July 17, 2025 • 43 mins
In previous episodes with Paul Lamicela, the audience asked many questions about the book of Revelation. Here Paul engages with some of these questions and defines some of the discussion around the rapture, the tribulation, and the millennium.
Resources referenced in this episode:
The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary
The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism
God's Kingdom through God's Covenants
Paul's Biblical Storyline course
Episode: How to Read the Book of Revelation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
For me personally,
speaking autobiographically, isthat was one of the things
that sort of turned me off to Revelationwas like, it's all this weird.
Everyone's like all hyped up about this
weird, this weird debates over arcanematters, right?
And then when I started studying itmore in depth,
in the context of New Testament studiesand Second Temple Jewish literature
and such and the Old Testament,I start realizing, whoa,
(00:22):
this book is not about,quibbling over, you know,
lines on a prophecy chart.
It's about weaving togetherthe whole story of the Bible
and calling us to live in a certain waybecause, you know, a different,
basically a different packagingof the same teaching
that the rest of the New Testamenthas, you know,
and then I think it's somethingthat can be exciting and not, either
(00:43):
dry and arcaneor sort of unnecessarily, divisive.
Well PaulLamicela welcome back to the podcast.
So we did a podcast with youa few months ago
on how to read the Book of Revelation.
Needless to say,
we got an enormous amount of feedbackand a lot of questions about that.
(01:07):
And people wanting us to do follow upand something that maybe
our audience doesn't know.
But a lot of the episodeswe do actually come from audience,
questions or suggestions like, hey,you should, you should do one on this.
And then, oh yeah, we'll do that.
So this time around,we want to acknowledge those questions,
actually just do more of a Q&Aish on the feedback
that we got, which was a lot.
(01:28):
Yeah.
So, there was a lot of questions,and we're just going to hit
at least a try to be representativeof the main ones that we got, and no way
we're going to cover them all.
But but yeah.
So we'll jump in and just,see where we end up.
I've noticed there's tendsto be a good amount of interest in
when I talk about Revelation, when,you know, it
seems common that people seem to be it'sa topic people seem to be interested in.
(01:49):
Yeah. Do you have theories as to.
I mean, I am too, so I get it.
But like,do you have theories as to as on that?
What is it with American.
The American interpretation of Revelationjust seems to result
in lots of conversation.
Yeah.
You know, and maybe some people are, like,wondering
if there's ways that they can read itthat might resonate with them better.
(02:10):
I don't know,but there's there's a lot of questions.
It's interesting. Yeah.
So one of the, one of the big ones
is, for example,and these are more samples.
So this this is I got thisfrom a number of different people.
So I just kind of do it in my own words.
But what is the rapture?
We did not talk about that specificallywhen we did the other one.
It was more generally like,how do we read Revelation?
(02:31):
So the rapture is a big one.
You're going to hear about thatall the time.
It's it's to the pointwhere it's such a well known thing.
It's essentially bleed overinto pop culture in mainstream society,
not just within the church,which kind of blows my mind.
Yeah. So what's the rapture? Yeah.
And if
you're, if people are interested,maybe that was an allusion to the book
(02:52):
by Daniel Hummel called The Riseand Fall of Dispensationalism.
Yeah. So if anyone's interested in.
Yeah, it's a great book.
It talks about how dispensationalism,which is the kind of the the father is, is
the is what made the rapture and certainother ideas.
Well, what invented themand what made them popular.
How that dominated American evangelicalismand then
(03:16):
mostly died out in academic circles,but at the same time
crossed over into pop cultureand sort of total totally took over.
That's a greatthat's a great book for anyone.
Any nerd out there who's interestedIt's it's yes, it's fairly detailed.
And there's It is. But it'swell it's well done.
And it's
if you're like if interested in modernChristian history, it's just so cool.
(03:37):
But maybe that's just the nerds,the nerds in us talking.
So the rapture is,
when when we think of the rapture now,we didn't talk about it in the other one
in part, but for many reasons, but in partbecause Revelation never mentions it.
It's not in Revelation at all.
But when we talk about the rapture,we're usually talking about,
(03:58):
this very specific dispensational ideaof the rapture, which is the certain way
of reading the Bible and Revelationthat, is very kind of literalistic.
There's a lot of thingswe can't go into that.
But basically it was inventedlargely by this guy named
John Nelson Darby in the 1800s in England.
And then, came into the United States
(04:20):
and for various reasons, including,
being.
Yeah, there's various reasons,from Moody to Scofield that made it become
super popular in America,took over, American evangelicalism.
Basically,it's it's the idea from that way
of schematizing the end times.
(04:41):
And by the end times,
we're talking aboutsort of the last number of years before
Jesus return,
not the way the New Testament talksabout the end times,
which is the whole period of timefrom Jesus.
That's that started with Jesus coming.
You're saying when you say end times,
we're using in the frame of referencethat you would typically see laid out in.
Yeah.
That evangelical style of there'sgoing to be this
(05:02):
and then this is going to happen inthe global government
is going to take over like the whole yeah,the whole timeline, Yeah, that way,
which is not how the New Testament usesthe term, not how I like to use the term,
but where for now.
Yeah. So, so,
the idea that believerswill be caught up to meet
Jesus as he's returning is somethingthat Christians all you know, all believe.
(05:26):
But the specific kind of twist on this
that dispensationalismbrought was this idea,
that that the rapture is something where
it's not it's not something that happensat the end of the age
when Jesus is returning for final judgmentand renewal of all things.
(05:46):
But it's a sort of thingthat Jesus snatches away his people.
And then there continues to be
tribulation and all sorts of problems.
And then Jesus returns later.
Right.
And and so there's different terms for why
there's different understandings of this.
But the most kind of classic oneis pre-tribulation,
(06:07):
rapture or whatever,where God's people are taken up
before a what they viewas a seven year period
of, of all sorts of terrible thingshappening before Jesus finally return.
But there's been other takes.
Some people think the rapture would be
in the middleof those seven years or whatever.
So from my perspective, there is no sevenyears, you know, of of that.
It's we're speaking Revelation,I think, is speaking when it's
(06:31):
and Matthew and other placesand speaking of this time of tribulation,
it's speaking of this wholeera, where the beast is,
is clashing with the people of Jesus,
you know, and when God's judgments,in a sense, are starting to be poured out.
Right.
So, but, the,the idea of this rapture that that happens
is taken really from firstThessalonians four,
(06:53):
where Paul says, and Paul is writingto the Thessalonians to tell them, hey,
because apparently some of themare starting to get worried
because some,some of their loved ones are dying
and they're like, wait, but they're dying.
Jesus isn't back yet.What's going to happen?
And Paul says, don't worry,
you will be with them again.
(07:14):
We'll, we'll, we'll we'll be together.
Sure.
They're deadnow, but Jesus is going to raise them,
and he's going to snatch you up as well,and you'll be all together.
You know, that's the context.
But so he says that the trumpet will sound
and, the Lord will descend from heaven.
So he's coming down, right?
(07:34):
And it says the dead in the Messiahwill rise first, and then all of us
who remain will be snatched upto meet him in the clouds.
And then we will,you know, be with the Lord forever.
It says there's no hint therethat this is something that is separate
from, at a different timeperiod from Jesus’ final return.
The language of the trumpet.
When Jesus descending, is the same typesof, you know, the trumpet language
(07:58):
that we see in Revelation forJesus return, Jesus descending from heaven
sounds a lot like what the angel saidwhen the disciples saw Jesus ascend.
They'll say,you'll see him in like manner descend.
Right.
So there's and you have theresurrection of the dead at the same time.
Right.
And some peopletried to put a wedge in between that.
(08:18):
But it really doesn't work like it.
The whole point is that, look,we'll all we'll all be together.
The dead in Christ will rise. Yes.
And they will maybe be first part of thisescort committee or whatever it is.
But the point seems to bethis is Jesus return, right?
And the snatching up is not a permanent.
Now we go up to heaven.
But it is, as Jesus iscome, is returning or whatever
(08:41):
we’rebrought to be with him, to follow him
as he as he presumably,
returns to Earthto bring about judgment and restoration.
So all of this talk about the raptureand these elaborate
models that have been built,
around this, all of that is based
on that passage in, in Thessalonians,That’s the main passage.
(09:01):
So there's also the otherthe other places, in Matthew 24,
where Jesus speaks of you know,signs of the end by which also, I think
he's speaking of this whole well, he'sspeaking of the destruction of Jerusalem
and then the whole tribulationof these, those days until his return.
