Steve's Preterism Debate

[dwilkins]

Actually, Steve said it pretty clearly in the debate itself. I believe it was near the opening of his second speech when he said flatly that if he were to ever become a Full Preterist that he'd lose his job immediately. It's not that complicated.

Doug

[TheEditor]

So you agree that everybody tries to make a buck? Or that it is a cottage industry?

[robbyyoung]

I don't think there's any justification for selling the gospel. Requesting an offering for support is the seemingly only legitimate way to sustain one's ministry. I see no precedent set by the Apostles for business dealings with the gospel as a means of private wealth building .

God bless.


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Robby Young
U.S. Army Retired

[TheEditor]

I agree with you Robby. Of course, the "wiggle room" will be what constitutes "the Gospel"; and so, people will make money on "spiritual" (?) things and say it isn't really making money on "the Gospel".

Regards, Brenden.

[robbyyoung]

Yes, it's that, where your heart is "thing", I guess .


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Robby Young
U.S. Army Retired

[steve]

Doug,

Are you saying I would lose my "job" if I were to become a full-preterist? I am not sure what that means, since I have not had a job (meaning paid employment) of any kind for 31 years. I am not able to listen to the debate, because I don't have a recording of it (Don sent me one, but I couldn't get it to play on any machine), but if I said I would lose my "job," it would have to have been with tongue in cheek. Perhaps I meant the radio show? I have no idea of the context. In any case, losing the radio program would not have any financial bearing on my decisions, since I have never received any pay from the radio program, and, as I mentioned, God was already meeting all my needs for many years before I ever was able to be on the radio. I'm sure he would do the same if the program went off the air.

I do not believe any of those who have sent support to me see themselves as "paying" me to teach any particular doctrine. If they do, they have never hinted at this fact, and I make no effort to accommodate them. I believe that those people who contribute to my support do so because they benefit from the ministry. I do not look to my supporters for my provision (though they are the avenue through which God sends it). I have always disciplined myself to see only God as my provider, and only God as the one that I need to please with my teaching.

I have never allowed any consideration of my "career" to affect any of my doctrinal changes. Years ago, after the publication of "Revelation: Four Views," Thomas Nelson asked me to be the editor of a five-volume set of all the writings of W.E. Vine. It would have been a great publishing credit for my resumé, but his theology was dispensational and Calvinistic, and I declined the offer. If the security of my career had been a consideration in my doctrinal formation, I would have stayed with dispensationalism and probably would have become the successful pastor of a Calvary Chapel.

[steve7150]

Actually, Steve said it pretty clearly in the debate itself. I believe it was near the opening of his second speech when he said flatly that if he were to ever become a Full Preterist that he'd lose his job immediately. It's not that complicated.







What's not that complicated Doug?

[dwilkins]

Actually, Steve said it pretty clearly in the debate itself. I believe it was near the opening of his second speech when he said flatly that if he were to ever become a Full Preterist that he'd lose his job immediately. It's not that complicated.

What's not that complicated Doug?

The reality that Steve and Don don't have the same access to Evangelical Christians seems very simple to me. I'm not sure how else to say it. I don't know exactly what Steve meant by saying he'd be out of a job if he embraced Full Preterism (a paraphrase of what he actually said, of course), but the point he was making was that his access to his normal audience would be limited if he did so.

Doug

[steve7150]

but the point he was making was that his access to his normal audience would be limited if he did so.










At first i mentally agreed with this but the more i think about it, the more i think it would depend on how much of an issue he would make Full Preterism. My attitude would be that it's not a big issue unless one makes it the central issue of his ministry.

[steve]

the point he was making was that his access to his normal audience would be limited if he did so.

I thought your point was that the limiting of my audience would be a potential consequence I would wish to avoid, and would therefore keep me from embracing full preterism.

The truth is that there would probably be a shift in the demographics of my audience if I embraced full preterism. I would then become one of the bigger fish in an extremely small pond. I would expect that my ministry would then garner a larger percentage of the financial support available in that sector than the percentage that I currently draw of the money in the more mainstream evangelical sector.

If I believed that full preterism had a superior biblical case, nothing would prevent me from throwing my hat in that ring, just as I have come out in favor of other controversial points—in each case further limiting my audiences—when I discovered them to have a superior scriptural case.

Anyone hoping for widespread popularity in ministry should not champion Reformed eschatology while rejecting Calvinism, as I do. Nor should he admit to speaking in tongues while criticizing Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement. Nor should he defend fringe views on such an evangelical darling as the doctrine of hell. Nor should he take any number of positions that will alienate the majority of American evangelicals. My advocacy of any of these minority views, presumably, reduces my audience (and therefore my support). However, such matters are not major considerations in my choice of beliefs to embrace and teach.

I also agree with Steve7150 in saying that, were I ever to become persuaded of full preterism, there would never be any reason to make it a hobby horse of my ministry. The controversial positions I currently take have not become hobby horses, since there is none that could be regarded as a primary emphasis in my teaching (unless it would be "discipleship" or "the kingdom of God," which do not strike me as very controversial). I am not aware of any practical value in the full preterist view, so that, were I to come to believe it, I would have no reason to press it against other views, except when asked. In fact, if I embraced it, I would hope not to asked about it—not for fear of losing my audience, but for fear of having to resort to such counterintuitive arguments as those that full preterists must give to such passages as Luke 20:34-36 and 1 Corinthians 15.