Dispensationalism

Dispensationalism is very well explained in the first link below as "In order to understand the Bible, one must study dispensationally, that is, rightly divide the scriptures (2 Timothy 2:15). But what does it mean to study dispensationally or to rightly divide? On the most basic level: It is reading a Bible passage and asking, "Am I in the group of people being spoken to here?" That is, "Is this passage speaking to Christians?" Most commonly, we are taught that the entire Bible is written to us. But that is not entirely correct. The whole Bible is written for us, for our learning, but not all of it is addressed to us." This is very interesting read it in its entirety at http://www.matthewmcgee.org/dispensa.html. I'm just getting into this. McGee explains it well and succinctly.

Basically, dispensationalism is how God deals with man in different ways at different times. According to Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum (www.ariel.org) each covenant which God made with man had to do with a different covenant. There are 8 covenants in the Bible, the first 3 were made with all of humanity, the last 5 were made with Israel. They were:

1. Edenic
2. Adamic
3. Noahic
4. Abrahamic
5. Mosaic
6. Palestinian
7. Davidic
8. New Covenant

He deals with this in depth in one of his Messianic Bible Studies Series (PDF study #mbs21). I highly recommend getting this study series of ALL 190 of his studies in PDF.