Dispensationalism

It is as useful an approach as any to survey the contents of the book chapter by chapter. This also allows the difficulties in his method of argumentation to be pointed out.

In his first chapter, ôDispensationalismùHelp or Heresy?ö Ryrie begins immediately by detailing the major objections to Dispensationalism offered by other Christian groups, especially ones very close to Dispensationalism in their outlook. For example, he comments about ôcovenant premillennialists who believe in a posttribulational Raptureö (Ryrie 12-13). Given beliefs that share so many assumptions, most outsiders, even among Evangelical Christians, would have to think that what is going on here is an internal debate within an overall large religious movement, not an argument

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istian concepts, the Dispensationalist system did not exist before the time of John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), founder of the Plymouth Brethren. After describing the career of Darby, and taking a potshot at the Progressive Dispensationalists, Ryrie spends five pages fighting with critics who claim that Dispensationalism is divisive. In his fifth chapter, ôThe Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism,ö Ryrie discusses the principles for interpreting the Bible. His comments on some recent developments in hermeneutics in general show that he is quite aware of the broader world of Protestant theology. After presenting the Dispensationalist approach to hermeneutics, he undertakes a discussion of the nondispensationalist and Progressive Dispensational approaches to it, and the tone in it is much less combative than in similar discussions earlier in the book. He concludes this chapter with an addendum on the ôSermon on the Mountö in Matthew, defending the Dispensationalist viewpoint that this ôsermonö was addressed to the Jews and does not apply to the Christian community. Many would find this a strange viewpoint; and yet it has become commonplace among liberal theologians to see Matthew as an extremely Jewish document, having, for example,
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Approximate Word count = 1326
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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