Experientialism

Psalm 138:2 I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

I was in conversation a couple weeks ago about Replacement Theology. That is the idea that the Church has replaced Israel in God's ultimate plans, as opposed to a Dispensational Theology which says that God dealt with Israel, but has temporarily put them off to deal with the Church, and will return to Israel later (after the Rapture).

Well, the conversation had to do with the Reformers, and how they were big on the Replacement Theology. But, to give them some credit, they lived in a time when Israel was not a nation, and had not been a nation for a millennium and a half! It is so easy for us to see how Israel will be involved in future events, because we see them as a nation. For the Reformers, that was an unreasonable idea since Israel no longer existed - in their minds. They had to take Scriptures to mean something a little different than the plain meaning of it, in order to match their experience.

However, I wonder how much of that we are guilty of as well? How many times do we read something in the Bible and say, "Well, that can't mean that, because all of my experience, observation and reason say that it can't be that. It must mean something else..." Instead of just taking Scripture at what it says, we change it to match our experience. That puts experience above revelation... that's a no-no!

My hat goes off to those theologians that held to a literal, national Israel being dealt with in Scripture, even though there was no "possibility" of a national Israel!

Just a thought...