Dake Bible Discussion Board ⇒ Mid-Acts Dispensationalism

[Hill Top]

They seem oblivious to the fact that Paul was a Jew, and had repented of sin, and been baptized !
MAD is based on separation, when Christ brought unity.

Interesting point. I asked Google's AI about it. Here is what it said.

According to Mid-Acts Dispensationalism, Paul was baptized as an obedient, transitional act under the Kingdom program, not as a theological necessity for salvation under the dispensation of grace, which began after Pentecost and focuses on spiritual baptism into the Body of Christ rather than water rituals. His baptism by Ananias in Acts 9 was a Jewish practice that followed his conversion but was part of God's progressive plan for Israel, which differed from the heavenly mystery of the Body of Christ revealed to Paul later. [1, 2, 3]

Contextualizing Paul's Baptism [1, 2, 4]

Transitional Act:
Paul's baptism was an obedient, immediate action following his dramatic encounter with the resurrected Christ in Acts 9. It occurred during the early period of the Acts church, when Jewish practices were still prominent before the full revelation of the "mystery" to Paul.

Kingdom Program vs. Dispensation of Grace:
Mid-Acts Dispensationalism differentiates between God's past programs for Israel (the Kingdom program) and the present dispensation of grace for the Church (the Body of Christ).

• Kingdom Program: Water baptism, as seen with John the Baptist and in Acts 2:38, was a prophetic act pointing to repentance and remission of sins within Israel's prophetic program.
• Dispensation of Grace: Paul's ministry involved a "gospel of grace without works" and the spiritual baptism of believers into the one Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, a distinct concept from the earlier water baptism.

AI seems as uninformed as the MAD folks that the only "works" Paul ever talked against were the works of the Law: circumcision, dietary rules, sabbath keeping, feast keeping, tithing, etc. FOR salvation.


The Significance of Paul's Later Statement
• 1 Corinthians 1:17:
Paul's statement, "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel" (1 Corinthians 1:17), is interpreted as a key indicator of this shift. He was distinguishing his apostolic commission, focused on preaching the cross, from the work of baptizing, which he left to others. [1, 5, 6]

AI doesn't seem to understand that Paul's 1 Cor 1 comment was only in regard to his priorities, and not of his complete mission.

• Distinction from the Mystery:
Paul's baptism was a stepping stone within the earlier program, but the mystery of grace revealed to him emphasized that water baptism was not required for salvation or for the spiritual union within the Body of Christ. [1, 2] [/quote]
Only one "shoe" fits both Jew and Gentile.
"Earlier program" is the clue to MAD's lust for separating believers.

AI responses may include mistakes.[/quote]
For sure.

(BTW, I seem to have forgotten how to use the "parenth'-quote-parenth" stuff to separate my post's answers from the post I am responding to.
How about a quick tutorial/reminder ?)

[Hill Top]

Do you believe in dispensationalism, at all?

Not the way it is presented.
I believe there is now a new covenant, and the old has passed away.
If one wants to call the covenants dispensations, I'm OK with that.
But to use it to refrain from obeying God's, Jesus', and the apostles commandments, is a gross error.

If memory serves, M.A.D. teaches that the New Covenant is for Israel, not for the One New Man of the Age of Grace (or Pauline Dispensation).

I think the key to disproving M.A.D. would likely be to show that they are wrongly dividing the Scriptures concerning dispensations or to prove that dispensationalism is false. The problem is there seems to be more than one version of dispensationalism. M.A.D. is just one. And, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that different M.A.D. groups believe somewhat differently about how to define M.A.D. and the dispensations it teaches and what's applicable to a particular dispensation and what's not.

Only being familiar with one of their sects, I can only surmise they all have the same intent of separation, and discontinuation of repentance from sin and water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.
That means they have no turn from sin or cleaning by the blood of Christ.
A death sentence, to me.

[Spiritblade Disciple]

"(BTW, I seem to have forgotten how to use the "parenth'-quote-parent" stuff to separate my post's answers from the post I am responding to.
How about a quick tutorial/reminder ?)"
--- --- ---

Basically, you want to utilize two commands. The first is [quote]. It goes before the text that you want to quote and creates the quote box.
The second is [/quote]. It goes after the text you are quoting and closes the quote box.

Here's an example:

[quote]
Quoted text about the quick brown fox jumping over the lazy dog.
[/quote]

If I wanted to indicate who I was quoting, I would add ="Author" inside of the first command, like this [quote="Author"], replacing "author" with whomever I'm quoting ([quote="Hill Top"], for example.

That would make it look like this:

[quote]
Quoted text about the quick brown fox jumping over the lazy dog.
[/quote]

Or, this:

[quote="Author"]
Quoted text about the quick brown fox jumping over the lazy dog.
[/quote]

There's fancier stuff that adds links to the profile of the person you're quoting and the post that you're quoting. But, they require figuring out the id number of the poster and the post number in the forum. When utilized, it changes the starting [quote] command to look something like this:

[quote="Hill Top" post_id=115237 time=1756268294 user_id=18894]

I usually just try to find the one that is already formatted like this and copy and paste it at the beginning of sections that I want to quote.

A simpler way to do it is just to write it in manually, like this:

Author wrote:
"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

That way, there's no need to worry about getting the code right. Or, if you want to go semi-fancy, put bold commands around the "Author wrote" line like this:

[b]Author wrote:[/b]
"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

Hope this helps.

[Hill Top]

"(BTW, I seem to have forgotten how to use the "parenth'-quote-parent" stuff to separate my post's answers from the post I am responding to.
How about a quick tutorial/reminder ?)"
--- --- ---

Basically, you want to utilize two commands. The first is

. It goes before the text that you want to quote and creates the quote box.
The second is

. It goes after the text you are quoting and closes the quote box.

That's the one I forgot.
Thanks,

Here's an example:

Quoted text about the quick brown fox jumping over the lazy dog.

If I wanted to indicate who I was quoting, I would add ="Author" inside of the first command, like this

, replacing "author" with whomever I'm quoting (

, for example.

That would make it look like this:

Quoted text about the quick brown fox jumping over the lazy dog.

Or, this:

Quoted text about the quick brown fox jumping over the lazy dog.

There's fancier stuff that adds links to the profile of the person you're quoting and the post that you're quoting. But, they require figuring out the id number of the poster and the post number in the forum. When utilized, it changes the starting

command to look something like this:

I usually just try to find the one that is already formatted like this and copy and paste it at the beginning of sections that I want to quote.

A simpler way to do it is just to write it in manually, like this:

Author wrote:
"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

That way, there's no need to worry about getting the code right. Or, if you want to go semi-fancy, put bold commands around the "Author wrote" line like this:

Author wrote:
"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

Hope this helps.