darrell Bock: 

And that is, how would that impact me as a citizen. If I'm a citizen, whether I'm counting bank accounts or whatever, it wrestles with the question, so what exactly is my involvement in public space? How should I think about government? What's its role to be? How should I think about morality in public space, et cetera? It's going to impact all of that. Do I have a, I'm going to put it in quotes, "A theocratic expectation for where we're headed or not?" 

Kymberli Cook: 

What might a theocratic expectation look like? 

Darrell Bock: 

Well, a theocratic expectation is the idea of governments are called to live by God's values, no matter what. And you're going to enforce those values by the way you structure your government, as opposed to a approach that says, "Well, we should live by God's standards, but we also understand we're living in the world." And so how do you balance that in the pluralism that we experience, for example? 

So obviously, those are not minor questions. Those are big orientation questions. Most people float through their theological life not even thinking about them, but they end up depending on what they're absorbing, having a theological and eschatological worldview whether they realize it or not. And so it's much better to be aware of what's going on around you than not being aware of what's going around you. So that's part of the reason for having this conversation. 

Kymberli Cook: 

What would you add about the accountant- 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah, I think- 

Kymberli Cook: 

As far as understanding what that might impact that daily life? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah. If they're consistent, it's going to affect how they invest their time, what they invest their money in, that kind of thing. If there's this urgency in missions or if they view their job as kind of just improving society, that's going to affect your day-to-day decisions, simply what are you going to do with your spare time? What are you going to do after work? Where are you going to send your kids to college? Who are you going to vote for, right? Those questions. Who are you going to follow on X? 

Kymberli Cook: 

There you go. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Or Twitter, formerly known as Twitter, right? All of these decisions, sometimes unconsciously, we're making- 

Darrell Bock: 

Who you're going to face in the book, right? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah. These little decisions are being made based on kind of what do we view our mission as, as Christians. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Okay. So that's the millennial question. What's the next ring of discussion? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah. Well, I can tell you what I deal with in class. After we answer the millennial question, we move on to the question of what's called, futurism or historicism or preterism? What about this? How do we take the Book of Revelation and the end times events? That's kind of the next question, how you answer that. Also in very clear example, sometimes pre-millennials or dispensationalists are accused of believing that the world has to get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse, in order for Jesus to come back. 

So we almost have this, or we're accused of having this sort of global shot in Freuda where we are delighting when things are getting worse, because it means Jesus coming back. Well, that's not really, if you hold to a futurist view of revelation that these things are going to occur in the future during a seven-year period, and that's yet to come, which has a distinct beginning. The world can get better, could get worse, could stay the same, leading up to that commencement of those events. It's really in the, what's called the historicist view, that kind of took the Book of Revelation and says, it's describing the whole history of the church until Christ return. Would you really necessarily begin to see this decline in the quality of society, this collapse in society before the return of Christ? 

So there's some mixing of categories, and I'll just have to admit, a lot of people in our own tradition have not been consistent with that futurist expectation. So in my expectation, I think it's not a waste of time to be working to improve society and the economy and people's lives and to invest in the future generations, because we don't know if Jesus has come back today or a 1,000 years from now. And I don't expect the world to necessarily get worse and worse before that begins. 

Darrell Bock: 

And just to add to that picture, how we interact with people outside the church becomes a testimony for what people think about God. We've allowed eschatology in some cases to become separate from the mission of the church and to be its own distinct conversation and category. It's actually quite connected. When I go to share Christ and say, "God cares about you, God loves you. He sent His Son to die for you, et cetera." And someone comes back to me and says, "Well, where do I see evidence of that being the attitude of the church in the world?" Which is a very good question to ask. 

