Theological Musings

recently got acquainted with Bill Kinnon in the very…ummm…lively discussion about Mormonism here on this blog. One of the things that I admired about Bill in that conversation was his sincere passion for the church of Christ.

I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently, Bill is on a similar journey of exploring life outside the institutional church. I don’t know all of the details, but I did want to highlight a post that Bill wrote yesterday.

The post is entitled “The People formerly known as The Congregation“, and finds itself highlighted here as the first in a new category I’m calling “Wish I Had Written This!”

Here is a paragraph from Bill’s essay, although I definitely encourage you to read the whole thing:

We are The People formerly known as The Congregation. We have not stopped loving the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nor do we avoid “the assembling of the saints.” We just don’t assemble under your supposed leadership. We meet in coffee shops, around dinner tables, in the parks and on the streets. We connect virtually across space and time – engaged in generative conversations – teaching and being taught.

There are minor details in which I don’t fully agree with everything that Bill has included here, but I think this functions as a strong apologetic for those of us who are seeking expressions of church outside of the conventional model. And I especially appreciate the tone with which Bill addresses our brothers and sisters who are still part of what we have left.

You can discuss it here, or on Bill’s blog.

Until next time,

steve

his past weekend, two of my good friends (Raborn and Tom) and I got together for breakfast at Hardee’s. We try to get together on a weekly basis, but sometimes schedules make that difficult. This particular weekend, we settled on Sunday morning because that was the only time that would work for all three of us.

Our breakfast times together (Raborn and I have been meeting weekly for over 14 months, and Tom just recently started joining us) are often quite interesting times of discussing what the Lord is teaching us, or exploring questions we have about simple church, etc. Normally, we have another “regular” place that we meet, but decided to meet at Hardee’s this particular day.

As we waited in line to order, we commented about the “before church rush”. It was pretty apparent from the clothes being worn by most of the people ahead of us that they were grabbing a bite to eat before heading to their respective church services. Sure enough, by about an hour into our conversation, the place was pretty empty, and we were enjoying lively conversation back in the corner.

I hadn’t even noticed a man who came and sat down a couple of booths over from us. Nor did I even think of how our conversation could easily be heard. We were too busy discussing things to think about it.

This week, our conversation turned to the subject of helping the poor and the homeless who we come across. We were discussing the common objections like, “They’ll just spend the money on alcohol and cigarettes” — I’m sure you know the mindset I’m talking about.

In the course of this conversation, I shared about experiences I had while living in Austin, TX….

---

There in Austin, the street-corners of busy intersections usually have people holding cardboard signs, looking for food or money or work. For several years of living there, I just ignored them. But they were everywhere.

One day, I was sitting in church listening to a sermon about reaching people. The thrust of the preacher’s sermon was all about inviting people to that church. In fact, he was telling the church about how there were piles of “tracts” available at the front for us to hand out. These tracts contained nothing except a map to the church and a list of service times.

My mind began to wander away from the marketing speech that was being given, and I began to seek the Lord’s direction. I prayed, “Lord, I do long to reach people. How can I do that? What can I do to make a difference in the lives of others?”

You know, it’s funny how sometimes the Lord really does speak quite clearly to us. I say “funny” because a lot of people don’t think that the Lord still speaks. But in this instance, I knew that I was hearing from the Lord.

He said, “You could help the people on the corners of the intersections.” At this time in my life, I had a rather well-paying job, and had surplus to give to others. But I was puzzled by this idea.

I immediately began to think through all the justifications I had held onto as to why I should not give money to “those people”. I had seen a news special one time (when I was living in Philadelphia) about how some of “those people” were making really good money on the streets. I saw them all as scam artists. Or drug users. Or alcoholics. Surely, God didn’t want me to enable that kind of behavior, right?

And that’s when the Lord put something in my heart that I had never considered before. He said, “What they do with your gift is between me and them. But if I want you to give, you should obey me.”

I left that conversation with a far different perspective. And for the rest of my time in Austin, whenever I would pull up to a traffic light and see someone on the corner, I would ask the Lord if I should give to them. The direction often varied. Sometimes it was, “Empty your wallet”. I might have $20 or $40 or more in my wallet, and I would just take it all out and give it to them. Other times it was, “Pull into the next convenience store, buy them a sandwich and something to drink and take it back to them.” And I would do that, circling back around to roll down my window and hand them a meal. Sometimes, the direction was to not give anything at all.

---

The three of us at breakfast were discussing this way of thinking when the man we had not noticed stood up to leave.

He turned around, walked straight to our booth, and said, “Gentlemen, you give me hope!” And then he went on to say, “I’m not a Christian” but shared how the conversation he had been overhearing gave him hope.

I don’t remember all the precise words he said, but the two statements that I remember word-for-word are, “Gentlemen, you give me hope” and “I’m not a Christian”.

