Interview 90: The Church’s View of Israel: A Historical-Theological Overview

We are transitioning over to a new edition of FrontLine with our podcast interviews today, the September/October edition. The theme of this edition is “Using Your Words: Glorifying God with Language.” I’ve recorded a few interviews with our authors. These will be published in due course.Before we get to them, I want to offer an interview with the author of one of our regular features in FrontLine called “At a Glance.” This column is the long-term project of Layton Talbert who teaches at BJU seminary. This feature is very helpful to Bible nerds like me, and I hope our readers find it helpful also.The reason I wanted to bring Layton in this time was the topic of his column in the last two issues of FrontLine, “The Church’s View of Israel: A Historical-Theological Overview.” I guess Israel has been in the news every year of my conscious life. I remember as a ten-year-old hearing about the 1967 war and ongoing conflict and trouble there ever since. Of course, there has been a terrible conflict going on the last two years in Israel as well. Hopefully as we put out this recording that conflict is coming to a close, time will tell.Given the timeliness of the topic and Layton’s careful discussion, I thought it would be a good idea to highlight these articles for our listener’s consideration.Now, we are not talking about the current conflict or really saying much about the modern state of Israel at all in this discussion. What we are talking about is how the church has thought about Israel over the years of church history and also how the church should think about Israel based on the Bible.Also, I should say that we are using some 64-dollar words in this discussion. We try to define some of them along the way, but perhaps we used more than we defined. I encourage our listeners to think about the topic as we work through it and again to carefully read Layton’s articles. I think they will help you as you think about Israel theologically rather than politically.Before we get to the interview, let me remind you that Layton’s article (including both parts from the last two FrontLines) is available on our substack right away for paying subscribers. We have previews for everyone else. I hope you will join with us and support the ministry of the FBFI by becoming a paying subscriber.The Article:At a Glance: The Church’s View of Israel: A Historical-Theological OverviewThe Contents & Editorial for the Sept/Oct FrontLine:Using Your Words: Glorifying God with Language (FrontLine) – Proclaim & Defend Get full access to the Proclaim & Defend Podcast at proclaimdefend.substack.com/subscribe