(Blog) Dispensationalism Gives YOU The Correct Eschatology - Ep. 968 - August 31, 2026

Dispensationalism and the Whole Counsel of God

A claim that "God had a wife" shows what can happen when Scripture is interpreted through mysticism and outside ideas rather than treated as the authority that judges those ideas.

Allen and Jeff of The Smith and Rowland Show argue that believers need the whole counsel of God to recognize error, understand prophecy, and keep isolated verses from becoming distorted doctrines. Their discussion centers on biblical authority, the Centurion's faith, and Paul's warnings about fables and false teachers.

The Claim That God Had a Wife

The discussion began with a Prophecy News Watch article titled, "God Had a Wife: When Pastors Trade Scripture for Mysticism and Fables." The title raised two connected concerns: the claim that the God of Israel had a wife named Asherah, and the larger issue of pastors replacing Scripture with speculation.

Allen and Jeff praised Prophecy News Watch for addressing serious topics and for the quality of its staff-written articles. However, their focus quickly turned to a recurring biblical warning: false teaching has been present in the church since the beginning.

Paul's warnings to the Ephesian elders

Allen connected the article to Acts 20, where Paul spoke to the elders at Ephesus before leaving them. Paul told them they would not see him again, then warned them that wolves would enter among them and that teachers would arise from within their own ranks.

The hosts connected those warnings with fables, mysticism, Gnosticism, and other teachings that pull people away from God's Word. In their view, the same pattern Paul warned about in Ephesus is still active in churches today.

False teaching is not a new problem. Paul warned that it would come from both outside the church and from within it.

Timothy received the same warning

Paul also left Timothy in Ephesus to pastor the church. In 1 Timothy, Paul instructed him to charge some people to teach no other doctrine and to avoid fables and endless genealogies that produce questions rather than godly edification.

Jeff and Allen saw a direct connection between that instruction and current church culture. They warned that people can become drawn to spiritual-sounding ideas that do not arise from the Word of God, including mysticism, interfaith spirituality, ancient paganism, and speculative theories about biblical history.

Faith Rests in the Authority of God's Word

The hosts used the Centurion's encounter with Jesus to explain their concern about spiritual experiences becoming the basis for faith and obedience.

The Centurion understood authority

The Centurion came to Jesus because his servant was sick. Jesus offered to come and heal the servant, but the Centurion told Him that He did not need to come to the house. He asked Jesus to "speak the word."

Because the Centurion was a man under authority, he understood that commands carried weight. He told people to go and they went, and he told them to come and they came. Therefore, he recognized that Jesus had authority over sickness even when He was not physically present in the servant's home.

Jesus responded that He had not found such great faith in all Israel. Allen's application from the passage was direct: real faith trusts the authority of God's spoken Word.

Obedience should not depend on a feeling

Jeff said some believers and churches have adopted an attitude that sounds like, "I will only obey if I feel Your manifest presence." In the hosts' view, that approach resembles New Age philosophy and mysticism because it makes a personal experience the condition for obedience.

Their concern was not with gathering together, waiting on the Lord, or honoring God's presence. They acknowledged the biblical example of believers waiting on the Lord in Acts 2. The concern arises when people treat a felt manifestation of God's presence as more authoritative than God's Word.

The servant received healing even though Jesus did not come to the house. For Allen and Jeff, that account shows that faith does not need to demand a visible sign or a particular emotional experience before acting on what God has said.

The Word of God and the Presence of God Belong Together

Allen and Jeff argued that church culture has often separated the Spirit from the Word, treating them as two separate camps. They rejected that separation.

Scripture is not separate from God's presence

Jeff stated that the Word of God and the presence of God are equal and cannot be separated. When believers open the Word of God, they are encountering God's revealed presence and authority, whether they feel something at that moment or not.

They connected this conviction to the truth that "the Word was made flesh." The Word is not a distant record that must be supplemented by another source of spiritual authority. It is God-breathed.

The Word of God is not separate from the presence and authority of God.

Allen said Christians can know that truth in their minds while failing to practice it. Familiarity with Scripture can cause people to repeat biblical phrases without recognizing what they are holding in their hands.

A renewed allegiance to the Bible

Allen described beginning each Sunday teaching time with a pledge of allegiance to the Bible. He said he wanted to make a fresh emphasis on loyalty to the Word of God.

He also said he had seen more movement of the Spirit as he placed greater emphasis on the Word. In his view, honoring God's presence is right, but churches create a problem when they emphasize God's presence without also declaring that God's Word is inseparable from that presence.

The hosts' point was not that the Spirit and Scripture compete with one another. They argued that people cannot seek the power of the Spirit while neglecting the Word of God.