And he says, you know, be ready.
(09:22):
And then he speaks of how,
he will, you know,
one will there'll be two peopledoing the same activity together.
The one will be taken, the other left,and that,
that probably provides fodderfor a lot of the 90s,
pictures of sort of,
from the Left Behind,you know, series, that kind of That's
(09:43):
what really brought it into pop culture.
I mean, there's other things too,but that was a really is so cinematic,
classic imagery of,
yeah, you know, people in an airplaneor whatever,
and all of a sudden, like half the seatsare just, they're just clothes, you know.
Yeah.
And thatand that is such a, a stark image.
It just gets stuck in the,
you know, and it's like, well,I guess it looks good in a story.
(10:05):
But I think the piece with thatand I think that's why this person sent
this in was just like, okay, but like,what does Scripture say again?
Like, like because the problem is it'sso hard to to peel back all the layers now
because so many layers have been piledon top from fiction and pop culture
and just the assumed,the dispensational edifice.
It's a whole edifice, right? Yeah.
there's this entire infrastructurearound this stuff.
(10:27):
And so I know for myself it's just like,I have no idea.
Like I don't, you know,it just gets so convoluted, so quickly.
So, so you're essentially sayingwhat we think classically of
this is what the rapture is going to looklike, is really just kind of not
that's overblown.
Yeah.
And what's happening in Matthew 24,
I think when Jesus speaks of the onetaken the other left, actually some
(10:48):
there's no clarity on where they're takenor why or anything like that.
Right.
So again, trying to read ina separate situation here it is misguided.
But also some scholars even, think that
that taking away that's the negative part.
We always think of the beingleft as the bad part.
Right.
But in the verse right
before, Jesus uses the example of,
(11:12):
of the flood and he says, so
his whole point is to be stay awakeand be faithful, right.
And very similar.
Similar idea is not the same wording, but
it's very similar idea, where he says,
you know, he says concerning that dayand hour, nobody knows.
It's going to be like the days of Noah.
And he says, as in those days,people were just
(11:35):
eating, drinking,going about their normal life.
And, and, they were unaware untilthe flood came and swept them all away.
So it will be the coming ofthe Son of Man.
Two will be left in one,
two will be in one field,one will be taken and the other left.
So it by analogy from the previous verse,the flood came and swept them all away.
That lead some scholarsto think that the the ones taken away
(11:56):
are the taking awayis the taking away for judgment.
Right?
Just like at the floodwhen they were swept away.
Well, okay,I've never thought of it that way before.
So we can't be sure. Right.
But but whatever is the case,whatever the case
is, there's no details herethat support a separate rapture.
This is Jesus is speaking of the timewhen the Son of Man returns, right?
(12:17):
The time of judgment and salvation.
There's nothing there that implies that.
And again, the emphasis, just like Johnand Revelation is on staying in.
Matthew is staying awake,being ready. Right?
Not in the sense of
being ready by checking the newspapers,but being faithful.
Right. So there's no.
Yeah.
So the rapture as a distinct thingthat's before
(12:40):
and separatefrom Jesus return, Jesus final return.
You know,
it doesn'tseem to really have have good grounding.
Right.
But if we're talking saying the rapturein the sense that whoever's alive
when Jesus returns will we'll join himimmediately and meet him as he as
he returns or whatever.
(13:01):
Yes, all Christians believe that.
Yeah.
That, that that helps a lot
to kind of peel back the layersbecause it does
feel like there'sa lot of fog around these things.
And it's just like, I don't know.
You know, it's just so easy to be likeI don't know what to think.
Let's just not even we’renot even gonna look into it.
That's very helpful.
So here's another comment that we got fromsomeone named Caleb.
And he says this,I fear the incursion of street level
(13:22):
dispensationalism in conservativeAnabaptist circles.
And they asked
if you have any resources to point usto warn fellow Anabaptists against it.
And he says, maybeyou should write a book on the topic.
So, yeah, I'd be curiouswhat you would think there,
because we were just talkingabout the dispensational framework
and how that is just so infusedthe conversation.
It's kind of hardto pull all the pieces apart anymore.
(13:43):
So, yeah,what would you have to say? Yeah.
You know, I'mgoing to be less inclined to have, like,
specific
resources that are like,warning of the dangers of something
like this and more things that are,
I mean, I do think dispensationalismhas some features that are, that are,
that are kind of not helpful and helpand maybe,
(14:05):
push us to think of to miss some, some,some of the good stuff in the Bible.
But you know, that's, that's it'snot a first tier doctrine or anything.
But I would be more inclined to, to say,
there's some good resources out therethat, that present,
I think better readingsand that really show how the to try
(14:26):
to read the Bible betteraccording to its own categories
and its own storylineand genre and things and genres.
And so, some examples,
I've probably mentioned some of thesebefore
in other podcastsor whatever, but, I think,
Steve Welham and Peter Gentry's,
God's Kingdom through God's Covenants.
(14:47):
It's a, there's, there's a big versionand small version, but God's kingdom
through God's covenants is the shorterI mean, it's 250 pages or whatever.
But that's a really helpful starting placefor reading,
putting the whole Bible togetherin a way that is,
I think, much betterthan a dispensational framework.
And they deal with in the intro,they talk some about,
(15:09):
about the sort of covenant theology,
dispensationalism and then this, you know,kind of meets way in the middle.
I think that's a good place to startfor the history of dispensation ism.
That book by Daniel Hummel,The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism.
What else?
Those are a couple of good placesto start.
but you're not necessarily saying,oh, we need to be out here
(15:30):
warning people of this.
You know, it's not reallyyou're not approaching it like that.
I'm not like,
I think again, like,there are so many people
that we respect very highly,in recent American church history
have been dispensationalto some degree or another,
good.
You know, thank, Praise God.
(15:52):
So it's not it's not some,
it's not evil or whatever, but I do think
it produces some, some problemsand things that I do think
are actually significantand should be, and should be avoided.
Another book that deals with,
there's one one more book that deals with,
specific topics from a perspective
(16:13):
non dispensational,but also non covenant theology,
which is kind of the other sideof that spectrum.
Perspectiveis called progressive covenantal ism.
And it has a chapter.
It's edited by SteveWelham and Brent Parker, I think,
and it has chapters
on different topicsthat so like the Sabbath and, Israel
and the church, the land promise differentthings like that that are treated from,
(16:38):
from the, from,you know, non dispensation perspective,
but also a non covenant theologyperspective. The oh one more book.
I keep saying one more, it'scalled From Continuity to discontinuity.
I can't remember off the top of my head
the author, but maybe BenMerkel is one of them.
But from continuity discontinuity,it just lays out,
the spectrum of of waysof reading the Bible
(16:58):
from dispensational on the one hand,to covenant on the other hand.
So it's just kind ofmore of a survey type of thing.
I think that would be a huge helpfor untangling this.
If you can kind of see, okay, here'ssome different options, like here's
the different frameworks actuallyexplained pretty clearly because otherwise
whatever it is, whatever positionyou have, it just kind of actually infuses
and you may not even knowyou have that position. Yeah.
(17:20):
And some of like that book and also thehistory book, we mentioned, I mentioned,
are helpful.
It's helpful to know some of the historyof dispensationalism because it reminds us
it feels likeit's for most evangelical Americans
when I and I include our people in that.
Dispensationalism is just the airwe breathe.
(17:40):
We've grown up breathing,
not not full fledged,but some of that, some of the ideas.
And we don't realize that it'sactually a very novel set of ideas.
Right? It does not.
It did not exist in the churchbefore, sort of the 1800s.
And it's it really dominated America.
So just recognizing having a broaderperspective and say, hey, at least
it's not a it'snot the only take on things.
(18:01):
And historicallyit's been a minority take.
So, you know, that
that's some really helpful contextbecause I know when I read that book
it's like, oh, that's really interesting
because yeah, historically speaking,this is relatively new.
I mean, this and it's fairlytied to you, North America, Yeah.
That that makes sense.
Okay.
So another big one backto some of these frameworks.
So we talked about the rapture.
(18:22):
Well then what is the tribulation.
That was another question we got.Well like what is this then.
And do we have to be worried
about seven years of horrendous evilthat's about to hit at any moment,
which is the typical,you know, way of saying it.
Again, some people saying, oh, well,the rapture will be before that.
So we don’t have to worry about it.
But I also have friends who say,oh no, the rapture
will be after the tribulation,so buckle up.