If the church is showing a total lack of concern for their neighbor in the midst of that process, that becomes an inconsistency between what we're saying and what we're demonstrating. So you want those two things to align, not because you think necessarily you're going to fix the world, but because it is a goal to love people, care for them and try and make the world a better place as much as possible. And by doing so, making people aware of the presence of God and what it is that the church has to offer to the world. And we've allowed that distinction and that separation to prevent us from going there. And that ends up working against everything a lot of people want to see in the church, which is to see people who need the Lord come to the Lord 

Kymberli Cook: 

Well. I mean this is a little bit different I think than what you're saying, but in the disconnect, we no longer actually have hope, which is the Gospel and what the Gospel is. And if we don't live out the rest of the Gospel, which includes all of this eschatological hope, then we're missing the whole point. 

Darrell Bock: 

And the risk becomes, we isolate ourselves from the very mission that God has given us, which is not to go into the church and make disciples, but go into the world and make disciples. And so we lose our concern for evangelism if we're not careful. If we don't understand what the eschatological call is, why God has the church in our midst, what the church is supposed to be as a witness to what God is and will do, all those things, that disconnect becomes a gap, and that gap can become a canyon. And when that canyon exists, then we cease to do the one thing God has called us to do until He comes back, which is to try and be a witness to what it is God's Grace is all about. 

Kymberli Cook: 

So we talked about the futurist a bit and the historicist, right? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Sure, yeah. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Or is that the term- 

 Michael Svigel: 

Different views of end times events. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Yes. Well, but we didn't cover preterist. What does the Preterist real life look like? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah. 

Darrell Bock: 

They're busy boys. They basically say, in one sense or another, the consummation has come and we are the expression of the consummation now. I think there tends to be a fusion of what other views would see as the eschatology and what is going on now. And so, preterists will place Jesus, some preterists will place Jesus' second coming with the destruction of the temple in AD 70, for example. Already happened, been there, done that. 

Kymberli Cook: 

So we're in the eternal kingdom now? 

Darrell Bock: 

Not quite, but pretty close. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yeah. Usually, there's a strong emphasis in some of those circles. And again, I'm generalizing 'cause there's varieties of preterism. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Of course. 

 Michael Svigel: 

But a strong emphasis on, well we get saved now and we die and go to heaven, and the heavenly destination is really the consummation, it tends to be a de-emphasis on. But then there's other varieties where it's partial preterist. So a lot of the events, prophecies of revelation were fulfilled in the first century, but we're still awaiting, although those big bucket things we talked about. So there's those varieties, which I have far more tolerance for. There are some though where they just deny even bodily resurrection, because it's just dying and going to heaven. So you always have to ask them follow-up questions, what is it that you really hold within the bound of that preterism? 

Darrell Bock: 

Which brings us to another ring in the big set of things that we're talking about, and that is what does the end actually look like? Is it a strictly spiritual existence? And I'm going to use this description, even though it might not totally ... A kind of disembodied presence with God? Or is there, what I call a full physicality associated with it? It's a material and spiritual reality that we'll live in. Nations and nation states will matter, and not just being in the presence of God. It will be nations that worship God, not just individuals, that kind of thing. We'll realize that people from every tribe in every nation while we're there. There's still an earthly structure and an earthly presence over which God sits. My joke about the eschaton is no one will debate who the Pope is when Jesus comes back. And- 

Kymberli Cook: 

No, but it's a real thing. 

Darrell Bock: 

Exactly right. 

Kymberli Cook: 

We hear that and we're like, "Oh, well of course not." But even in some of the training and teaching that we've done in our church, it's become very apparent when we actually get into, okay, so when we die, there's going to be this intermediate state. We will be with the Lord, but that's not the end. And people just, half the time, don't know what to do with that, because they really functionally have that kind of disembodied eschatology. 

Darrell Bock: 

Heaven will be, I'll be on leisure time 24/7 forever. I mean- 

Kymberli Cook: 

Exactly. 

 Michael Svigel: 

[inaudible 00:27:12]. 

Kymberli Cook: 

On a cloud with a heart. Yeah. 