The conversation didn’t last long, and he shook our hands and left. But we remained, praising God that we had been able to sow some seed of hope into his life. The opportunity wasn’t there in the conversation to take it any further, but I believe we did exactly what God wanted us to do. Who knows how that seed will be watered by someone else?

Think about it: We normally don’t meet on Sundays. We normally don’t go to Hardee’s. The “regular church crowd” had already gone. But God used us in that place, at that time, to give someone hope. Praise the Lord!

Until next time,

steve

ecently, Brandon asked on his blog for feedback on whether or not we, his readers, felt that the Bible made a distinction between the rapture of the Church and the second coming of Christ. His post was appropriately entitled, “I’m opening a can of worms…want some?”

Since this blog has demonstrated time and time again how much I enjoy the taste of megadriles, I figured I would bite.

Now, I have to say that, by and large, I believe eschatology is something that should not in any way, shape, or form divide us as believers. It saddens me to see rhetoric in different camps making their viewpoint out to be the only possible interpretation of Scripture that is true to Scripture.

I also realize that many of my readers differ with me on this, and I do not see that as a problem. It’s fun to talk about, but this is not at all an issue to die on a hill for.

Several years ago, I had a conversation with someone who answered the question about the relationship between the rapture and the tribulation by quipping, “It would be nice if it’s pre-trib, I hope it’s no later than mid-trib, but I’m prepared if it’s post-trib!” And, then, of course, you have the comments on Brandon’s post, in which Alan Knox said that he’s a “pan-tribber”, in the sense that “it will all pan out in the end.”

Well, the reality is, it will pan out in the end. And there will be a point in time when the question is finally answered for good. But until then, all we have is the ability to deduce some ideas from what’s been revealed, and come up with reasonable conclusions. None of those conclusions, however, should be held to so strongly that we forget they are just deductions.

With that being said, I thought I would take a few moments here on my blog to share some of the reasons I switched from a pre-trib view to a post-trib view several years ago.

I had been challenged by someone to back up my pre-trib assertions. Specifically, I had made a comment that the rapture and the second coming of Christ were two different events. The person who challenged me asked me why I thought they were two different events. I responded with one of the main elements of pre-trib defense: the belief that no prophecy needs to be fulfilled in order for the rapture to take place. Therefore, the rapture is the next event on “God’s calendar”, so to speak, and must happen before the tribulation.

The response to this was to ask me to defend that from Scripture. I said that it had been a while since I had studied about it, and I would have to search for it and get back to them. (Any of my readers are welcome to prove it from Scripture for me, if they’d like to.)

As of this point, I have not found it. Within a couple of days and some sleepless nights trying desperately to find what I believed was in the Bible, I realized that not only had I not found it, but I had found other verses that seemed to actually indicate quite a different idea.

Allow me to start first of all by sharing what I found wrong with the key proof-texts I had always held to for a pre-trib rapture:

• 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 — this “classic” pre-trib proof-text doesn’t mention anything about the timing of the rapture with relation to the tribulation. It merely talks about how we will meet Christ when He appears in the clouds. Not only does it not specifically refer to a timing with regard to the tribulation, but it also goes on in the next chapter (1 Thess 5:4) to show that believers actually will be quite aware of when the rapture will take place. This was a far cry from the “secret rapture” idea that I had held to for so long.
• John 14:3 — Jesus says that if He goes, He will come again and receive us unto Himself, that where He is, we may be also. Technically speaking, Jesus does not say that He will come and get us and take us to heaven. Rather, He just says that He will come and we will be with Him wherever He is.
• Titus 2:13 — the “blessed hope” and “the appearing” are said by many to be two separate things. Therefore, the blessed hope must refer to the rapture. However, there are a couple of problems with this interpretation. One is that the grammar need not force two separate events. The Greek conjunction kai (translated as “and”) can also be translated as “even”. Therefore, a legitimate translation could be “the blessed hope, even the appearing”. In this sense, “the appearing” would be an amplification of what the blessed hope is, not a separate event from it. Additionally, “blessed hope” is not an event, but rather a description of an event. I believe that this lends more weight to the “and” being understood as an amplification of the meaning.
• 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2 — It is often stated that verse 1’s use of “the coming…and our gathering to Him” again refer to two separate events. However, problems definitely abound here. First of all, the same argument I used for Titus 2:13 could apply here. This need not be two separate events grammatically. Furthermore, the order of events (the “coming” and then “our gathering”) would seem backwards if Paul were trying to explain chronology of events here. Further still, Paul then goes on to explain in great detail how the “Day of the Lord” will not come until after the revelation of the “man of lawlessness”, the apostasy, etc. All of this focus seems rather strange if he was merely trying to assure them that they would not go through the tribulation.

In addition to finding the above difficulties with verses that were so often used in a defense of the pre-trib position, I came across some other things that caused me to change my tune completely.

