Or What I Believe.
I didn't put Preterism in there because it would have ruined the flow (I made a pun, get it?).
This Thread over at Melissa's blog got me to thinking about eschatology (not a very common occurence I assure you). My beliefs tend to not fit into any of the general catagories (as a side note, stay away from Matthew Henry's Commentary. Woah!), so it is hard to say exactly what it is that I believe. Before I continue, I want to make it very clear that this is not a salvation issue. I am not going to hell because I don't believe in Dispensationalism. I do know that I am an apocalyptic( as will be seen below), but that is a little outside the scope of the intitial conversation.
For the purposes of this conversation, I am considering the following catagories:
Pre-Millenialism
Historic
Post-Tribulation
Dispensational
Pre-Tribulation
Mid-Tribulation
Post-Millenialism
Amillenialism
Preterist
To start off with, I believe that the thousand year reign described in Rev. 20 has not yet begun. Furthermore, I have extreme doubts as to whether it will be a literal Thousand years. The Bible tends to be prolific with symbolic numbers (the first beast will reign for 42 months = 7 x 6, or 1 short of 7 x 7. hmmm... I believe this number is where the midtrib people get the idea that Christians will only be a part of the trib. for 3.5 years).
If you read Rev. it looks like it is most likely that there will be X years of tribulation (maybe 7), and everybody will die, then those who died for Christ will rise and live with him for 1000 years, and then there will be a general resurection of everyone who had ever died and judgement of the same.
Now that I have written that... I took a little break and did more thinking, and all that I have left to say is:
Why do you care?
I am a Christian. What ever comes will come. I will be with Christ when it ends.
Trying to choose one has caused many people to sin because of the anger that has been generated over centuries of pointless argueing. If you had the ability to know exactly what was going to happen would you want to know? Suppose I told you with absolute authority that the thousand year reign started 11/12/1005 at 3:22 PM PST, and that the 7 years of tribulation is going to start in 30 days with all Christians being stuck here till it was over. What would you do? Seven years of tribulation for a Christian is basically the same thing as being tortured for Christ for 7 years. An honor for sure. However, when it comes down to it, wouldn't you rather just die before the tribulation and not have to deal with it?
God set things up the way that he did on purpose. He wants us to be constantly ready and watching for Him, not worrying and bickering about when He is going to come. We must remain true to His name, whether in this life or in tribulation, and not let the works of Satan cause us to doubt Him.
If you want to know more about this:
http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?book_id=73&chapter=1&version=49
http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?search=Matthew%2024:3-9&version=49
http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?search=Acts%202;&version=49;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_of_Christian_eschatological_differences
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_eschatology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypticism
Here is the real day that the world will end: 01/09/2038 3:14:07 Z
I want to hear everybodys' thoughts on this. Please feel free to comment. No rash arguments though. Please back up anything you have to say with scripture. Also, please mention if you are armenian, calvinist, wesleyian, or something else. I am curious how that influences peoples' beliefs.
For those of you who think you got the pun up at the top, please let me know what it is, because I was just making that part up.
3 comments:
I agree that it's not an issue that should split the church.
I find little to no scriptural support for a pre-tribulation rapture. But I think a pre-trib rapture is what most of us would like to believe in. (Hello, dying without starving, watching my children starve or being tortured? Sign me up!)
So in that regard, I think a solidly supported teaching of some sort needs to be offered in the churches, lest we risk doing a great disservice to Christians and end up with a bunch of people wholly unprepared for suffering. I know you can't teach forebearance and sacrifice but I think there has to be some middle ground between "you all believe whatever you want to believe" and us all digging our heels in and having 3 different churches fighting separately.
But I'm with you. Why do you care what I believe about the tribulation. Does it affect how you interact with me? Does it affect my salvation? Does it affect your execution of the great commission? I feel the same way about Calvinism vs. Arminianism. Of course I have my leanings toward one, but in the end, what does it matter? Whether or not you are a Calvinist or an Arminian doesn't change our burden for sharing the gospel with the lost, and it doesn't affect my relationship with my God, so why the church split?
Stepping off my soapbox now... ;)
Actually my comment about C v. A v. W. was more centered around wondering how it plays a role in your belief about the end of times.
Whether or not you are C or A or W does matter because some of them are heretical. (And I am not even remotely going to get into that here).
oh, it doesn't really affect my belief about the end times, insofar as I'm not a ____trib-er because the _______belief says so. I just approach both dilemnas and church splits with the same attitude/philosophy.
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