The Whole Counsel of God Protects Against Error

Acts 20 became the center of the conversation. Paul said he had not shunned to declare "all the counsel of God" to the Ephesian believers.

Paul gave the complete message

Allen connected the whole counsel of God to the full biblical message: John the Baptist's call to repent and be baptized, Peter's preaching concerning Israel's rejection of the Messiah, and Paul's teaching on the blood atonement of Jesus Christ and the gospel of grace.

Paul said he was pure from the blood of all men because he had given them the whole counsel of God. For the hosts, that statement explains why Paul could warn them so clearly about wolves and false teachers. They had received the framework needed to identify teachings that did not fit God's complete message.

Allen emphasized that believers must understand the whole story of Scripture rather than relying on a narrow study of one word or one verse.

One verse can be misread without the larger framework

Jeff described teaching through 1 Timothy verse by verse. He said a teacher can carefully explain a single verse, yet still misinterpret it if the whole counsel of God is not part of that person's spiritual understanding.

The hosts referred to the biblical phrase, "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little." They used it to describe steady growth in Scripture over time.

A "verse of the day" may sound meaningful, but the hosts warned that readers can misunderstand it if they do not know its place in the larger message of the Bible. Their concern is not with reading a short passage. It is with forming beliefs from isolated verses without the rest of Scripture to explain them.

Dispensationalism and Correct Eschatology

Allen and Jeff repeatedly connected the whole counsel of God with dispensational Bible teaching. They did not present dispensationalism as a denominational tag or something to promote like a product. Instead, they described it as a biblical framework that helps readers understand God's plan from beginning to end.

Prophecy requires the whole biblical picture

According to the hosts, confusion about eschatology often comes from failing to understand the whole counsel of God. A person who sees the Bible as a unified message can better understand prophecy, Israel, the gospel of grace, and God's stated plan.

Allen argued that dispensational Bible teaching puts eschatology in order because it requires attention to the whole biblical account. Without that framework, people can take a verse out of its context and build a doctrine that does not fit the rest of Scripture.

They said the Bible's prophetic pattern has continued to unfold as written. Although they expressed surprise that the world has reached its current condition, they said they are not surprised by the kinds of events and doctrines they see because Scripture speaks about them.

Israel and the discussion of predestination

Allen also addressed a question about predestination. He said that, in his dispensational understanding, passages about predestination concern the nation of Israel and the promises God made to His chosen people.

He connected this to the mixed audience Paul addressed, which included Jewish believers, Gentiles, and Jewish converts. In the hosts' view, recognizing biblical distinctions keeps readers from applying passages meant for Israel in ways that alter their meaning.

The hosts argue that a clear biblical framework keeps individual verses from overturning the larger message of Scripture.

Familiar Bible Phrases Can Lose Their Meaning

The conversation also addressed how familiar Christian language can be repeated so often that its meaning is changed or forgotten.

"Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags"

Allen gave the example of the phrase, "Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Many people, he said, hear that verse and assume it means sinful actions are offensive to God.

However, he stressed that the passage speaks about human righteousness, or good deeds. The point is that human goodness cannot become the basis for acceptance before God.

The hosts used this example to show how a commonly repeated verse can be misunderstood when people know the phrase but not its larger biblical setting.

Knowing good is not the same as knowing God

Allen and Jeff briefly referred to the tree in the garden and the knowledge of good and evil. They asked whether God wanted humanity to know good or to know God.

Their answer was that God wanted people to know Him. Good can become an enemy of God when people trust their own goodness rather than God Himself. A person may be considered good by human standards, but personal goodness does not produce the new birth.

For that reason, the hosts argued that Scripture must shape a believer's perspective. Familiar Christian language and moral ideas cannot replace the whole counsel of God.

The Asherah Claim and Ancient Pagan Ideas

The Prophecy News Watch article discussed an example at Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. According to the article as read on the program, co-pastor Zach Hilton claimed that the God of Israel once had a wife named Asherah.

The claim presented to the congregation

Hilton reportedly described Asherah as a female divine presence worshiped alongside Yahweh. He also reportedly argued that King Josiah's destruction of Asherah poles and pagan shrines was less a spiritual reform than an effort to consolidate religious and political power.

The article said Hilton lamented what Josiah's actions supposedly meant for young Israelite girls. In that account, they had lost a feminine divine figure to look up to.

Allen and Jeff rejected the claim without qualification. They said it abandons the authority of Scripture and replaces it with pagan speculation.

The hosts connected the claim to Gnosticism

Allen associated the teaching with ancient Gnostic thought. He described the Gnostic idea of an unreachable, perfect God and a lesser, flawed being connected with creation. In that framework, the flaws of the world are explained through a creator who is not fully perfect.

