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| John Nelson Darby was a pioneer in promoting seven dispensations, the last one being the Millennium. |
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| Details vary quite a bit, but this is the basic scheme. |
Darby was a brilliant man who almost became a lawyer in Britain but decided that was not a good occupation. Instead, he became a minister and eventually associated with a small group called the Plymouth Brethren.
Garrison Keillor (liberal, radio star) pretends to be Lutheran, but he was raised in the Plymouth Brethren denomination. Probably most Pietistic Lutherans in Minnesota cannot tell the difference.
Darby wrote more than 30 volumes, and he was a key person in defining the Seven Dispensations. Note that once this scheme was invented, taught, and adopted, the Dispensations defined all readings of the Scriptures. That reminds me of misinformed Lutherans hearing passages and saying, "That's OJ." and "That's SJ." The filter becomes the answer.
The Rapture is the corruption of the 1 Thessalonians passage about the Return of Christ. For many groups, the Rapture is a great way of scaring people into believing, because their bus driver or their Jet Blue pilot is going to be raptured. They will crash and be very sorry for not listening better.
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| Cyrus Scofield was trained in the law. He was a disreputable and dishonest person. However, he changed Bible publishing with his Scofield Reference Bible. |
Scofield had many jobs and religious associations. He was in trouble for corruption and bribes as an attorney general and abandoned his first wife and daughters. He married a second time and had another child.
Wiki:
When the Scofield Reference Bible was published in 1909, it quickly became the most influential statement of dispensational premillennialism, and Scofield's popularity as Bible conference speaker increased as his health continued to decline. Royalties from the work were substantial, and Scofield held real estate in Dallas, Ashuelot, New Hampshire, and Douglaston, Long Island. Scofield also joined the prestigious Lotos Club.[20]
The genius of his work was combining notes with the KJV Bible, a common practice today - and suspect for the same reasons. The notes become canonical, like the NIV LCMS Bible that denied the Messianic Psalms. How could the infallible, conservative LCMS be wrong about anything?
Scofield sold millions of his Bibles, which appear everywhere. I asked in Columbus, "Why is a Scofield Bible here?" Silence. They liked Norman Vincent Peale too.
Futurism
I am not sure how clearly "Futurism" is defined, but these two figures really increased the fascination with the Bible predicting the future, with various people knowing more than the Son of God - Mark 13.
Faithful Christians do not teach a millennial reign of Christians on earth. The Millennium is a reference to the Christian Church on earth growing until the end of time.
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| Many sectarian errors and cults come from the rationalism of the Calvinists. |