We're going to have this horrid
(18:43):
period that Revelation lays outall these terrible things that happen.
What's the tribulation? Yeah.
And this goes back to this is complicatedbecause this goes back to,
Revelation, but also Matthew 24.
And I think the rest of the New Testament.
But Matthew 24 Is debated.
There's different readings of it.
There's preterist readingswhich see, like pretty much all of it
(19:05):
as referring to, ad 70,
so I don't go there.
So you’re saying this section in Matthew,
this is the prophecy that Jesusis giving about all these things
that are going to happen, and some peoplesaying, oh, this, this happens
within the lifetime of the apostles,like the destruction of the temple.
And, and so forth.
So really, I'll try to be really quickhere.
(19:26):
But, what promptsthis is, is the disciples
ask one what will be the signsof your coming of the end of the age?
And he says, Jesus saysthere's going to be wars, rumors of wars.
People are going to false messiahsare going to come and lead many astray.
Which is interesting, right?
Many will come in my name sayingI am the Messiah.
Like, who are those?
(19:47):
You know they're anti,they're non messiah people, right?
And they lead people astray.
There'll be wars but don't be alarmed.
The end is not yet
nation will rise up against nation,Kingdom against kingdom will be famines,
earthquakes, etc.
these are just the beginning of the birthpains, right?
This this is tribulation language.
They say it's just the beginning.
They'll deliver you up to tribulation.You'll be put to death.
(20:08):
You'll be hated by all nationsfor my name's sake,
the one who endures tothe end will be saved.
And then.
So this seems to be somethingof an overview of the type of tribulation
that Jesus own disciplesare to are going to experience,
but also what's going to happen.
This is the, you know, from the beginningof the birth pains to the last push.
If we want to say right,
(20:31):
and then
he zeroes in on the, what he speaks of
as the abomination of desolation,which is drawing on Daniel's vision.
Yeah. Which kind of some of that probably.
Had at least one initial fulfillmentin, Antiochus Epiphanies.
That nasty king who desecrated the templeand turned it into,
(20:52):
banned Judaism and stuff in the,in the second century BC.
But that itself is sort of a prefiguration
of the destruction of the temple in ad 70.
Those come after Jesus.
And so Jesus,Jesus speaks of the immediate
destruction of Jerusalem that's coming.
And he says, you know, flee, etc..
(21:14):
But then he,he seems to sort of be merging that
he seems to be treating that almostas the beginning of the big tribulation.
Right?
When you seethe abomination of desolation,
then let those who are in Judeaflee to the mountains, get out, right?
And then there will be great tribulation,such as has not been
from the beginning of the worlduntil now, and never will be in.
(21:36):
If those days hadn't been shortened,no human being will be saved.
But and then all sorts of false messiahsand false
prophets will arise and perform greatsigns and wonders, so as to lead astray,
if possible, the elect all of this stuffwhich doesn't seem to be just
ad 70 but it seems to start there, right?
It's just. Yeah, right.
And then he says, if people say, look,Jesus is back in the wilderness,
(21:59):
don't go therebecause you'll know when he's back, right?
And then he says,after the tribulation of those days,
and those days seems to be this,this whole era from
like the beginning of birth pangsto all the way to,
you know,
right before the return.
And then he says,the moon will be darkened,
(22:21):
the stars will fall from heavenand then will appear the Son of Man,
coming in the clouds.
And it seems that what my underst.
My take.
Is that what he's doing hereand and if you want to,
read others on this, Craig Keenerand his Matthew commentary.
Osborne, as well. And his commentary.
(22:42):
Matthew, there's plenty of good takes, but
is that what's happeningis he's Jesus is taking,
the destruction of of the templeand Jerusalem.
That's going to happen 40 yearsafter Jesus is saying these things
is, in a sense,the beginning of this era of judgment
that will culminate in the finalthis era of tribulation will culminate
(23:02):
in the final judgment.
So in, New Testament studies,we talk about inaugurated eschatology.
You know, the alreadynot yet the idea that the that,
the era of salvation is both herebut not fully here.
So like Jesus rose from the dead, but
the rest of us haven't risenfrom the dead yet, or like, we've
(23:23):
we've had the spirit, but the spirit isthe first fruits of the full inheritance.
Right. So we have it, but not yet.
And I think that the flip sideof that inaugurated eschatology
is judgment, the judgment sidethat the destruction of Jerusalem,
just like Jesus resurrectionfrom the dead,
was the first installment,the first part of new creation,
the destruction of the temple was sort ofsymbolically the first part
(23:46):
of this judgment that will culminatein final judgment, final destruction.
And that's why it makes so much sensefor Jesus to use it.
As to why we start,it sounds like he's mixing up
the the judgments, the the tribulationsthat will that
he seems to think all of his followerswill from his immediate disciples.
(24:07):
And it seems to drag on for a whilebecause he says,
I don't know when I'm coming back,and there'll be all sorts of false
people arising and,you know, all that kind of thing.
But in a sense,the destruction of, of Jerusalem
kind of seems to marksymbolically the beginning of the end
in that way, just like Jesus resurrectionmarks the beginning of the beginning.
Right?
(24:27):
I've never thought of that before.
That's that's really interesting.
So you're you're not saying, oh,the tribulation is going to be this, this
chunk of time
when this is going to happen, it'syou're not I don't know what the word is.
Boxing it in quite like that.
Again, classical style of readingthis stuff is like, oh, it's this block,
this specific thing.
It's all broke down.
They have all these formulas,all this stuff figured out exactly how.
(24:48):
Boom. that's not what we're going for.
That I think that Jesus hereis speaking of this whole era, right?
That the whole time, as the discipleswait for Jesus return,
we see,like there are signs that the end is
is upon us in all the tribulationin the world, but we still don't.
(25:08):
We can't use any of those signs to to knowthe moment Jesus going to come back.
Right?
I mean, he says that, See, that'sI think that's the one
point there because there's ayou mentioned this in the other episode
was basically the style of youlike, read Revelation
and then read the headlinesand then try to put the two together.
You know, it's like,that's not what we're going for here.
Because the point is not to figure outwhen exactly the end is because he says
(25:30):
concerning the day of the hour,and no one knows.
But the point is, as he says,to stay awake and be ready.
Right.
And so all the tribulationis supposed to be a reminder.
Yeah.
You know,we're living in this era of judgment,
and that era could end and Godcould cut short those days at any moment.
Right.
And I think that, fits very muchwith the rest.
(25:50):
What the New Testament says, what the restof the Testament says about tribulation.
So John 16, in the worldyou will have tribulation.
But take heart.
I have overcome the world.
Peter sees his in first Peter.
It's all about expecting his readersto be living through an era of suffering
that's followed by glory.
First Thessalonians one.
It is evidence of the righteous judgmentof God that you may be considered
(26:12):
worthy of the kingdom of God for whichyou are suffering, since God considers it
just to repay with afflictionthose who afflict you,
and to grant relief to youwho are afflicted, as well as to us.
When the Lord Jesus is revealedfrom heaven with his mighty angels,
this is the wholeNew Testament is all about,
we're
living is expecting thatwe live in a time of marked by tribulation
and in a sense of the beginnings of thethe birth pains of God's judgment.
(26:36):
Revelation usesthe word tribulation throughout.
In, in many, in many cases to speak
of what his readers, what Christiansthroughout the ages are going through.
Right?
I know your tribulation, your poverty,he says in one of the letters
in Revelation seven, speaking of,I think all of the God's,
the martyrs were God's peoplethroughout the ages.
(26:57):
These are the ones who,coming out of great tribulation.
then then the question is well,but what about those three and a half year
numbers? Right. That, that, that. Yeah.
what's going on there.
So John uses this in chapter
11 and 12 of Revelation and maybe 13.
These numbers come up four times.
(27:19):
Sometimes it says 1260 days.
Sometimes it's time, time and a half time.
And then one time it's that time,and another time it's 42 months.
The two other times is 42 months,something like that.
And, but it's refersto the same period of time.
And what he's doing there is symbolically,it's kind of,
to me, fairly clearbecause of the way he uses it,
(27:40):
in chapter 12 to speak of the entire timewhen this woman is being,
kept by God in the wilderness,but also chased down by the by the dragon.
Right.
Or the whole time that those two witnesses
representingthe church are bearing witness,
and and being opposed in chapter 11,
(28:01):
he's drawing that from one of Daniel'svisions
where the vision ofthe weeks, where Daniel sees,
sees this, this figure
that will sort of cause great disturbance,to God's people
in the half of thisprophetic week of years or whatever.
