Dispensationalism

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Setting Captives Free repents of focus on sin and repentance...

The problem with my original writings was the focus on sin, the labeling of people according to their sin, the sharing and discussing of sin, and the constant reminders of the sin. This is Old Covenant law-oriented, problem-focused doctrine and not according to biblical truth, and it hurt many people to whom I’ve recently been apologizing.

- Mike Cleveland, announcing his repudiation of thirteen years of work with Setting Captives Free

One change in the past quarter-century that has been terribly destructive within the Church and Her households is the ubiquity of the internet through smartphones, tablets, and laptops. These tools have enabled the private consumption of horrendous moral filth and Christian men and (increasingly) women have found this wickedness almost irresistible. The percentage of young Christian men who have succumbed to internet fornication on a regular basis is likely close to ninety percent, and now women have joined men and are consuming thirty percent of the internet filth.

At Clearnote, we've given ourselves to working closely with men and women repenting of this sin. A critical part of our work with those repenting of this sin is that each man and woman has been required to enroll in an internet discipleship program called Setting Captives Free (SCF).

For this reason we were quite sad to be notified recently by several men of our congregation that SCF is now repudiating and will no longer be offering their former courses, including the Way of Purity (for heterosexuals who are struggling with sexual sin) and Door of Hope (for homosexuals in the same position). After a preliminary investigation, one of our elders wrote "it would appear [they] are watering down the gospel by shifting focus away from sin and the need to repent from it."

We contacted SCF to express our concern and this was their...


Where the Old Testament connects to you...

Our Pathway is studying 1 Peter. In going through it, the goal is to apply the Scriptures to our lives. I'm convinced one of our greatest obstacles to application is our use of reason. Being divided ourselves, we create divisions known as "categories". If you've ever been in a home where there are clearly defined standards for cleanliness, you know any casual, uncalculated move is a cookie crumb's length away from anarchy. It isn't that the host (usually hostess) is morally opposed to cookies, it's just that crumbs on the carpet do not compute. That's not where they go, so when they end up there...an unbroken gaze fixates upon them. It isn't that she doesn't want to have a good time...it's just...cookies...crumbs...carpet. Why? Can't you see what you're doing? There's no reconciling crumbs on the carpet. That's not the point. Validating your notions of what are nice, clean, philosophically coherent categories isn't on God's agenda.

The ministry of the Old Testament prophets was a steady series of morsel-like crumbs being dropped leading somewhere. Their ministry can still be tasted today as that is exactly what God intended. The Old Testament is not a conundrum, or a problem in need of reconciliation with the New Testament. If you're a good Calvinist, you know that because you've got some pretty good categories for reconciling them in your head. The problem is we're still not tasting the morsels. We accept the continuity of the Old and New Testaments but we miss the feast because we've rejected dispensational categories and opted for "covenantal" ones. We miss that the continuity consists of...