A110 : by Tony Garland
I had some of the same reservations about this possibility when I began the series. The series doesn't really touch on anything related to the "chosen nation" status of Israel. Nor is this its focus, so it isn't all that surprising.
Neither does it promote an obvious amillennial position—although a discerning viewer will see the possible influence of this interpretation behind some statements. It focuses on a Christian world-view and how that impacts our activities as believers in all aspects of life. As a person who believes the Scriptures teach a premillennial, pretribulational, dispensational understanding of world history, I didn't encounter anything I had reservations about with the exception of a short section on the very last presentation where Dr. Tackett implies that one of our mandates as Christians is to renovate or redeem the culture.
While I agree whole-heartedly that we are to be salt and light and to expose works of darkness, I don't see any Scriptural indication that we do so with the motivation or expectation of reforming the culture.
When and where Christian principles prevail, both believers and unbelievers are blessed and benefits accrue. This may happen at times in history when the culture becomes reformed towards God's principles by the power of God’s truth working on the individual level with the primary focus being the redemption of unbelievers and subsequent edification of believers rather than social works. When that happens, we, our country, and our children are blessed: but it isn't a focus we find in the Scriptures for the NT believer.
There may also be a point or two at which a careful viewer may disagree with the emphasis that Dr. Tackett may place on a passage related to Israel in the OT, but I have to say that in my viewing I felt he did a great job of extracting the principles that are clearly in the passages, whether they related directly to the NT church or OT Israel—even though he made no distinction in his presentation.
One other possible concern is when the material on social responsibility draws from interviews with Rev. Robert Sirico. Although the snippets of video relating his views don't contain any overtly objectionable ideas, there is, of course the chance that some viewers may be drawn in the direction of greater exposure to his teachings on their own—including, of course, the Roman Catholic basis behind them. But this is not all that great of a concern. Especially since other interviews feature extensive comments by Protestant sources the likes of Ravi Zacharias and R. C. Sproul.
In relation to the two primary goals which I see as the job of the church: 1) preaching the gospel to redeem individuals, and 2) equipping believers as disciples of Christ, this presentation is a valuable aid toward the latter.
One thing which I especially enjoyed was watching the classroom-based presentations: Dr. Tackett is an extremely gifted teacher and communicator.
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