 Michael Svigel: 

But I tell people, "Look, I'm not denying that when we die, we go to heaven. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. But you follow that with an ellipsis, dot dot dot until resurrection of the body, restoration of creation." This world is going to be restored and renewed and it's going to be exactly like Darrell describes. I tell my kids when they would ask me about what's heaven like, I say, "Well, do you mean heaven? Do you mean the new heavens and the new earth?" So I try to redirect them and I say, "It's like this world without all the bad things. It's earthy. You'll be able to reach down and pick it up. That's how earthy it is, and you'll have a hand to do it." And so too many people think the Christian eschatology, even if they have charts saying otherwise, we reinforce it through these songs and hymns and conversations and pop theology, they think that eschatology is dying, going to heaven! 

Kymberli Cook: 

Jesus wins. 

 Michael Svigel: 

I get that all the time. 

Darrell Bock: 

And of course, the end chapters of the Bible are the new heavens and, and, and the new earth. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yep. Guess what? There'll be birds and butterflies and animals and people and water and clouds and all that. It's very much God, as you said early on, taking this place back to and outdoing what was originally planned. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, it's a restoration. 

 Michael Svigel: 

It's a restoration. 

Darrell Bock: 

And an enhancement at the same time. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Yep, exactly. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yep. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Isn't that exciting though? 

Kymberli Cook: 

Well, of course it is. I think so. Well, but I think that's part of the hope that is sometimes lost too, is because if you don't have that dimension, then the things that we do here in our earthiness even now don't really matter. 

Darrell Bock: 

Or they matter too much. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Right. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Unpack that. 

Darrell Bock: 

Okay, so they matter too much. In other words, if I don't know where things are going, if I'm not confident that justice will come to the earth one day, if I'm not confident that sin will be done away with and that I've got to fight to stop its presence, then the risk is I'll try and do too much, for lack of a better description because it matters too much. 

 Michael Svigel: 

And be very frustrated when you can't get it done. 

Darrell Bock: 

Exactly right. 

 Michael Svigel: 

And now someone's to blame. So understanding where you are in the story. The other extreme is, it's out of my hands, and why polish the chrome on a sinking ship and this idea? Well, the reality is yes, there's a coming kingdom. We're citizens of that coming kingdom, but now we are to live out the values and priorities of that coming kingdom. And if part of the job in the future kingdom is to pick up all these styrofoam cups we polluted for whatever and restore this creation, maybe we should be about that today. 

Live out our citizenship and the values of those things in justice and righteousness and peace and work toward healing, right? Work against the forces of evil and wickedness in this world, knowing though, because we know we're not there yet, that it's going to be two steps forward, three steps back, four steps forward, two steps back. It's going to be a battle, but we don't give up on righteousness because we're not glorified yet. Therefore, we don't give up on the priorities of the coming kingdom because we're not there yet. We keep living those things out. 

Darrell Bock: 

So that means that there are three things that are associated with how we understand the future. One is aspirational, where is God taking us and what does that look like? The second is the idea of, oh, well this is an audiovisual. What the future looks like is what we're supposed to be kind of a sneak preview of now. So you have the aspirational and you have this sneak preview dimension. And then the third part of it is understanding that in reaching towards that aspiration and reflecting that aspiration, you are trying to show where God is actually taking us, it's trajectory. And so you put those three things together and all of a sudden, you've kind of got a lane to live in that you can pursue, and you have a target in mind as you're on that lane. 

Kymberli Cook: 

So in light of what we're talking about right now and DTS' historic commitment with dispensationalism, sometimes dispensationalism has gotten a rap for maybe being one of those polishing the chrome on a sinking ship kind of thing. First, we've said the word a lot, but some people who are listening might not necessarily know exactly what we're talking about when we're saying dispensationalism. So can somebody unpack that? And then, can we talk through how essentially a dispensational perspective looks like daily lived up? 

Darrell Bock: 

So who wants to define dispensationalism? 

 Michael Svigel: 

You've been at this longer than I have. 

Darrell Bock: 

Let's play ping pong. 

Kymberli Cook: 

The good thing is I'm asking the questions. 

