studies on Jesus' Return

At the last Judgment Christ will say to us, "Come, you also! Come, drunkards! Come, weaklings! Come, children of shame!" And He will say to us: "Vile beings, you who are in the image of...

One day when George MacDonald, the great Scottish preacher and writer, was talking with his son, the conversation turned to heaven and the prophets’ version of the end of all things. “It seems too goo...

If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children...

Paul’s term for the return of Jesus is called the parousia. Parousia was used to describe an imperial visit by a king to a city. People would send a delegation outside the city gates to greet the dign...

First, what is the ascension? It is not simply Jesus’ return from the earth to heaven. It is a new enthronement for Jesus, bringing a new relationship with us and with the whole world.  …In fact, t...

When Jesus warns us not to store up treasures on Earth, it’s not because wealth might be lost; it’s because wealth will always be lost. Either it leaves us while we live, or we leave it when we die. N...

When you are prescribed an antibiotic, doctors always remind you of the importance of taking the full course of the treatment. Often you will start to feel better after a few days, and then with the d...

In the film  Memento , we meet Leonard, who is searching for the man who killed his wife. He appears to be the typical Hollywood hero of the early 2000s. The hair is right; the jaw line, the atmospher...

Judged in the light of any ordinary standards of regal splendor, military display, political campaigning, or effective advertising, it was a rather pathetic and anti-climactic affair. Jesus rode from ...

In a statement created by Christian leaders across the world, the Lausanne Willowbank Report calls for church leaders to return to the humility and servanthood that Jesus manifested in His earthly min...

Sometimes evil can feel so strong, so powerful, that its damage seems permanent and the final word on the subject. In this short excerpt from Philip Yancey, we see a reversal, perhaps a foretaste of w...

I once offered up a free paint job during a church auction to raise money for a cause. I figured an elderly woman would bid a thousand dollars on a quick two- to three-day job and I could help someone...

If you could reduce the gospel to one word, most scholars would choose metanoia—the Greek word translated “repentance” in the New Testament… Most of the time we translate both “meta-noeo” and “meta-no...

After the defeat of Hitler’s Nazi regime in World War II, Holocaust survivor and Christian Corrie ten Boom returned to Germany to declare the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. One evening, after giving her...

In this excerpt, the French monastic leader Frere Pierre Marie, shares an interpretation of Jesus as the true prodigal son—bringing all of us home with him: He, who is born not from human stock, or ...

A young lady named Sally took a seminary class taught by Professor Smith, who was known for his elaborate object lessons. One day Sally walked into class to find a large target placed on the wall, wit...

On the final page of the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia, some of the children who have been to Narnia lament that they once again must return to their homeland—the Shadow-Lands. But Aslan (the...

In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home, Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel describes the central longing in both...

Pastor and Professor Darrell W. Johnson sets the scene for the Sermon on the Mount with great description. This could serve as a model for the beginning of a sermon on the S.O.M. They were sitting i...

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

In his enjoyable little book on Christian pilgrimage, British scholar N.T. Wright shares three propositions on the value that pilgrimage can bring to a Christian’s life: First, pilgrimage to holy pla...

Evangelicals, in my experience, have a strange relationship with both the three ecumenical creeds—Nicene, Apostles’, and Athanasian—and with a particular affirmation of the latter two: that Jesus “des...

My friend Tim is a manager of a small company. Because he often hires people for their first full-time job, he gets to tell new employees about their benefits. One time, Tim was trying to explain to a...

In her book Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, Fleming Rutledge tries to remind us of just how dire the circumstances were in which the scenes of Advent took place. While we often d...

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

Several years ago I was conducting a seminar in the interpretation of Scripture in a theological seminary…Our topic that day was Jesus’ parables…One of the priests, Tony Byrnne, was a Jesuit missionar...

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? O...

Early in this century a London newspaper carried an advertisement that read: “Men wanted for hazardous darkness, and constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” T...

Brandon and Faith Lee, who started Bird and Branch Coffee, are what faithful witnesses look like. When they sat down across from my wife and me, they had a dream to start a coffee shop that would serv...