Right? Yeah.
And, or from Daniel 725,
(28:24):
this specifically mentions that
and I think this is particularly relevant.
Yeah.
As for the ten horns,so this is the beast, the fourth beast,
which is kind of the pattern that Johnuses for his beast in Revelation.
He has ten horns out of his kingdomten kings shall arise,
another shall arise after them.
He shall be differentfrom the former ones.
(28:46):
He shall speak wordsagainst the most High.
He will wear out the saintsof the Most High,
and shall thinkto change the time and the laws,
and they shall be given into his handfor a time, times, and half a time.
But so that's the threeand a half symbolic years.
But the court shall sit in judgment, andhis dominion be taken away and given to,
the people of the saints of the Most High.
And I think what John is doingis he's taking that three
(29:08):
and a half year kind of like fourscore,you know, fourscore.
And however many years at the beginningof the Gettysburg Address.
Right. It's this symbolic number.
I mean, Lincoln obviously was referringto a specific number of years,
but the way we say it, like fourscoreand something, if I say it that way,
I'm evoking a whole history of the CivilWar and blah, blah, blah.
I think John's doing something similarthat three and a half years
(29:29):
in Daniel represents.
This time I don'tI think a symbolic time is half of seven.
It's a limited time, but it's a time,
of suffering andtribulation where the beast,
rules.
You know, he's given some dominion.
But it will end when.
When the kingdom is fully in the handsof, of the saints.
(29:52):
Right.
And so John takes that threeand a half years and plops it into cases
where it seems to me fairly clearthat he's talking about this whole era.
Right.
So the woman who's she gives the,
birth to the male child,
(30:12):
the woman,
this is like a super cool story,but we can't talk about it.
But she so she gives,
she gives birth,and then she flees into the wilderness
where she has a placeprepared by God for 1260 days.
Then Michael and his angels fightagainst the dragon, and they come down.
And then they try to persecute the woman.
And then the dragon becomes furiouswith the woman, goes off to make war on
(30:35):
the rest of her offspring.
And we have the 1260 again.
It seems like this whole timewhere the dragon's furious is.
Is this 1260 or times, timesand a half the time it says here.
Period. Okay.
That's so that language of threeand a half years of tribulation.
I think it's seems to beis drawing off of Daniel,
because that's a number that representsthis finite period of time
(30:58):
where that's marked by oppressionand tribulation.
And John seems to be employing thatsymbolically to refer to this whole age,
the same ageJesus is talking about in Matthew,
where he speaks of this whole era of timewhile we
from the destruction of Jerusalem,so to speak, to Jesus, return.
That's marked by tribulation.
But Jesus promised to keep us, to keephis people, you know, until his return.
(31:21):
so really,some people say this is symbolic
of a seven years of tribulation,blah, blah, blah.
You're sayingno, this is symbolic of something else.
Essentially. Yeah.
I think it's symbolic of the whole era
that we're that we're this wholeera is marked both by salvation
for us and also by tribulation for usand for the world.
Yeah, I think that's that's howI that's how I understand it.
That's that's really interestingbecause I, because.
(31:43):
Yeah, you had to
you can go down some interesting streetsif you're like,
well there's this there's a set timein the future where tribulation
is coming and all this you can startI don't know you
you can get down some interesting pathswith that really, really quickly.
And I don't know.
Yeah. I'm,I often kind of wondered about that.
You can you can go downfearmongering really quickly as well.
And maybe not you know, but okay.
(32:04):
So that's really interesting.
And again this, this then correspondspretty well with what we read
the whole rest of the New Testament.Right.
It's expectation of God's judgmentthat comes throughout this,
these last, these last days.If we want to call this whole era,
the expectation that believers suffer,
you know, it's what we readthe whole rest of the New Testament.
So and it's what most many Christiansthroughout history have experienced.
(32:29):
that that's a,
that is a really good point It’seasier for us to say, well,
maybe there's going to be sevenbad years in the future.
But for believers and persecuted believersin the Middle East or Asia or whatever,
that makes less sense, right?
It makes a lot more sense to say,
yeah, this is the time that this is a timemarked by tribulation.
You know, that that does it.
And it also takes Revelation instead ofbeing something out there somewhere.
(32:51):
And that brings it down to us and makes itimmediately relevant to us again.
Yeah. Yeah.
tells the people, yeah, that makes sense.
So another one,
that obviously came upwhen we're doing rapture or tribulation.
What's the millennium.
Yeah.
So this we can be quick on I thinkhopefully I say that but then I'm not.
So the millennium refersto how you understand Revelation
(33:14):
chapter 20, which speaks of Satanbeing bound for a thousand years.
Yeah. What what's that all about?
There's only comes from there.
And then after the thousand years,he seems to be released from his cage
and he wreaks some final havocand then is destroyed.
Right.
and this issue, you know,I want to stress that you can,
you can hold to any of the,any of the, the,
(33:36):
the common views on the millenniumand still read Revelation well.
You know,this is not a, it's not a big deal
in history, in recent American history,it has been a big deal.
Right.
Your view on the millennium
has been a litmus test of orthodoxyin some places, unfortunately.
But yeah, you can read Revelationwell and hold two different views.
So the three main views, have been that,
(33:58):
first, that,
that this period of timeis a literal period of time,
whether it's exactly a thousand years orit stands for a different period of time,
whatever, butit's a specific period of time that comes.
So pre millennialism means that Jesus returns first
and then he and then there'sthis thousand year reign of
(34:18):
prosperity with him ruling on,
on this earth before the final judgmentand the new heavens in New Earth.
So Jesus is ruling on the currentsort of unrestored earth.
And then at the end of that,Satan comes back out,
and then he's finally everything'sfinally destroyed and, and, and renewed.
So that's pre millennialism.
(34:38):
There have been some peoplewho've held that throughout church.
Well, especially in the early church, there were people who held a version of that.
But it's not been the dominant viewin church history.
Then dispensationalism came along
with its own version of this.
That's when the rapture.
The rapture, you know, all gets tied intoand the literal tribulation,
(35:01):
all that kind of stuffgets tied into this,
and that then became the dominant viewin the United States.
So that's, that's that
post millennial ism,is like a really interesting one.
I still think you, you have to behave a certain,
I don't know, temperament,very optimistic temperament.
But this it was a big thingback in the day.
(35:22):
Yeah. really interesting.
So post millennial ism is the ideathat, again, there's the thousand years.
It's not a literal thousand years,but it represents this period of time
where the current Earth will basicallythe gospel will have triumphed.
And, you know, people,the Earth, as we, you know,
the current societywill have become largely Christianized
(35:43):
and will be,you know, basically Christian, you know,
and and everything will be awesomebefore Jesus returns.
So it's just that the gospel advancesand everyone kind of gets
people just keep getting saved and like,stuff gets better.
And, and then at the sort of the grandfinale of that, Jesus returns.
And that view has been heldby some significant people.
Jonathan Edwards, Bebe Warfield, etc.
(36:05):
it seems to have fallen out offashion around World War one.
That would make sense.
Yeah, that would that would make sense.
Oh. So, yeah.
So that's,
that is that thenthe final major position,
there is another positionthat's been advocated
more recently called new creation,millennial ism.
But we won't get into that.
But the final position, itwhich has been the dominant position
(36:28):
in the history of the churchis a-millennialism, the a meaning.
No, but it doesn't mean that there's it'skind of a misnomer because,
yeah, it doesn't mean that there'sno millennium, but it understands that
what Revelation is talking about thisthousand year period where Satan is bound.
It understands that as referringto this whole era from of, of,
(36:51):
between Jesus ascensionbasically, and his return.
So between Pentecost and Jesus return,that whole era
is is this period okay.
And that would have been a fairly commonview in like, say, the early church,
for example.
And, and such that
I think that was the more common viewin the early church, I think.
(37:12):
But then it became the dominant viewkind of once Augustine changed.
You know, when Augustine,I think Augustine changed his mind
in favor of this view.
And then it kind of becamethe dominant view, as most things,
you know, that one,whatever Augustine believed
kind of kind of became the dominant viewfor a long time.
he had a lot of influence. Yeah.
So those are kind of the three main onesto keep in mind.
in it. Yeah.
Now what's weird is that peopleI mean, people could say like
(37:35):
how Satan being bound,that just seems bonkers.
Like, how can that refer to this whole erawhen you've also just said,
this is the time when the beast reignsand all this kind of stuff, right?
Right.