Darrell Bock: 

A dispensation comes from a Latin word, translates the Greek word oikonomia, and it's the word for administration. So the idea is that the program of God has different administrative structures along the way that are related to one another as the program of God unfolds. And there's a stewardship responsibility within an administration that people have to know where they fit in that plan of salvation and how they're supposed to respond. 

Normally, dispensations will divide the three key periods associated with dispensationalism as law, grace and millennium. I actually don't like those three descriptions, because they're different kinds of things. I prefer to think about Israel, church and millennium, 'cause they're the same kind of restructured entity. And so they relate to how does the law of the Old Testament and the Torah relate to what's going on now and what will happen in the millennium? Those kinds of questions come up. 

Dispensationalists have been known for making distinctions in the administration, noting the differences between those administrations and then what progressive dispensationalism has done, yeah. But in the midst of those differences, there's certain continuities that are advancing the program that we also have to keep our eye on. So that was, I did that in about what, 90 seconds? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Good job. 

Kymberli Cook: 

That was well done. That was like years of your life consolidated. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, it's frightening to think about it. There was a time when I did have dark hair and I had lot more of it. Anyway, so yeah, so that's the dispensational background. And of course what happened was, is that this dispensationalism, and this is a result of the fundamentalist modernist controversy to a certain degree, is dispensationalism came to the point where it was defending the Bible and staying away from what came viewed as social action. And in that division, that meant that people were just doing evangelism were trying to bring people to the Lord, 'cause what matters is their salvation, what happens to them in the future. And we became less concerned for what was going on around us unless it impacted that mission. 

Of course, what that did was to create this divide I talked about earlier, which is that we lost the ability to see that how we treat people outside, who are outside the church is a reflection of our message, 'cause our message is, God loves you and cares for you and sent His Son for you. Well, how do I see God's care and love for people outside the church, unless I show it by the way I minister? So it got severed from our mission by we're polishing chrome on the Titanic. I mean, that was a legitimate illustration that was used. And in the process of that severing, we actually lost one of the best means we have to show why Jesus matters. 

So now, what's happening is you have some people who are trying to reconnect those things, even though they have an eschatology that says, "We're not fixing this till the end," because they want more people to benefit from what it is God offers in the meantime. And the understanding that the quality of life in this life is enhanced by having a life that walks with God. 

Kymberli Cook: 

And so if I'm hearing you right, going back to our accountant, the way dispensationalism would look like lived out in the type of dispensationalism you're talking about is recognizing I'm a part of the church age. There's a certain stewardship and responsibility as a part of that, and which is what you're talking about as far as- 

Darrell Bock: 

I'm a witness to the goodness and grace of God. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Yes, and telling people that God loves you and demonstrating how that is. 

Darrell Bock: 

And show it, that's right. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Yes. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah. I have a line that I like to use from Hamilton. The Hamilton has a song where Aaron Burr is being introduced to Alexander Hamilton and the line goes, "Talk less, smile more." Okay, I love that song. Don't go through the rest of that line, 'cause it doesn't apply. But anyway, and I like to say, when we need to adjust that, it needs to be, talk less, show more. That we show who we are. We show God's care. We show God's grace. We live out as His ambassador, what His character is about. And when we do that well, we care for people. We care for people both inside and outside the church. We care about what goes on with people inside and outside the church. And when we connect our evangelism and our mission and our calling to that level of care as part of our outreach, we actually engage in an evangelism as it was designed to be engaged. And most of the Bible is about everyday life outside the spiritual activity of people. So that's worth contemplating. 

 Michael Svigel: 

And this is important too, because how we view the ultimate end. If you view the ultimate end of dying, going to heaven and emphasize the spiritual, the tendency is going to have a faith, a lived faith that is only emphasizing the invisible and the spiritual. 

Darrell Bock: 

And sometimes the private. 

 Michael Svigel: 

The privat, personal individual. 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, yeah. 

