life on eschatology (end times)

“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 ...

The manner in which Christians have thought about life after death, or about the world to come, has varied considerably from century to century and from place to place. It is easy enough to understand...

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...

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...

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...

Life is short, and we can accomplish only so much. Much of what we do will remain unfinished. For now. In one of my favorite short stories of all time, “Leaf by Niggle,” author J. R. R. Tolkien provid...

Introduction Our text falls within a larger section (Luke 16) in which Jesus deals head-on with questions of money, specifically the need to choose God over mammon (the worship of money), in other wo...

The end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshippers of God we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity.

From [age three] on out, stories will not only entertain you, they will explain you to others and to yourself.

The Tyndale Bible Dictionary adds that Saints “are the people of the coming age.” In other words, a saint is someone who brings a future reality into the present. They transcend the problems and limit...

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."

It seems to me… that if it is possible … for human beings to choose to live more and more out of tune with the divine intention, to reflect the image of God less and less, there is nothing to stop the...

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” We believe and although we fall short, we must persevere to the end. Hold...

Our culture is so fixated on dying and going to heaven when the whole Scripture is about heaven coming to earth.

Earthquakes & Cosmic Animation In Matthew 27:51, we read of an earthquake that occurred the moment Jesus breathed his last breath. Matthew wants us to note that the following chain of events (inc...

There are a lot of questions the Bible doesn’t answer about the Hereafter. But I think one reason is illustrated by the story of a boy sitting down to a bowl of spinach when there’s a chocolate cake a...

Leader: Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. All: Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you a...

Ascent is neither the lone journey of Jesus nor the abstracted elevation of the soul, but is the future for an embodied humanity that is copresent with Jesus and his Father.

Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes with a direct standoff,...

When the New Testament speaks about “the dead,” it has a specific background, one that affirms “the [place of the] dead” as a location containing the disembodied souls of both the righteous and unrigh...

In this life only? This passage begins with verse 19 of 1 Corinthians 15, but it is helpful to look at the bigger context and the argument that Paul has been making up to this point where the passage...

In the New Testament, the terms salvation and eternal life and Kingdom of God all speak to this same life-altering reality that we grasp by becoming disciples of Jesus. Salvation isn’t about getting y...

Many of the modern controversies surrounding the Bible—for example, human sexuality, creationism and the “openness” of God—revolve around questions concerning hermeneutics. The science of hermeneutics...

We all live between two worlds. We are planted here on earth while our hope is in heaven. We are given work to do in temporary soil that, we’re told, has the potential to spring up into unending fruit...

Pastor: Eternal God, hope of all who trust in You, in Christ You weep with those who mourn even as You cry out in triumph over the grave. Unbind us from sin, release us from captivity, and with Laza...

Bring us, O Lord, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise...

The resurrection of Jesus is not simply the basis for Christian hope; it redefines the future toward which hope looks.

The day of one's birth is a good day for the believer, but the day of death is the greatest day that a Christian can ever experience in this world because that is the day he goes home, the day he ...

Preaching Commentary Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes ...

Mark did not know exactly what we would be scared of all these years later; he just knew we would be. By ending his gospel right there, right in the middle of a sentence, he also left us free to decid...