So I think,I think the key understanding here
is that Revelation20 speaks of Satan being bound
so that he might not deceive the nationsany longer.
(37:55):
To me, that's the key part of that.
Right?
And when you look at the history of
what God has been tryingto do in the world
from creation to, from the fall,let's say, to now and redemptive history,
Pentecost marks this moment
where from then on,the gospel has like exploded.
(38:16):
Okay, there's been highs and lows, but,
the people from all over the world,
are believing God and Israel'sGod and submit to Jesus now,
like in ways that beforeJesus coming were not the case.
Right.
There was this one little camp, Israel,who had the knowledge of God and the rest.
(38:38):
Like so Paul says,you know these times of ignorance.
God winked out. He overlooked, right?
But now he commands all people everywhereto repent and so a-millennialism
says, yes, the devil.Sure there's another.
There is one. From what?
Taken from one angle,
the devil has lots of powerand he's doing all sorts of crazy stuff.
The beast is very much roaming,
but from another angle,the Satan's ability to keep the gospel
(39:01):
from spreading to the nationshas been curtailed in a way, right?
We have like thethe the way the gospel has spread
in the last couple thousand years,the way that the reason any of us
are sitting here, just obviously assumingthat that the Bible,
that we have a direct relationshipto Yahweh through Jesus,
I mean, that's that's so unheard ofin the Old Testament, right?
(39:23):
It's only when the spirit is poured out,
that this changed and you
start having people from the nationsthat embrace, embrace the true God.
So that's the understandingof of how that how that works.
And then and then thethen then they say, well,
so that that's what that that means.
And then right when Jesus comes back,the devil will do his last to try to
(39:45):
to try to bring everyone in rebellionagainst against God.
And Jesus will triumph that that'sthat's a summary, if that makes sense.
Yeah. That's okay.
That actually it does kind of make sensewhen you think about it.
Like they do have some pointsthere, you know, about the gospel
spreading to every corner of the globe,which is, which is true.
And, and the, the growth of the churchthat we've seen in the last 2000 years.
(40:05):
Fascinating.
So all of you, you know, you canyou can have
I think post-millennialismis at least plausible to me.
I lean a-millennial, but,
but I think that all of these views have,have their weaknesses too.
Right.
And so, I,I think we don't want because it's
mostly just a matter of interpreting onechapter of Revelation.
(40:27):
This doctrine doesn'tshow up other places.
So one of the reasons I'm hesitant to say,yeah, this is definitely teaching
a literal millenniam because it's like,it's nowhere else in the Bible.
And Revelation isspeaks in figures and imagery.
So it's, you know,
it's somethingthat we should certainly shouldn't
make a big issue out of,but those are kind of
that's kind of an overview of the overviewof the views and, you know.
(40:51):
Yeah.
So maybe, maybe the takeawaybeing don't, don't worry about this,
but but so much like it would be easyto, to overemphasize the importance
of this particular view of thisor that or, you know, because
because like you had saidin, in the American church,
there would have been a timeand maybe still is in some places.
You know, pre-millennialismwas essentially
a litmus test in some cases of like, well,if you don't believe this,
(41:13):
I don't know, you're
kind of outside of the bounds of whatwe can handle here, you know, and that's
and that just see it, it does seemreally sad that you would make
there are some things that are worth
drawing lines over,you know, and being tests of orthodoxy.
And that just seems too much, you know.
So maybe that's a piece to leave with. Is
there's a lot to this text.
(41:34):
There's a lot of different waysof, of looking at
there's a lot of different opinions.
But also maybe the sense ofwe should be gracious with each other too.
Yeah.
I justit feels like there's too many, people do
get too emotionally investedsometimes in their particular view.
I don't know.
And that has thathas been more of a problem than it is now.
And my For me personally,
(41:54):
speaking autobiographically, isthat was one of the things
that sort of turned me off to Revelationwas like, it's all this weird.
Everyone's like all hyped up about this
weird, this weird debates over arcanematters, right?
And then when I started studying itmore in depth,
in the context of New Testament studiesand Second Temple Jewish literature
and such and the Old Testament,I start realizing, whoa,
(42:15):
this book is not about,quibbling over, you know,
lines on a prophecy chart.
It's about weaving togetherthe whole story of the Bible and
and calling us to live in a certain waybecause,
you know, a different, basically
a different packaging of the same teachingthat the rest of the New Testament has,
you know, and then I think it's somethingthat can be exciting and not,
(42:38):
either dry and arcane or sort of
unnecessarily, divisive.
Yeah.
I feel like that's a really goodone to end it on is like, let's.
Yeah. Not unnecessarily divisive.
I think thatI think that's a good one. And,
yeah, there's, lots of different thingsout there on this.
And I just.
Yeah.
Thanks for taking the time to to dive,like, just right into some of the, the,
(43:01):
core of this, you know, the rapture,the tribulation, the millennium.
These are almost, almost becomelike buzzwords or, you know, it.
It's just hard to again, peel backall the layers. Okay.
What's the text actually say?Let's get back to that.
So yeah, I appreciate you, coming onanswering some of these questions
and then, just want tomaybe leave it with,
if someone's listening to this,tell them to, you know, leave a comment
(43:21):
if they have further questions and maybewe can, hit it in a future episode.
So, yeah, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for
listening to this questionand answer episode with Paul Lamicela.
If you enjoyed this conversation,please leave us a rating on whichever
platformyou use to listen to this podcast.
It really does helpmore people find our episodes.
And of course, you can find
all our content on our websiteat anabaptistperspectives.org.
(43:45):
Thanks againand we'll see you in the next episode.
For me personally,
speaking autobiographically, isthat was one of the things
that sort of turned me off to Revelationwas like, it's all this weird.
Everyone's like all hyped up about this
weird, this weird debates over arcanematters, right?
And then when I started studying itmore in depth,
in the context of New Testament studiesand Second Temple Jewish literature
and such and the Old Testament,I start realizing, whoa,
(00:22):
this book is not about,quibbling over, you know,
lines on a prophecy chart.
It's about weaving togetherthe whole story of the Bible
and calling us to live in a certain waybecause, you know, a different,
basically a different packagingof the same teaching
that the rest of the New Testamenthas, you know,
and then I think it's somethingthat can be exciting and not, either
(00:43):
dry and arcaneor sort of unnecessarily, divisive.
Well PaulLamicela welcome back to the podcast.
So we did a podcast with youa few months ago
on how to read the Book of Revelation.
Needless to say,
we got an enormous amount of feedbackand a lot of questions about that.
(01:07):
And people wanting us to do follow upand something that maybe
our audience doesn't know.
But a lot of the episodeswe do actually come from audience,
questions or suggestions like, hey,you should, you should do one on this.
And then, oh yeah, we'll do that.
So this time around,we want to acknowledge those questions,
actually just do more of a Q&Aish on the feedback
that we got, which was a lot.
(01:28):
Yeah.
So, there was a lot of questions,and we're just going to hit
at least a try to be representativeof the main ones that we got, and no way
we're going to cover them all.
But but yeah.
So we'll jump in and just,see where we end up.
I've noticed there's tendsto be a good amount of interest in
when I talk about Revelation, when,you know, it
seems common that people seem to be it'sa topic people seem to be interested in.
(01:49):
Yeah. Do you have theories as to.
I mean, I am too, so I get it.
But like,do you have theories as to as on that?
What is it with American.
The American interpretation of Revelationjust seems to result
in lots of conversation.
Yeah.
You know, and maybe some people are, like,wondering
if there's ways that they can read itthat might resonate with them better.
(02:10):
I don't know,but there's there's a lot of questions.
It's interesting. Yeah.
So one of the, one of the big ones
is, for example,and these are more samples.
So this this is I got thisfrom a number of different people.
So I just kind of do it in my own words.
But what is the rapture?
We did not talk about that specificallywhen we did the other one.
It was more generally like,how do we read Revelation?
(02:31):
So the rapture is a big one.
You're going to hear about thatall the time.
It's it's to the pointwhere it's such a well known thing.
It's essentially bleed overinto pop culture in mainstream society,
not just within the church,which kind of blows my mind.
Yeah. So what's the rapture? Yeah.
And if
you're, if people are interested,maybe that was an allusion to the book
(02:52):
by Daniel Hummel called The Riseand Fall of Dispensationalism.
Yeah. So if anyone's interested in.
Yeah, it's a great book.
It talks about how dispensationalism,which is the kind of the the father is, is
the is what made the rapture and certainother ideas.
Well, what invented themand what made them popular.
