Search This Blog

Saturday 25 October 2014

Dispensationalism

In 1832 a Young Church of Ireland curate John Nelson Darby and a former Roman Catholic Edward Cronin, founded The Plymouth Brethren denomination.

Darby was also responsible for Dispensationalism, a theory that the Bible was divided into a seven dispensations or eras, where God deals with people in particular ways.  Darby believed that the church was at the end of a dispensation period and future events prophesied in the Bible such as the re-establishment of Israel and the secret rapture of Christians were imminent. The latter centered on the idea that the return of Christ will come in two stages. The first will be a “rapture” of true believers from the earth, followed by a seven year period of “tribulation” for the remaining before Christ returns to begin a literal thousand-year reign on earth.

Darby's beliefs were later spread in the United States by the Scofield Reference Bible. An annotated Bible that incorporated his system of Biblical interpretation, it  became popular in America in the early twentieth century.

No comments:

Post a Comment