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RECLAIMING BIBLICAL ESCHATOLOGY

If we are the products of our environment, then it’s fair to say I was shaped by Vanilla Ice, M.C. Hammer, and dispensationalism. None, of which, have aged all that well. 

Of dispensationalism, it was the ubiquitous stench in every Southern pew and the dank evangelical air that surrounded my Christian upbringing. My first study Bible, for instance, was a black leather Scofield Reference edition, which kindly pointed me to the bright hope that the sky was falling and everything else was failing. In current events, Mikhail Gorbachev’s disturbing birthmark was the best explanation we all had for the mark of the beast, credit cards and computer chips were ushering in a one-world currency, and the dreaded Nicolae Carpathia was soon to step out of the shadows and make himself known to the United Nations. 

Yet, amid all the eschatological ruckus, I do not remember feeling any real hope, encouragement, or authentic love for God. The only motivation I had to live like a “Christian”, was to make sure I punched my upcoming ticket for an imminent rapture, which appeared to me more like an evangelical wonkavator than anything akin to hope. Christianity, for me, was a get out of hell free card you’d better cash in before the tribulation began, which made the church a band of benevolent losers, who found themselves constantly pinned down behind enemy lines, always hiding in a spiritual foxhole, too paralyzed with fear to do what Jesus commanded, waiting motionlessly to be rescued. 

A militant Church that would be triumphant, that would advance and gain ground, and would go into all the world making disciples of all the nations, watching the gates of hell fall down before us, seemed about as foreign to me as Olympic curling or competitive eating. Well, almost. 

In truth, it wasn’t until my late twenties that I began to question the popular narrative of eschatological defeatism, to plumb the depths of Biblical truth, and to discover for myself, what God has really said about the “end”. Since then, my journey has taken me all over the Bible, through the annals of ancient history, and to what I believe is the Biblical position.

My goal in sharing this with you, is so that you will have great joy, great confidence, and a great hope when it comes to the topic of eschatology. For far too long, the church has adopted an end-times theology that looks more like a fatalistic doom and gloom instead of a future dominion and glory. It is my aim to change that, one article at a time!

So, in the prophetic words of REM, “It’s the end of the world as we know it… But I feel fine!” My hope is that as you consider these things, you will too. Join us in the weeks ahead as we talk about the end times and what the Bible actually says about these things.

Until then, God bless you!