eschatology end times on Defeat

J. R. R. Tolkien coined the term "eucatastrophe" to refer to the unexpected happy ending at the end of a fairy tale, achieved by grace rather than effort. The consolation of fairy-stories,...

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...

Preaching Commentary A Revelation and a Prophecy The Revelation of Jesus Christ can be overwhelming to read and difficult to understand due to its heavy use of imagery and symbolism. However, the o...

A Revelation and a Prophecy The Revelation of Jesus Christ can be overwhelming to read and difficult to understand due to its heavy use of imagery and symbolism. However, the opening chapter introduc...

Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-table expression being “p...

preaching commentary Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-ta...

Context This passage takes a number of turns that may, at first, seem disconnected from one another. Our text is part of a larger teaching discourse of Jesus in Luke’s gospel that has been causing te...

Context This passage takes a number of turns that may, at first, seem disconnected from one another. Our text is part of a larger teaching discourse of Jesus in Luke’s gospel that has been causing te...

...left to ourselves we lapse into a kind of collusion with entrophy, acquiescing in the general belief that things may be getting worse but that there's nothing much we can do about them. And we ...

To focus our expectation in an otherworldly salvation has the potential to dissipate our resistance to societal evil and the dedication needed to work for the redemptive transformation of this world.

Redemptive history remains incomplete until Christ returns. It is for the final act in the great drama of redemption that the church awaits with longing. .

God of all creation, you are the beginning and the end. You hold the times of our lives in your hands. We know this, but when faced with the collapse of things around us – in our homes, in our nation,...

“So to end this time together, I won’t say everything will be okay. How could I know that? I’ll just look you in the eye, give you a nod of solidarity, and smile. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack ...

Introduction to Revelation 21-22 The Revelation of Jesus Christ is a “pulling back of the curtain” to reveal both the unseen realities of the present (what is really going on in the world from God’s ...

Let us consider this settled: that no one who has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection... Let us not hesitate to await the Lord’s c...

Even as we eagerly await your return, Lord Jesus, we must confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart, with our entire mind, nor with all of our strength. We have loved our rituals and our...

Call to Confession: The prophet asks the Lord’s people, “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap.” ...

Like a smartphone screen made blank by the rays of direct sunshine, one day we shall see Christ’s face. On that day, all the vain spectacles in this world of illusions and all the pixelated idols of o...

Pastor: Great is the mystery of faith: All: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again! Pastor: Praise to you, Lord Jesus: All: Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored o...

In the great drama of redemption, all arrows point down, not up. To say this more plainly, at no point in the biblical panorama is redemption a matter of our rising up to achieve a higher condition ou...

The great doctrine of the second advent has in a sense fallen into disrepute because of...this tendency on the part of some to be more interested in the how and the when of the second coming rather th...

When we turn to the New Testament, we pass from the climate of prediction to that of fulfillment. The things which God had foreshadowed by the lips of His holy prophets He has now, in part at least, b...

Jesus is the resolution to a story in search of a completion.

The world won’t end in a climate change apocalypse. The world won’t end in world war. The world ends in worship, neither a bang nor a whimper but a shout and song of praise.”

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. A voice cries: “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God Every valley shall be lifted up, ...

In the epic conclusion to the Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis attempts to express the absolute joy that will come as our earthly lives come to an end and we are reunited with our God for all of eternity...

When the slaughtered Lamb is seen "in the midst of" the divine throne in heaven (5:6; cf. 7:17), the meaning is that Christ's sacrificial death belongs to the way God rules the world.

Editor’s Note: The following was an imagination exercise used while preaching on Matthew 24:36-44, I began by inviting the congregation to close their eyes. Imagine you are a watchmen (or woman) stan...

Preaching Commentary Introduction to Revelation 21-22 The Revelation of Jesus Christ is a “pulling back of the curtain” to reveal both the unseen realities of the present (what is really going on i...

What if this present were the world’s last night?