The Clock, Map and Timeline of Church History

Clock of Church History


The above chart is an original chart I have done through my own study. It is divided into three parts....

The top left is the clock showing the clock hands nearing midnight....the Laodician Church age when the Church entered a time of being lukewarm...after the 1900's. This is the period that began;

• Modernism
  
• Eccumunical Movement
  
• Pentecostalism
  
• Neo-Evangelicalism
  
• Word-Faith Movement
  
• Eccumunical evangelism
  
• Seeker Sensitive, Market driven Churches
  
• Rise of Cults; Mormonism, Jehovah Witnessess, World Wide Church of God, Shepherds Chapel, Boston Church of Christ...ect.
  

The method of interpretation I am using is called the Prophetic interpretation. This interpretation of the Letter to the Seven Churches has not received wide acceptance in the Church. Additionally it has been questioned as a deviation from a consistant literal interpretation by critics of dispensationalism. My position is that it is a way to structure and teach on Church history....but if it gets in the way of having a discussion on the book of Revelation....then I skip it as unrelated to the interpretation of the Book of the Revelation.

The primarary application is that the Seven Letters to Seven literal Churches in Asia Minor.

The secondary application is that the Seven Letters are characteristics of the Church through out history....and of Churches today.

So on these two...using the literal method of interpretation give more than enough material to study. But it is the trtiary application...the Prophetic Interpretation of Church history that is the focus of this chart.

Between the 69th week of Daniel 9:26 and the 70th week of Daniel 9:27...only two events are foretold to occur in the gap between these weeks of years. They are..

• The Messiah will be cut off
  
• The City (Jerusalem) and the Temple will be destroyed by the people of the prince who shall come.
  

This happened in the 40 years between Christ's truimphal entry and the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70...fulfilling Luke 21:20-24.

But the question would arise..."how long will the Lord tarry and fulfill all things?" I believe the answer to this question is the Letter to the Seven Churches using the prophetic interpretation.

To the left of the clock is a crude map of where the Seven Churches are located in Asia Minor.

This letter was originally addressed to these seven selected churches of Asia. This was the Roman province of Asia, which is the western part of modern day Turkey. - David Guzik

Below is a timeline that is focused on how the History of the Church related to "Israel's Seventy-sevens" and the "Time of the Gentiles."

The Pauline Epistles divide humanity into three groups;

• Jews
• Greeks
• the church of God (I Corinthians 10:32)

To correctly handle the word of God is to keep each in their group and distinct. The confusion in Biblical interpretation is not with mixing the Church with the Gentiles....but the Church with the Jews. Israel is not the Church and the Church is not Israel. Here is the reason for this distinction;

• Israel is promised the Land, the Priesthood, and the Kingdom of David...the Church is promised the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God and the priesthood of believers.
• Israel is under the Law....the Church is under grace and truth.
• Israel is promised to be an earthly people of God and the Church is promised to be a heavenly people in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:

11Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision"(the Jews) (that done in the body by the hands of men)-- 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel (the Jew) and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. 14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one (the Church) and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two (the Jew + the Gentile = the Church), thus making peace, 16and in this one body ( the Church) to reconcile both of them ( the Jew and the Gentile) to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Notice that between the birth of the Church on Pentecost in A.D. 32 we run parallel with Israel AFTER the 69th seven had been fulfilled when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and accepted the title of Messiah (Luke 19:28-44)....until her destruction in A.D. 70. This period was a time of grace for the nation of Israel to repent and receive Jesus as their Messiah (Acts 3:17-23). If the nation had...then Jesus would have return during this period. The offer of the kingdom was as valid through the apostles...as it was through Jesus during His first coming. But because Israel continued to reject the offer...God's grace was withdrawn for the moment...Israel was hardened and the program of God turned to the Church.

The first period we will look at is the Church of Ephesus-The Apostolic Church period from A.D. 32- A.D. 100.