 Michael Svigel: 

But if we understand that God's plan of redemption is the whole cosmos from the birds and the bees to the flowers and the trees and everything in between, now just that whole worldview that God is concerned about the physical world. And if He's concerned about the physical world, He's concerned about the people and the animals and the nature, et cetera, that is going to make us better citizens of this world. The other thing I'd like to point out is that because this creation, and this is one thing when Darrell was talking about, 'cause some of the older forms of dispensationalism really emphasizing beginning and end of these things rather than they're actually headed somewhere and building upon each other. 

Kymberli Cook: 

The continuity you're talking about. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Right, the continuity. When it was a beginning and end, there tended to be this emphasis on, well this world is going to be burned up and destroyed into nothing, and just God's going to start over and create a brand new world. Which is not my view, but it's out there. And if you understand that no, it's this world that God created that He's going to redeem, He's going to restore, He's going to glorify, the fact that it is going to be done means no, we're fighting a winning battle. We're not fighting a losing battle. We're just waiting for the reinforcements. 

Could you imagine if you're an army and you are convinced that nobody's coming to help, this battle's never going to end well, I mean imagine what that's going to do to the way you carry out your operations. But if you are waiting at any moment for the reinforcements to come in and this is going to turn the tide, I think that just inspires us to live out even more the soldiering that we're supposed to be doing. 

Darrell Bock: 

And just to mention the Bible, Romans 8. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Little things. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Amen. Yes. 

Darrell Bock: 

That's right. Romans 8 talks about all creation groaning for the redemption of God. So this is not something that's privatized. It's not privatized appointed, this is about me and my God. No, this is about us and our God. This is about us in the midst of the creation in our God. This is about everything that God created in Genesis 1 being restored, so that by the time we get to the end of Revelation, everything is restored. And we're people who are previewing and moving towards that trajectory. And everything that we do should be related towards that, establishing that trajectory. So that accountant is counting. He's not just counting money. He's counting how he lives his life in line with where God is taking us. 

Kymberli Cook: 

That was a nice tie, tie together 

Darrell Bock: 

Yeah, I was working on it. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Well, actually, I was about to say that our time is pretty much up. Just to summarize, I think we talked about how there is a connection between our beliefs and our actions, whether we know it or not. And we want to make sure that that is a clean, intentional line instead of us living out something that we don't actually believe. And some of the key things that all Christians believe, what is it Dr. Svigel? 

 Michael Svigel: 

Jesus Christ is coming back as Judge and King. He's going to banish sin, death and devil and usher in His kingdom. There's going to be a resurrection of the body, restoration of all things. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Thank you. And then, for those who in the variety of opinions beyond that. 

 Michael Svigel: 

I will not list those. 

Kymberli Cook: 

No, please don't. We already did. 

Darrell Bock: 

Like credits at the end of a movie. 

Kymberli Cook: 

But key in that is just the recognition of the importance of the life that we're living here and now. And that what we believe matters and we need to take our place, however you want to place it as far as the you are here arrows with the different interpretations. But we need to take our place as God's people representing His kingdom and representing it well. 

Darrell Bock: 

We're all ambassadors. 

Kymberli Cook: 

And looking ahead. 

Darrell Bock: 

We're all ambassadors for the Lord and representing a kingdom that exists in the midst of the world that's not the world. And in the midst of doing that, trying to draw people into what that opportunity to experience God means and to be light. So we're going to talk less. We're going to show more. We're going to shine and then shine the light. It hopefully draws. And in drawing people, people are drawing closer to God. And the closer they get to God, the better off they'll be. 

Kymberli Cook: 

Indeed, and there'll be a lot more hope for all of us in the midst. Gentlemen, thank you for your time, for joining us and talking about these things. I really appreciate both of your ministries in my life and in the wider DTS community. So thank you for being here. 

 Michael Svigel: 

Thanks. 

Darrell Bock: 

A pleasure. 

Kymberli Cook: 

And we just want to thank you who are listening. We want to thank those of you who have tuned in and listened, and would just ask that you would review us anywhere that you are listening to podcasts. And be sure to join us next time, when we discuss issues of God and culture.