Over the years, I have had many people write me and tell me this. Whenever I hear this, it only confirms to me that the prewrath position is the natural reading of Scripture. They did not read any prewrath literature to reach this conclusion. They read the Bible first and came to that conclusion, only to learn later that there is a theological short-hand term that describes this interpretation: prewrath.
Pretribs cannot say the same thing. Pretribs are pretribs because of their particular church tradition they were brought up in; or, later in life they read biased pretrib books or novels. But I have never met any pretribber who came to pretrib theology by reading the Bible alone, apart from a tradition and/or biased pretrib literature.
In addition I have noted in my book:
Pretribulational imminency is a relatively new British-American teaching in church history, originating in the nineteenth century by the Plymouth Brethren theologian John Nelson Darby. If it is found in other parts of the world today, it is only because it has been exported by American and British pretribulational missionaries. This teaching may sound new, even challenging to some readers. You might have grown up in a tradition that assumed the imminency of the Lord’s return. If this describes you, I encourage you to be a “Berean” in the faith and test everything with the Word of God. “These [Bereans] were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they eagerly received the message, examining the scriptures carefully every day to see if these things were so” (Acts 17: 11). [p. 192, Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord: What Every Christian Needs to Know about the Return of Christ]
