Nielsen’s Nook

You know I am a little simpled out, but when the pressure is on to get concise simplified answers out of my little brain, I come up with strange mnemonic devices. On Saturday, February 4, at my oral exam before presbytery (the regional governing body of the PCA), I will be most certainly asked, “What are the basic differences, briefly stated, between dispensational and covenant theologies?” Part of the problem for me is that simple answers have never really helped draw people together. Simple answers tend to be the pat things to say to keep people who don’t belong to your group on the outside and actually ignorant of what it is that your group may believe. That being said, my answer to the inevitable question will have to be: P.P.I.M.P.. But could you imagine if I just gave the acronym and did not explain!?

Dispensational Theology

People: God has two peoples.
Promise: God’s covenant promise to Israel was unconditional.
Israel: The nation Israel was a type of the church but is always separate from the church.
Millennium: Christ came to establish an earthly Millennium.
Parenthesis: Israel’s rejection of Messiah caused God to postpone the Millennium.

Covenant Theology

People: God has one people only.
Promise: God’s covenant with Israel was conditional.
Israel: While Israel was a type of the Church, the Church supersedes it.
Millennium: Christ came to establish a Spiritual Millennium.
Parenthesis: God’s plan was not thwarted, there is no parethesis in which the Church emerges.

Perhaps simple answers, if used well, can spur on constructive conversation between brothers and sisters in the one Body of Christ. May God help us.