You and Two Houses: What's your story?

[Joshua]

I'd really be interested to hear how you came to your current understanding of Two House Theology. Besides just being an encouragement to others, it may help us to understand where others are coming from when discussing and debating.

[Joshua]

I come from a Protestant Evangelical background, a small denomination called Advent Christian (not 7th Day) in the north-east United States. While I didn't follow all the Advent Christian (AC) doctrines dogmatically, I did appreciate many of their unique perspectives on doctrines of debate among Protestants.

After two years of study at the denomination's unaccredited school I transferred and completed a Bachelor's Degree in Biblical Studies from a Evangelical College in Pennsylvania in 2009.

I had every intention of continuing with a Masters of Theology before that, but decided against it as I have developed some serious misgivings about the system of higher education and the Church (which I won't get into more here).

Still with a passion for theology, I have been studying and reading on my own ever since. I especially enjoy reading history through the lens of theology and how doctrines have developed, changed, or been reinforced through church history.

I honestly cannot pin point a specific time or passage that turned my interest, but it came simply through reading through Hosea, Jeremiah and Isaiah. I started to notice House of Israel being distinguished from the House of Judah and thought it was interesting. My church had done a sermon series on Joseph just months before and I remembered reading Genesis 48 and thinking it was odd that we had these prophecies for Joseph and his sons, but they seemed to be largely forgotten.

I couldn't remember anyone in all my years talking about Israel and Judah as separate. I wish I could say I had been told that Israel was lost forever and Judah was all that was left of Israel, but honestly, it was never even brought up. There was no talk or thought or mention of anything do with Israel and Judah other than lumping them all in as "Israel".
I remembered reading through the OT prophecy in high school and having all these labels and titles coming at me and just kind of blanking out. It just became stuff about Israel. You know, Israel, the Israelites, the Jews, all the same.

But here I was, a Christian who grew up in the church and was supposedly decently educated, suddenly faced with a difficult problem. That I was moving more and more toward a conviction that I had zero outside affirmation for, that I had no historical theological support for, and I couldn't help but fear I was becoming heretical!
So I started asking around, I started looking on the internet, started broaching conversations about Ephraim and Gen 48 and Israel's exile and supposed return with leaders in my church.
And what I found initially encouraged me, and then quickly frightened me.

So many times I would be reading an article and be saying "yes, yes, yes this is what I mean" only to in the following paragraph find them advocating something that I could under no circumstances agree with, not without throwing out my core beliefs. But as I read more about it, and its critics, I found that there was simply no single systematized and unified "Two House Theology".

I'm aware I'm far more moderate than some, but I created this forum in the hope we can arrive at a core understanding of Two House Theology that we can all agree on.