How that dominated American evangelicalismand then
(03:16):
mostly died out in academic circles,but at the same time
crossed over into pop cultureand sort of total totally took over.
That's a greatthat's a great book for anyone.
Any nerd out there who's interestedIt's it's yes, it's fairly detailed.
And there's It is. But it'swell it's well done.
And it's
if you're like if interested in modernChristian history, it's just so cool.
(03:37):
But maybe that's just the nerds,the nerds in us talking.
So the rapture is,
when when we think of the rapture now,we didn't talk about it in the other one
in part, but for many reasons, but in partbecause Revelation never mentions it.
It's not in Revelation at all.
But when we talk about the rapture,we're usually talking about,
(03:58):
this very specific dispensational ideaof the rapture, which is the certain way
of reading the Bible and Revelationthat, is very kind of literalistic.
There's a lot of thingswe can't go into that.
But basically it was inventedlargely by this guy named
John Nelson Darby in the 1800s in England.
And then, came into the United States
(04:20):
and for various reasons, including,
being.
Yeah, there's various reasons,from Moody to Scofield that made it become
super popular in America,took over, American evangelicalism.
Basically,it's it's the idea from that way
of schematizing the end times.
(04:41):
And by the end times,
we're talking aboutsort of the last number of years before
Jesus return,
not the way the New Testament talksabout the end times,
which is the whole period of timefrom Jesus.
That's that started with Jesus coming.
You're saying when you say end times,
we're using in the frame of referencethat you would typically see laid out in.
Yeah.
That evangelical style of there'sgoing to be this
(05:02):
and then this is going to happen inthe global government
is going to take over like the whole yeah,the whole timeline, Yeah, that way,
which is not how the New Testament usesthe term, not how I like to use the term,
but where for now.
Yeah. So, so,
the idea that believerswill be caught up to meet
Jesus as he's returning is somethingthat Christians all you know, all believe.
(05:26):
But the specific kind of twist on this
that dispensationalismbrought was this idea,
that that the rapture is something where
it's not it's not something that happensat the end of the age
when Jesus is returning for final judgmentand renewal of all things.
(05:46):
But it's a sort of thingthat Jesus snatches away his people.
And then there continues to be
tribulation and all sorts of problems.
And then Jesus returns later.
Right.
And and so there's different terms for why
there's different understandings of this.
But the most kind of classic oneis pre-tribulation,
(06:07):
rapture or whatever,where God's people are taken up
before a what they viewas a seven year period
of, of all sorts of terrible thingshappening before Jesus finally return.
But there's been other takes.
Some people think the rapture would be
in the middleof those seven years or whatever.
So from my perspective, there is no sevenyears, you know, of of that.
It's we're speaking Revelation,I think, is speaking when it's
(06:31):
and Matthew and other placesand speaking of this time of tribulation,
it's speaking of this wholeera, where the beast is,
is clashing with the people of Jesus,
you know, and when God's judgments,in a sense, are starting to be poured out.
Right.
So, but, the,the idea of this rapture that that happens
is taken really from firstThessalonians four,
(06:53):
where Paul says, and Paul is writingto the Thessalonians to tell them, hey,
because apparently some of themare starting to get worried
because some,some of their loved ones are dying
and they're like, wait, but they're dying.
Jesus isn't back yet.What's going to happen?
And Paul says, don't worry,
you will be with them again.
(07:14):
We'll, we'll, we'll we'll be together.
Sure.
They're deadnow, but Jesus is going to raise them,
and he's going to snatch you up as well,and you'll be all together.
You know, that's the context.
But so he says that the trumpet will sound
and, the Lord will descend from heaven.
So he's coming down, right?
(07:34):
And it says the dead in the Messiahwill rise first, and then all of us
who remain will be snatched upto meet him in the clouds.
And then we will,you know, be with the Lord forever.
It says there's no hint therethat this is something that is separate
from, at a different timeperiod from Jesus’ final return.
The language of the trumpet.
When Jesus descending, is the same typesof, you know, the trumpet language
(07:58):
that we see in Revelation forJesus return, Jesus descending from heaven
sounds a lot like what the angel saidwhen the disciples saw Jesus ascend.
They'll say,you'll see him in like manner descend.
Right.
So there's and you have theresurrection of the dead at the same time.
Right.
And some peopletried to put a wedge in between that.
(08:18):
But it really doesn't work like it.
The whole point is that, look,we'll all we'll all be together.
The dead in Christ will rise. Yes.
And they will maybe be first part of thisescort committee or whatever it is.
But the point seems to bethis is Jesus return, right?
And the snatching up is not a permanent.
Now we go up to heaven.
But it is, as Jesus iscome, is returning or whatever
(08:41):
we’rebrought to be with him, to follow him
as he as he presumably,
returns to Earthto bring about judgment and restoration.
So all of this talk about the raptureand these elaborate
models that have been built,
around this, all of that is based
on that passage in, in Thessalonians,That’s the main passage.
(09:01):
So there's also the otherthe other places, in Matthew 24,
where Jesus speaks of you know,signs of the end by which also, I think
he's speaking of this whole well, he'sspeaking of the destruction of Jerusalem
and then the whole tribulationof these, those days until his return.
And he says, you know, be ready.
(09:22):
And then he speaks of how,
he will, you know,
one will there'll be two peopledoing the same activity together.
The one will be taken, the other left,and that,
that probably provides fodderfor a lot of the 90s,
pictures of sort of,
from the Left Behind,you know, series, that kind of That's
(09:43):
what really brought it into pop culture.
I mean, there's other things too,but that was a really is so cinematic,
classic imagery of,
yeah, you know, people in an airplaneor whatever,
and all of a sudden, like half the seatsare just, they're just clothes, you know.
Yeah.
And thatand that is such a, a stark image.
It just gets stuck in the,
you know, and it's like, well,I guess it looks good in a story.
(10:05):
But I think the piece with thatand I think that's why this person sent
this in was just like, okay, but like,what does Scripture say again?
Like, like because the problem is it'sso hard to to peel back all the layers now
because so many layers have been piledon top from fiction and pop culture
and just the assumed,the dispensational edifice.
It's a whole edifice, right? Yeah.
there's this entire infrastructurearound this stuff.
(10:27):
And so I know for myself it's just like,I have no idea.
Like I don't, you know,it just gets so convoluted, so quickly.
So, so you're essentially sayingwhat we think classically of
this is what the rapture is going to looklike, is really just kind of not
that's overblown.
Yeah.
And what's happening in Matthew 24,
I think when Jesus speaks of the onetaken the other left, actually some
(10:48):
there's no clarity on where they're takenor why or anything like that.
Right.
So again, trying to read ina separate situation here it is misguided.
But also some scholars even, think that
that taking away that's the negative part.
We always think of the beingleft as the bad part.
Right.
But in the verse right
before, Jesus uses the example of,
(11:12):
of the flood and he says, so
his whole point is to be stay awakeand be faithful, right.
And very similar.
Similar idea is not the same wording, but
it's very similar idea, where he says,
you know, he says concerning that dayand hour, nobody knows.
It's going to be like the days of Noah.
And he says, as in those days,people were just
(11:35):
eating, drinking,going about their normal life.
And, and, they were unaware untilthe flood came and swept them all away.
So it will be the coming ofthe Son of Man.
Two will be left in one,
two will be in one field,one will be taken and the other left.
So it by analogy from the previous verse,the flood came and swept them all away.
That lead some scholarsto think that the the ones taken away
(11:56):
are the taking awayis the taking away for judgment.
Right?
Just like at the floodwhen they were swept away.
Well, okay,I've never thought of it that way before.
So we can't be sure. Right.
But but whatever is the case,whatever the case
is, there's no details herethat support a separate rapture.
This is Jesus is speaking of the timewhen the Son of Man returns, right?
(12:17):
The time of judgment and salvation.
There's nothing there that implies that.
And again, the emphasis, just like Johnand Revelation is on staying in.
Matthew is staying awake,being ready. Right?
Not in the sense of
being ready by checking the newspapers,but being faithful.
Right. So there's no.
Yeah.
So the rapture as a distinct thingthat's before
(12:40):
and separatefrom Jesus return, Jesus final return.
You know,
it doesn'tseem to really have have good grounding.
Right.
But if we're talking saying the rapturein the sense that whoever's alive
when Jesus returns will we'll join himimmediately and meet him as he as
he returns or whatever.
(13:01):
Yes, all Christians believe that.
Yeah.
