Just thought I’d better get this pic out to you revealing the crossword puzzle clues from my previous post. All you have to do to read it in most browsers is just click on the image and it will enlarge.

Next post I’ll try to put some of the questions we’re getting from our sessions. Here’s the link to week one’s presentation An Introduction to Eschatology. Hope you’ll make your way to Gathering as we continue for another couple of weeks.

A great read I’d highly recommend for understanding Eschatology. He develops a theology of the Kingdom from a historic, pre-millennial perspective. Here’s a summary of chapter one: What is the Kingdom of God?

1 – A present Spiritual Reality.
2 – What people experience when they give their lives to the rule of the Spirit.
3 – An inheritance that God will fully give his people at a point in the future.
4 – A realm of power or dominion into which true followers of Jesus have entered.
5 – Anywhere the king is present and his subjects recognize his authority.
6 – An inner redemptive blessing experienced only by spiritual re-birth.
7 – The rule of God.

Why is the kingdom so important? In order to understand how and why God will bring the present age to a close, one has to have some starting point of what the rule of God in our world is like. The apocalypse is all about the handing over of this age to the next by the power of God on his time-table. It really should be thought of as the in-breaking from the future into our world as we know it now in order to fulfill the plan of God.

Send me your questions! Let’s get this thing rolling now.

Here’s my first shot at an eschatology time-line. This comes from a great book I’ve been Nordicizing called The Gospel of the Kingdom by G.E. Ladd. Of all the numerous end-times schemes, this one actually seems sane to me (eschatology timelines get crazy real fast). We’ll explain it on Sunday at Gathering when we begin our series called Apocalypse.

I offer this sketch to preview the conversation we’ll have this week. The best starting point in my opinion in talking about the end times is the overlap between “this age”…and “the age to come”. See Chapter III – The Kingdom is Today. Ladd’s book is so refreshing because he keeps it simple.

When Jesus came announcing the Kingdom of God, he started to connect the time frame human history has always happened in (the bottom line) with the age to come in which the Kingdom of God overtakes all human history and the rule of Jesus is made complete.

The age we live in now – is a time of transition – a huge overlap let’s call it between the world as we know it and the world to come in which all things will be made new. The first half of that overlapping history is called the church age and the second half of that time scripture calls the millennium.

Enough for now. We’ll add more to the diagram as we talk about it from week to week at Gathering. I’ll try to get you a few more posts before Sunday comes and start defining some helpful terms. I’ll show you the book in the next post.

PS – you can ignore the stamp.

Check out this sweet little eschatalogical crossword puzzle for all you end-times buffs. Fabulous prizes for the first two people to hand me a completed, fully accurate puzzle. Download the puzzle by clicking here. Print it, fill it in and bring it to me at Gathering this next week (Oct 4th, 12:30pm at the Student Center on the Old Mill Campus). I’ll check it and give you your prize on the spot!

Just a brief word here on Apocalypse, a new Gathering series about to launch (Oct 4th). I’d like to start stirring the pot with my readers on this vastly complex topic. There are a couple of strategies we could take in discussing the biblical view the last days.

Possibility One
This strategy I’ll call the Systematic Theology approach. In this scheme, one tries to devise a simple interpretive framework for understanding all the biblical data that has to do with the end times. The approach is a pretty helpful one, but as you can imagine, what starts out as a goal to be simple gets deep pretty fast when we’re talking about all the stuff we see in books like Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation. The goal in systematic theology is to help you plant your flag firmly in one camp or another Pre-Millennial or Amillenial. Pre-Tribulational or Post-Tribulational Second coming of Christ.

Possibility Two
This strategy we’ll call the Biblical Theology approach. Biblical theology sticks as close as possible to the biblical and literary contexts of the relevant passages. Lots of loose ends are left hanging around. Frameworks and timelines are held pretty loosely in the process. Good Systematic Theology is rooted in good Biblical Theological method.

In Gathering, we’ll definitely be starting with Possibility Two! Rather than jumping in the deep end right away, we’ll try to build our understanding of this compelling subject from the ground up. We’ll start week one off with an over-view and some definitions. We’ll make lots and lots of space for questions each week! We’ll also try to keep it real in terms everyday practical interests in the topic. So don’t be surprised if we don’t push one brand of eschatology over another. We’ll all have much more fun exploring the Apocalypse in the end (Ha!).

On our way to the starting line, though, it would be great if you would hit the comment button or e-mail me your questions about the end times. Let’s ramp up the dialog before October 4th!