Well, I begin with a story from my life. When I taught at TEDS, I regularly polled my students by reading essays and exams, and came to the conviction that the vast majority of the students were not pre-tribulationists. They seemed to be post-tribulationists in the main. But, when they got into the pulpit, not being all that persuaded of either view, and finding a congregation of folks who read Scofield’s or Ryrie’s Study Bibles, they seemed to have simply let go of their previous views. (This is my read; unscientific.) My read is that most evangelical academics are post-tribulationists. What is your view? Please vote on the poll. Let me explain the views.
1. Premillennial only: you believe in an earthly millennium; you don’t know about a “real” tribulation; not sure about rapture as often taught.
2. Postmillennial: you believe the Church, through the magnificent work of the Spirit, will eventually convert the entire world.
3. Preterist: you think just about everything said about eschatology in the Bible was fulfilled in 70 AD and in the Church/kingdom.
Now for some more particular views that are variants of #1:
4. Pretribulation: Jesus will come before the tribulation; 7 years; then Second Coming; then Millennium.
5. Midtribulation: Jesus will come in the middle of the tribulation….. (=pre-wrath)
6. Posttribulation: Jesus will come at the end of the tribulation….
7. Second Coming only: you simply believe in the Second Coming and don’t know when or how and think those who do are wrong. You do not think there will be an earthly Millennium; you may equate “millennium” with church age. (Amillennialism.)
8. Skeptical: you’re not sure about any of this; think most of it, if not all of it, is metaphor and rhetoric.