Dispensational eschatology is an incorrect hermeneutic

First, I would like to apologize for accidentally causing my opponent to spend most of his round defining despensationalism. You say that I insisted you define but I do not remember doing so. When you said it was redundant to define it last round, I thought you were calling me out for my argument my characterization of dispensationalism ("dispensationalism is no more than….) the previous round . My response was that of defending my use of defining in context of the argument, I did not mean for it to come off as asking for further definition from you. Pro's Q #1 : I admitted as much that in part it was addressed to those individual churches. So are near all the books in the NT (Corinthians to the Corinthians, Romans to the church at Rome, ect.) Even the Gospel of Luke starts out saying it was being written for one person that Luke wanted to educate. And yet in spite of that context of who the epistles and gospels and the revelation of john was written for at the time, they are all written by the holy spirit for OUR benefit too today. Pro's Q #2 : I see you choose to press the use of the phrase ‘MUST SOON'. Do remember for God ‘soon' is a lot different for what that means for us. For example the Earth is possibly over 4 billion years old, the universe itself all together so much greater than that still that the earth would seem to be around just a short time so far. So 3000 years is not that perspectively long for god. And I would like to point out you did not address at all the argument I gave defending that it could mean 3000 years later, the point about God answering prayer, witch is essentially the point about the interference of our free will. If you found my case so un-compelling about Moses prayer to god changing his stated plans to destroy the Israelis, then perhaps this scripture will do better as it states it better than I ever could why the over 2000 year passing of time does not matter and the ‘why' for the delay in what the church was told then ‘must soon' come to pass. 2 Peter 3: 6-14. verse 9 shows the delay is because god wishes for none of us to perish. Eventually that longsuffering patience will come to an end and judgment shall occur. But the point is there is deviation for the timing of his promises, because our God is not a computer program that must follow its pre-laid out programming, but rather as the scripture say he is a ‘living god' and as the hymnist said ‘the lord of the dance' who allows for free will and adapts his actions for all things we could possibly do with that free will. When I say ‘adapt' I do not mean God himself changes, I just mean God being as perfect as he is responds to all possible actions done by my free will what is accordingly just for them. Pro's Q #3 : the ‘Great Tribulation' is not inferred from the list of purposes but from the obvious parallels with it and the Olivet discourse making reference to it in a future sense even after the reign of King Antiochus (thought to be the king fulfilled the ‘abomination of desecration'), meaning that part of what Daniel prophesied of was yet to be fulfilled. Seeing such a parallel its very reasonable to believe that they are about the same thing. Although you could see that the purpose ‘to bring and end to sin' and to ‘finish the transgression' is no doubt the reason of for the tribulation. My Q #1 : The answer I was actually looking for was ‘a covenant of grace' as covenant theologians refer to it. What else could the covenant be called after all for it is a huge theme in all the NT that it teaches us to understand that Christ sacrifice was a act of Grace. But trying mash that fact with you preconceived theology of ‘everything works by covenants' from the blessings given to Israel to the very changing of the sky from day to night, you get this oxymoron statement of ‘ a covenant of grace'. ‘covenant' and ‘grace' don't go in the same sentence because they are the very opposite of each other. A covenant is where a weaker party does something for something from a stronger party. A deal, both sides do something for the other. Grace, to put as my pastor has before is ‘gifts you receive witch you do not deserve'. You don't do anything for it. If you did it would not be grace, it would be a covenant. What is my point to all this? The label ‘covenant' is simply not good enough to describe all of gods acts with man and how he deals with them. Referring the changes in how he deals with us as dispensations is much broader though and does fit even with the acts of grace. Covenant theology itself could be considered part of the dispensations and it not contradict. My Q #2 : I asked this question because quite often you would treat ‘dispensation' like it had a similar meaning to ‘covenant' (… , this is based on a change of covenants, not a change in dispensations.) though the 2 theologies are competing ones, they are not terms that can be spoken of with the same grammar context. A covenant is an agreement between god and man, a dispensation is how god organized history. So saying a change in covenant is a change in dispensation too, your entering a new era of history with the change. But why does god change his covenants? Why not use the later covenants deemed good enough to replace the old first and have the final covenant be the only covenant? It's because of how god has chosen to administer and ‘dispense' them for his purposes of how to test and grow us . If you look at your list of the ‘covenant' view of history and the ‘dispensation' view there isn't much difference. And if you look into the full doctrine taught by dispensationalist you will see the presence of ‘grace' and the ‘law ' is said to be in all the dispensations too just like covenant theologians place the two in all the covenants in some respect or another. There's not that much difference between the two, but there is an important one, and that's ‘dispensation' is a broader term that doesn't haven't the problems calling everything a covenant does. My Q #3 : first, though there may be some dispensationalist that go as far to say grace did not start until the ascension, if you read your own source on dispensationalism which I am not contending you will see for most dispensationalist that is not the case. Second, a non-hyper preterist view is not unique to dispensationalist, most all Christians believe that a large portion of the prophecies deal with what is even our future still, including that some are about Israel, its location is spelled out often enough in them so the view is not unfounded. Third, your main point against dispensationalism in your response to question 3 and throughout this whole debate I think is about God dealing with Israel separately from the church (dispensationalist actually do accept theirs overlap between the 2). You speak of this as if that would make God unfair by dealing differently with the rest of the church than he deals with Israel. But the fact is the bible is full of examples where god deals differently with some than he does others. Rehab was dealt differently than the rest of Jericho, the seer who showed Saul the ghost of Samuel was dealt with differently by god, or the sorcerer Balaam as well, or the pharaoh of Joseph's time. They were dealt with differently by god. Does that make God unfair? If you say that then you should also say god is unfair for making some of his servants die martyrs like Steven and others live to be kings like David. There is nothing unfair about god dealing differently with some than others. He created us all unique, with unique strengths and weaknesses, & thus has unique test and challenges; unique purposes are set aside for us. A man gifted with the ability to sing is expected to give more time to the choir no doubt than the man who can't hold a note. Being different means it's only fair that god dispense accordingly.