That, that that helps a lot
to kind of peel back the layersbecause it does
feel like there'sa lot of fog around these things.
And it's just like, I don't know.
You know, it's just so easy to be likeI don't know what to think.
Let's just not even we’renot even gonna look into it.
That's very helpful.
So here's another comment that we got fromsomeone named Caleb.
And he says this,I fear the incursion of street level
(13:22):
dispensationalism in conservativeAnabaptist circles.
And they asked
if you have any resources to point usto warn fellow Anabaptists against it.
And he says, maybeyou should write a book on the topic.
So, yeah, I'd be curiouswhat you would think there,
because we were just talkingabout the dispensational framework
and how that is just so infusedthe conversation.
It's kind of hardto pull all the pieces apart anymore.
(13:43):
So, yeah,what would you have to say? Yeah.
You know, I'mgoing to be less inclined to have, like,
specific
resources that are like,warning of the dangers of something
like this and more things that are,
I mean, I do think dispensationalismhas some features that are, that are,
that are kind of not helpful and helpand maybe,
(14:05):
push us to think of to miss some, some,some of the good stuff in the Bible.
But you know, that's, that's it'snot a first tier doctrine or anything.
But I would be more inclined to, to say,
there's some good resources out therethat, that present,
I think better readingsand that really show how the to try
(14:26):
to read the Bible betteraccording to its own categories
and its own storylineand genre and things and genres.
And so, some examples,
I've probably mentioned some of thesebefore
in other podcastsor whatever, but, I think,
Steve Welham and Peter Gentry's,
God's Kingdom through God's Covenants.
(14:47):
It's a, there's, there's a big versionand small version, but God's kingdom
through God's covenants is the shorterI mean, it's 250 pages or whatever.
But that's a really helpful starting placefor reading,
putting the whole Bible togetherin a way that is,
I think, much betterthan a dispensational framework.
And they deal with in the intro,they talk some about,
(15:09):
about the sort of covenant theology,
dispensationalism and then this, you know,kind of meets way in the middle.
I think that's a good place to startfor the history of dispensation ism.
That book by Daniel Hummel,The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism.
What else?
Those are a couple of good placesto start.
but you're not necessarily saying,oh, we need to be out here
(15:30):
warning people of this.
You know, it's not reallyyou're not approaching it like that.
I'm not like,
I think again, like,there are so many people
that we respect very highly,in recent American church history
have been dispensationalto some degree or another,
good.
You know, thank, Praise God.
(15:52):
So it's not it's not some,
it's not evil or whatever, but I do think
it produces some, some problemsand things that I do think
are actually significantand should be, and should be avoided.
Another book that deals with,
there's one one more book that deals with,
specific topics from a perspective
(16:13):
non dispensational,but also non covenant theology,
which is kind of the other sideof that spectrum.
Perspectiveis called progressive covenantal ism.
And it has a chapter.
It's edited by SteveWelham and Brent Parker, I think,
and it has chapters
on different topicsthat so like the Sabbath and, Israel
and the church, the land promise differentthings like that that are treated from,
(16:38):
from the, from,you know, non dispensation perspective,
but also a non covenant theologyperspective. The oh one more book.
I keep saying one more, it'scalled From Continuity to discontinuity.
I can't remember off the top of my head
the author, but maybe BenMerkel is one of them.
But from continuity discontinuity,it just lays out,
the spectrum of of waysof reading the Bible
(16:58):
from dispensational on the one hand,to covenant on the other hand.
So it's just kind ofmore of a survey type of thing.
I think that would be a huge helpfor untangling this.
If you can kind of see, okay, here'ssome different options, like here's
the different frameworks actuallyexplained pretty clearly because otherwise
whatever it is, whatever positionyou have, it just kind of actually infuses
and you may not even knowyou have that position. Yeah.
(17:20):
And some of like that book and also thehistory book, we mentioned, I mentioned,
are helpful.
It's helpful to know some of the historyof dispensationalism because it reminds us
it feels likeit's for most evangelical Americans
when I and I include our people in that.
Dispensationalism is just the airwe breathe.
(17:40):
We've grown up breathing,
not not full fledged,but some of that, some of the ideas.
And we don't realize that it'sactually a very novel set of ideas.
Right? It does not.
It did not exist in the churchbefore, sort of the 1800s.
And it's it really dominated America.
So just recognizing having a broaderperspective and say, hey, at least
it's not a it'snot the only take on things.
(18:01):
And historicallyit's been a minority take.
So, you know, that
that's some really helpful contextbecause I know when I read that book
it's like, oh, that's really interesting
because yeah, historically speaking,this is relatively new.
I mean, this and it's fairlytied to you, North America, Yeah.
That that makes sense.
Okay.
So another big one backto some of these frameworks.
So we talked about the rapture.
(18:22):
Well then what is the tribulation.
That was another question we got.Well like what is this then.
And do we have to be worried
about seven years of horrendous evilthat's about to hit at any moment,
which is the typical,you know, way of saying it.
Again, some people saying, oh, well,the rapture will be before that.
So we don’t have to worry about it.
But I also have friends who say,oh no, the rapture
will be after the tribulation,so buckle up.
We're going to have this horrid
(18:43):
period that Revelation lays outall these terrible things that happen.
What's the tribulation? Yeah.
And this goes back to this is complicatedbecause this goes back to,
Revelation, but also Matthew 24.
And I think the rest of the New Testament.
But Matthew 24 Is debated.
There's different readings of it.
There's preterist readingswhich see, like pretty much all of it
(19:05):
as referring to, ad 70,
so I don't go there.
So you’re saying this section in Matthew,
this is the prophecy that Jesusis giving about all these things
that are going to happen, and some peoplesaying, oh, this, this happens
within the lifetime of the apostles,like the destruction of the temple.
And, and so forth.
So really, I'll try to be really quickhere.
(19:26):
But, what promptsthis is, is the disciples
ask one what will be the signsof your coming of the end of the age?
And he says, Jesus saysthere's going to be wars, rumors of wars.
People are going to false messiahsare going to come and lead many astray.
Which is interesting, right?
Many will come in my name sayingI am the Messiah.
Like, who are those?
(19:47):
You know they're anti,they're non messiah people, right?
And they lead people astray.
There'll be wars but don't be alarmed.
The end is not yet
nation will rise up against nation,Kingdom against kingdom will be famines,
earthquakes, etc.
these are just the beginning of the birthpains, right?
This this is tribulation language.
They say it's just the beginning.
They'll deliver you up to tribulation.You'll be put to death.
(20:08):
You'll be hated by all nationsfor my name's sake,
the one who endures tothe end will be saved.
And then.
So this seems to be somethingof an overview of the type of tribulation
that Jesus own disciplesare to are going to experience,
but also what's going to happen.
This is the, you know, from the beginningof the birth pains to the last push.
If we want to say right,
(20:31):
and then
he zeroes in on the, what he speaks of
as the abomination of desolation,which is drawing on Daniel's vision.
Yeah. Which kind of some of that probably.
Had at least one initial fulfillmentin, Antiochus Epiphanies.
That nasty king who desecrated the templeand turned it into,
(20:52):
banned Judaism and stuff in the,in the second century BC.
But that itself is sort of a prefiguration
of the destruction of the temple in ad 70.
Those come after Jesus.
And so Jesus,Jesus speaks of the immediate
destruction of Jerusalem that's coming.
And he says, you know, flee, etc..
(21:14):
But then he,he seems to sort of be merging that
he seems to be treating that almostas the beginning of the big tribulation.
Right?
When you seethe abomination of desolation,
then let those who are in Judeaflee to the mountains, get out, right?
And then there will be great tribulation,such as has not been
from the beginning of the worlduntil now, and never will be in.
(21:36):
If those days hadn't been shortened,no human being will be saved.
But and then all sorts of false messiahsand false
prophets will arise and perform greatsigns and wonders, so as to lead astray,
if possible, the elect all of this stuffwhich doesn't seem to be just
ad 70 but it seems to start there, right?
It's just. Yeah, right.
And then he says, if people say, look,Jesus is back in the wilderness,
(21:59):
don't go therebecause you'll know when he's back, right?
And then he says,after the tribulation of those days,
and those days seems to be this,this whole era from
like the beginning of birth pangsto all the way to,
you know,
right before the return.
And then he says,the moon will be darkened,
(22:21):
the stars will fall from heavenand then will appear the Son of Man,
coming in the clouds.
And it seems that what my underst.
My take.
