First off I want to say I have got a lot of time for Paul Williams. He is a decent man, and I think that himself and Merle have brought much good stuff to New Life church in recent years.
However I do need to say that I think the recent series on the end times that he brought to New Life was a mistake, that the theology was in error and many of the ‘factoids’ he used to back up his theories were just factually wrong.
Paul’s basic stance is one which is not outside the basic beliefs of many Pentecostal and Evangelical Christians. It comes from taking an extreme literalistic interpretation of the book of Revelation, and a number of the the prophetic books of the old testament.
However, his theology is outside of what has been preached at New Life Church for the last 20 years, and is a distinct departure from what the people who have been responsible for teaching (Roy and Rob) have been willing to say from the pulpit.
Roy was strongly a-millennial and would have rejected Paul’s teaching firmly and roundly(and probably loudly knowing Roy). Rob was more circumspect and would only teach the basics that Jesus clearly preached, that he would come again, that we do not know when, and that all things would be made new at the end. I never firmly understood his complete position, but I never heard him preach something that I could describe as conjecture on the subject.
Both these men would have resisted the preaching of the message Paul preached from the pulpit for differing reasons, so I was a little disturbed at the reasoning in moving this controversial and theologically foreign doctrine to the forefront at New Life Church when unity what is required at the moment.
Paul’s preaching on the rapture as an event before the great tribulation, and separate from the 2nd coming of Christ is based on popular doctrine that has been made famous in recent decades by the Left Behind series of books, and was originally popularised in the last century by the Schofield reference bible.
However, the belief that Christians would be raptured before the tribulation can be found at no point in church history before 1860 and the prophecy came from a group called the Irvingites. I am always very sceptical of any doctrine which cannot be found throughout church history, and am extremely resistant to any doctrine founded on an initial basis of prophecy rather than scripture.
My issue is not with that one aspect which I believe is in error, butwith the whole approach which I believe adds great confusion, complication, conjecture, fiction, and speculation to any area of Biblical understanding which is difficult at the best of times.
As I have previously said the position Paul Williams takes is based on the foundation that the book of Revelation is to be understood literally as one continuous vision of the future which starts at Revelation 4 after the letters, and does not stop until Revelation 22.
I am firmly of the opinion that it is based on a flawed assumption of ‘modernism’ (the western world view of the the last 300 years), which is that for something to be true it must literally, scientifically and logicallybe true. It leaves little room for metaphor, symbolism and writing which is not sequential, which is what I believe the books Revelation is.
