I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which is very interested in eschatology. We didn’t learn the term all that early, but we were subjected constantly to sermons about it. SDA eschatology is one of the key reasons I’m not SDA any more, but when I first joined a United Methodist congregation, I was…
Lawrence Garcia asks why pastors in America don’t teach Revelation contextually. It’s a good question. He gives a good answer, concluding that the contextual message of Revelation is going to run head-on into our civil religion. We have divided loyalties, and if we see our idols—imperial power, perhaps?—condemned, we get tense. If our pastors started…
I already mentioned that I’m in the final stages of publishing a new book Eschatology: A Participatory Study Guide by Edward W. H. Vick. One of the things that Dr. Vick emphasizes is the abuse of the word “soon” in Christian teaching and preaching. There is a problem with definitions if you repeatedly claim that…
October 22 probably doesn’t mean much to most of my readers, but for someone who grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA), it has great significance. It was on October 22, 1844 that early Adventists (before they were Seventh-day Adventists) expected Jesus to return. It was actually the second time they had expected that. first…
When I encountered Lee Harmon in cyberspace, or more precisely he encountered me, and I learned that he’d written a book about Revelation, I was immediately hooked. Besides, Revelation – The Way it Happened is such an interesting and suggestive title. Let me warn you that, as usual, this will be less a review and…
Hat tip to Gentle Wisdom for this quiz on eschatology: What’s your eschatology?created with QuizFarm.com You scored as Amillenialist Amillenialism believes that the 1000 year reign is not literal but figurative, and that Christ began to reign at his ascension. People take some prophetic scripture far too literally in your view. Preterist 100% Amillenialist 100%…
Since I’ve been attending a lectionary discussion group during Wednesday lunch, and therefore spending more time on the lectionary texts, I’ve been interested in the way the texts are selected. For this coming Sunday, Epiphany, one of the texts is Isaiah 60:1-6. “Now what could possibly be interesting about that?” you might ask. I’m glad…
I want to touch on something that I encounter in conversation fairly frequently. Why is it that Christian texts applied to the coming of Jesus and to the end-times come often in the same contexts in Hebrew scripture. A good example of this is Isaiah 60-66, in which we have a mixture of texts related…
Update: I forgot to tag the places the New Testament quotes (none in this case) or alludes to this passage. In my series on Biblical criticism I discussed the division of Isaiah 24-27 into various segments and discussing their form. In that article I suggested taking Isaiah 26 as a unity even though it would…