It is often said that there are no “slam dunk” verses for any of the positions on timing of the rapture. In some sense, this is true.

However, there is one passage that, in my opinion, comes as close as a “slam dunk” for the post-trib position as one could come without a verse coming right out and saying “The rapture will occur after the tribulation”!

2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 — there are a couple of key things that I discovered in this passage that kept me from seeing the rapture and the second coming as two separate events.

• Paul is talking about the “relief” that will come to those who are enduring persecution for the sake of Christ. In verses 8 and 9, he says that relief will come “when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven…dealing out retribution to those who do not know God….” If the relief came seven years earlier, then Paul would not be able to say that the relief would come when Jesus dealt with the world in judgment.
• It is stated here that Jesus “will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire”. This sounds like the “second coming” to me.
• Verse 10 also states that it is on the day of judgment for the unbeliever that Jesus is “glorified in His saints…and…marveled at among all who have believed….”

There are also some similarities that I noticed between the description in Matthew 24:30-31 (referred to as M below) of what is always assumed to be the “second coming” and the description of the rapture in 1 Thess 4:16-17 (referred to as T below).

Consider this:

• M says that the “Son of Man [will be] coming on the clouds of the sky” and T says that “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven”
• M mentions Jesus sending forth “His angels” and T references “the voice of the archangel”. (By the way, the “shout” in T appears to be the voice of the archangel, not Jesus.)
• M mentions “a great trumpet” and T references “the trumpet of God”
• M mentions that His angels “will gather together His elect” and T says that we “will be caught up together with them”

I think it’s quite fair to say that Matthew 24:30-31 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 could very easily be referring to the same event. Now, notice in Matthew 24:29 that the events of 30 and 31 will happen “immediately after the tribulation of those days”. This lines up with Paul’s words in 2 Thessalonians 2 which I’ve already referenced above, saying that the coming of Christ and our gathering to Him cannot happen until events normally associated with the tribulation (revelation of the antichrist, etc.).

This is just a brief glance at some of the reasons I have adopted a post-trib view. Again, I recognize that many of my readers may (and probably will) differ with me. I know of some for sure (*cough*Gordon Cloud*cough*)

I welcome the differing opinions. And if I have erred in any of my explanations above, I hope that there will be corrections offered!

In this post, I have not attempted to answer some of the arguments made by some vocal pre-trib proponents (a well-known co-author of a well-known series of fictional accounts of a pre-trib rapture, for example!), such as how a post-trib rapture seems silly because it’s like a quick elevator ride up and back down, or how only the pre-trib position encourages holy living and evangelism.

I have not addressed these here because I wanted to actually deal with Scriptural reasonings for my position. If those straw men appear in the comments section, however, I will write another post to respond to them.

Until next time,

steve

couple of years ago, a friend shared with me a story of what happened shortly after becoming the associate pastor in the church in which I grew up.  The gentleman who was the senior pastor took him to a local pastor’s lunch meeting.  On the way over there, he informed the associate pastor that he (the assoc.) would be the speaker at the lunch!

My friend was a bit surprised and said, “Why didn’t you tell me so I could prepare something to speak on?”  The senior pastor said, “You have more to share out of your overflow than most people have to share when they study.”

This has stuck with me since hearing this.  Are we walking in the Spirit so much that we are able to share with people without advance notice?  Is the word of Christ dwelling in us to the level that, in any situation, we can follow the Spirit’s lead and speak forth truth?  Is our walk able to flow out into the lives of others so that they are edified and built up?

I’m not down on studying, so don’t misunderstand.  But are we studying in such a way that it can spill out to others as we go through life together?  Or are we merely studying in order to teach formally?  Are we studying because we have a scheduled time to speak? Or are we studying so that our lives will be examples to those around us?

Today, I read a post on Alan Knox’s blog about a situation that took place in the recent gathering of the church in his area.  The post is entitled “Let the Word of Christ Dwell in You Richly“, taken from Colossians 3:16.  Alan shared how a brother in that fellowship had shared from the Bible something with which God was convicting him.  This paragraph reminded me of the story I shared at the beginning of this post:

Our brother did not “preach”, but the word of God was proclaimed. He did not present three points from a Scripture passage, but the “point” of Scripture was communicated clearly. He was not talking from his intelligence or knowledge, but from a deep desire to walk with God in an area where he was deficient. He had not studied in order to teach, but he studied in order to know his Lord and to live out the gospel; then he taught what God was teaching him.

Are you overflowing today?  I pray that we all are.

Until next time,

steve

e’re leaving in a few minutes to drive to PA for my oldest niece’s wedding.  As far as I know, I will not have access to the Internet until we return Sunday evening, with the possible exception of a short visit online just to check email, etc.  So, I will likely be unable to respond to any comments while I’m gone.  Have a blessed weekend, everyone, and play nice while I’m gone!