For Allen, the claim about Asherah follows that same kind of thinking. It introduces an idea about God from outside Scripture and then reads the Bible through that idea.

When outside religious ideas become the lens for reading Scripture, people can reshape biblical teaching to fit those ideas.

The hosts said this error can enter a church quietly because it uses religious language and can appear in a familiar setting. Yet they argued that a person grounded in the whole counsel of God will recognize that it does not fit the biblical message.

Modern Lenses That Reinterpret Scripture

The article also warned that outside philosophies and religious traditions are sometimes used to reinterpret Scripture itself. Instead of allowing Scripture to judge spiritual claims, these approaches place another authority over the Bible.

Politics, sexuality, and social ideology

The article named modern sexuality, gender ideology, social justice, and progressive politics as lenses that some churches use to reinterpret Scripture. It also named mysticism, interfaith spirituality, ancient paganism, and speculative theories about the Bible.

Allen and Jeff argued that any of these ideas can become a replacement for the whole counsel of God. Once a person adopts an outside system as the primary lens, that system controls how the person reads the Bible.

In their view, the problem is not limited to one strange teaching about Asherah. The same method can change biblical teaching in many areas:

• A political ideology can become the standard for defining Christian faithfulness.
• A cultural view of gender can become the basis for interpreting God's nature.
• A mystical experience can become more authoritative than the written Word.
• An ancient pagan idea can be treated as the explanation for biblical history.

The hosts' example of James Talarico

Jeff referred to James Talarico, a Texas Senate candidate, and said Talarico uses non-binary language for God. Jeff argued that Talarico's progressive political and social views have become the lens through which he reads Scripture.

In the hosts' view, that framework becomes a substitute for dispensational Bible understanding and the whole counsel of God. As a result, they said, Scripture is reinterpreted to support progressive politics rather than allowed to speak on its own terms.

Their central warning remained the same: the Bible should judge outside claims, and outside claims should not rewrite the Bible.

Sunday School and Patient Bible Learning

Allen said one of the worst losses for the American church has been the loss of Sunday school. He did not make that claim as a statistical assessment. He spoke from his own experience of learning Scripture steadily as a child.

Early teaching shaped a biblical framework

Allen recalled attending an intermediate Sunday school class taught by Harold Greer. At about 11 years old, he said, Greer taught principles of dispensationalism.

That class was more than a weekly gathering for Allen. It was part of a long process in which the whole counsel of the Word of God began to take shape in his life. He said he was saved at age six, and he described the next 57 years as a gradual journey of "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little."

Over time, he said, that accumulated biblical understanding became part of his spiritual DNA.

Growth takes time and guards against confusion

The hosts contrasted patient Bible learning with the quick pull of a single verse, a Bible app notification, or a dramatic spiritual claim. A verse can sound powerful, but a person may still have no idea what it means in context.

Allen said the whole counsel of God provides the framework that helps readers recognize false teaching. That framework does not require claiming perfect knowledge. However, it gives believers a clear understanding of God's plan and a way to test doctrines that do not fit it.

Wolves and False Teachers Can Come From Within

Paul's warning in Acts 20 included danger from two directions. Wolves would come from outside, and false teachers would rise from within the church.

Familiar language can conceal false doctrine

The hosts stressed that false teaching within the church can be difficult to recognize because it may use Christian vocabulary. It may come from a pastor, a church, or a religious setting that appears familiar.

That is why they connected Paul's warnings in Acts 20, 1 Timothy, and Colossians. Paul did not only warn believers that error existed. He told them how to avoid it by holding to the whole counsel of God.

For Allen and Jeff, fables, endless genealogies, mysticism, and speculative doctrines all have the same effect. They create questions and confusion instead of godly edification.

Scripture is the standard for testing claims

The hosts presented dispensational Bible teaching as protection against heresy because it gives readers a framework for the Bible's complete message. When a new claim arises, believers can measure it against what Scripture says from beginning to end.

They returned to the issue of allegiance. Churches and individuals must treat the Word of God as God's Word, not as material to reshape according to experiences, political commitments, or theories borrowed from other religions.

Hold to the Whole Counsel of God

The claim that God had a wife was the starting point, but the larger concern was biblical authority. Allen and Jeff argued that mysticism, cultural ideology, political systems, and pagan speculation can all distort Scripture when they become the primary lens for reading it.

Their answer is the whole counsel of God. They maintain that patient study, biblical distinctions, and confidence in the authority of God's spoken Word bring clarity to doctrine and eschatology.

A teaching may sound spiritual, compassionate, or culturally appealing. The issue, according to the hosts, is whether it agrees with the whole counsel of God.

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