Product Description

If what the Bible says about the future puzzles you, Understanding End Times Prophecy will help you put together the pieces and see the big picture. Paul Benware's unique slant is to see the framework for eschatology in the biblical covenants.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #379653 in Books
• Published on: 1995-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From the Back Cover

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Compelling Analysis
This book addresses issue of differing views of future events (end times) with the readability of a typical high school book. Dr. Benware manages to be thorough while at the same time to keep moving.

He begins with a basic review of the principles of interpretation and why people's views differ. (If you have always assumed that scriptures are difficult to understand, otherwise there wouldn't be such varied opinions, this section will be very valuable to you. Scriptures are not so difficult to interpret; it is simply that each person approaches scripture with a particular set of rules for interpretation. Different rules give different results.)

Next he goes through all the major issues of end-time prophecy, presenting each significant view of the issue. For each view, he presents the arguments for it, and why others reject such an argument. While he treats each view evenly, he makes no pretense of hiding his own opinion. This frankness allows the reader to understand clearly what is being said without needing to wonder about hidden agendas. It seems to me that he is fair in his assesments, but I admit to being of the same school in terms of rules for interpretation.

(Dr. Benware approaches scripture assuming that it says exactly what it means. This literal approach permits figures of speech when obvious and allegories where indicated. However, if the plain sense of a passage makes sense, then the approach is not to seek some mystical meaning instead of what it plainly says. The first section of the book gives the clearest explanation I've ever read of how the allegorical approach to scriptural interpretation developed from an effort to reconcile Biblical teaching to Greek Gnosticism. This section alone is worth the price of the book, without consideration of end-times prophecies.)

Foundation-Laying Breadth , Clarity, and Currentness
"Understanding End Times Prophecy" is an overview that requires no prior knowledge yet is not dumbed down, since theological terms are not avoided, just explained. This book does more than lay out the usual amillenial-postmillenial-premillenial viewpoints; it goes deeper to first address the underlying theologies from which the differing endtimes interpretations arise, explaining the significance and present relevance of the different covenants God made with the nation of Israel. I very much appreciated that since how one views the covenants greatly affects worldview, the Church, Israel, and endtimes prophecy. The rapture, tribulation, and millenium are discussed as expected for this type of book, but Benware goes the extra mile in mentioning more recent rapture view variations. There's an interesting final section, "Understanding the Future of the Individual" that gets into death theories and the eternal state. I recommend this book for accessibility and breadth, but for more focused depth on the timing of the rapture, birth pangs, Day of the Lord, consider checking out "Maranatha" by Renald Showers, also a dispensationalist.

Good overall book...
Writer is a dispensational pretrib author and so he definitely bends his thoughts in that direction. He starts off by talking about the covenants and their history and goes into great detail about each thought on the Millennium and each thought on the tribulation. Overall felt it was well put together and fair to each disposition, just remember that he does write and refute based on his theology, which I really liked. If you want a book that shows all sides from their own theologians pick up Zondervan's "Three Views on the Millennium"