Is that what he's doing hereand and if you want to,
read others on this, Craig Keenerand his Matthew commentary.
Osborne, as well. And his commentary.
(22:42):
Matthew, there's plenty of good takes, but
is that what's happeningis he's Jesus is taking,
the destruction of of the templeand Jerusalem.
That's going to happen 40 yearsafter Jesus is saying these things
is, in a sense,the beginning of this era of judgment
that will culminate in the finalthis era of tribulation will culminate
(23:02):
in the final judgment.
So in, New Testament studies,we talk about inaugurated eschatology.
You know, the alreadynot yet the idea that the that,
the era of salvation is both herebut not fully here.
So like Jesus rose from the dead, but
the rest of us haven't risenfrom the dead yet, or like, we've
(23:23):
we've had the spirit, but the spirit isthe first fruits of the full inheritance.
Right. So we have it, but not yet.
And I think that the flip sideof that inaugurated eschatology
is judgment, the judgment sidethat the destruction of Jerusalem,
just like Jesus resurrectionfrom the dead,
was the first installment,the first part of new creation,
the destruction of the temple was sort ofsymbolically the first part
(23:46):
of this judgment that will culminatein final judgment, final destruction.
And that's why it makes so much sensefor Jesus to use it.
As to why we start,it sounds like he's mixing up
the the judgments, the the tribulationsthat will that
he seems to think all of his followerswill from his immediate disciples.
(24:07):
And it seems to drag on for a whilebecause he says,
I don't know when I'm coming back,and there'll be all sorts of false
people arising and,you know, all that kind of thing.
But in a sense,the destruction of, of Jerusalem
kind of seems to marksymbolically the beginning of the end
in that way, just like Jesus resurrectionmarks the beginning of the beginning.
Right?
(24:27):
I've never thought of that before.
That's that's really interesting.
So you're you're not saying, oh,the tribulation is going to be this, this
chunk of time
when this is going to happen, it'syou're not I don't know what the word is.
Boxing it in quite like that.
Again, classical style of readingthis stuff is like, oh, it's this block,
this specific thing.
It's all broke down.
They have all these formulas,all this stuff figured out exactly how.
(24:48):
Boom. that's not what we're going for.
That I think that Jesus hereis speaking of this whole era, right?
That the whole time, as the discipleswait for Jesus return,
we see,like there are signs that the end is
is upon us in all the tribulationin the world, but we still don't.
(25:08):
We can't use any of those signs to to knowthe moment Jesus going to come back.
Right?
I mean, he says that, See, that'sI think that's the one
point there because there's ayou mentioned this in the other episode
was basically the style of youlike, read Revelation
and then read the headlinesand then try to put the two together.
You know, it's like,that's not what we're going for here.
Because the point is not to figure outwhen exactly the end is because he says
(25:30):
concerning the day of the hour,and no one knows.
But the point is, as he says,to stay awake and be ready.
Right.
And so all the tribulationis supposed to be a reminder.
Yeah.
You know,we're living in this era of judgment,
and that era could end and Godcould cut short those days at any moment.
Right.
And I think that, fits very muchwith the rest.
(25:50):
What the New Testament says, what the restof the Testament says about tribulation.
So John 16, in the worldyou will have tribulation.
But take heart.
I have overcome the world.
Peter sees his in first Peter.
It's all about expecting his readersto be living through an era of suffering
that's followed by glory.
First Thessalonians one.
It is evidence of the righteous judgmentof God that you may be considered
(26:12):
worthy of the kingdom of God for whichyou are suffering, since God considers it
just to repay with afflictionthose who afflict you,
and to grant relief to youwho are afflicted, as well as to us.
When the Lord Jesus is revealedfrom heaven with his mighty angels,
this is the wholeNew Testament is all about,
we're
living is expecting thatwe live in a time of marked by tribulation
and in a sense of the beginnings of thethe birth pains of God's judgment.
(26:36):
Revelation usesthe word tribulation throughout.
In, in many, in many cases to speak
of what his readers, what Christiansthroughout the ages are going through.
Right?
I know your tribulation, your poverty,he says in one of the letters
in Revelation seven, speaking of,I think all of the God's,
the martyrs were God's peoplethroughout the ages.
(26:57):
These are the ones who,coming out of great tribulation.
then then the question is well,but what about those three and a half year
numbers? Right. That, that, that. Yeah.
what's going on there.
So John uses this in chapter
11 and 12 of Revelation and maybe 13.
These numbers come up four times.
(27:19):
Sometimes it says 1260 days.
Sometimes it's time, time and a half time.
And then one time it's that time,and another time it's 42 months.
The two other times is 42 months,something like that.
And, but it's refersto the same period of time.
And what he's doing there is symbolically,it's kind of,
to me, fairly clearbecause of the way he uses it,
(27:40):
in chapter 12 to speak of the entire timewhen this woman is being,
kept by God in the wilderness,but also chased down by the by the dragon.
Right.
Or the whole time that those two witnesses
representingthe church are bearing witness,
and and being opposed in chapter 11,
(28:01):
he's drawing that from one of Daniel'svisions
where the vision ofthe weeks, where Daniel sees,
sees this, this figure
that will sort of cause great disturbance,to God's people
in the half of thisprophetic week of years or whatever.
Right? Yeah.
And, or from Daniel 725,
(28:24):
this specifically mentions that
and I think this is particularly relevant.
Yeah.
As for the ten horns,so this is the beast, the fourth beast,
which is kind of the pattern that Johnuses for his beast in Revelation.
He has ten horns out of his kingdomten kings shall arise,
another shall arise after them.
He shall be differentfrom the former ones.
(28:46):
He shall speak wordsagainst the most High.
He will wear out the saintsof the Most High,
and shall thinkto change the time and the laws,
and they shall be given into his handfor a time, times, and half a time.
But so that's the threeand a half symbolic years.
But the court shall sit in judgment, andhis dominion be taken away and given to,
the people of the saints of the Most High.
And I think what John is doingis he's taking that three
(29:08):
and a half year kind of like fourscore,you know, fourscore.
And however many years at the beginningof the Gettysburg Address.
Right. It's this symbolic number.
I mean, Lincoln obviously was referringto a specific number of years,
but the way we say it, like fourscoreand something, if I say it that way,
I'm evoking a whole history of the CivilWar and blah, blah, blah.
I think John's doing something similarthat three and a half years
(29:29):
in Daniel represents.
This time I don'tI think a symbolic time is half of seven.
It's a limited time, but it's a time,
of suffering andtribulation where the beast,
rules.
You know, he's given some dominion.
But it will end when.
When the kingdom is fully in the handsof, of the saints.
(29:52):
Right.
And so John takes that threeand a half years and plops it into cases
where it seems to me fairly clearthat he's talking about this whole era.
Right.
So the woman who's she gives the,
birth to the male child,
(30:12):
the woman,
this is like a super cool story,but we can't talk about it.
But she so she gives,
she gives birth,and then she flees into the wilderness
where she has a placeprepared by God for 1260 days.
Then Michael and his angels fightagainst the dragon, and they come down.
And then they try to persecute the woman.
And then the dragon becomes furiouswith the woman, goes off to make war on
(30:35):
the rest of her offspring.
And we have the 1260 again.
It seems like this whole timewhere the dragon's furious is.
Is this 1260 or times, timesand a half the time it says here.
Period. Okay.
That's so that language of threeand a half years of tribulation.
I think it's seems to beis drawing off of Daniel,
because that's a number that representsthis finite period of time
(30:58):
where that's marked by oppressionand tribulation.
And John seems to be employing thatsymbolically to refer to this whole age,
the same ageJesus is talking about in Matthew,
where he speaks of this whole era of timewhile we
from the destruction of Jerusalem,so to speak, to Jesus, return.
That's marked by tribulation.
But Jesus promised to keep us, to keephis people, you know, until his return.
(31:21):
so really,some people say this is symbolic
of a seven years of tribulation,blah, blah, blah.
You're sayingno, this is symbolic of something else.
Essentially. Yeah.
I think it's symbolic of the whole era
that we're that we're this wholeera is marked both by salvation
for us and also by tribulation for usand for the world.
Yeah, I think that's that's howI that's how I understand it.
That's that's really interestingbecause I, because.
(31:43):
Yeah, you had to
you can go down some interesting streetsif you're like,
well there's this there's a set timein the future where tribulation
is coming and all this you can startI don't know you
you can get down some interesting pathswith that really, really quickly.
And I don't know.
Yeah. I'm,I often kind of wondered about that.
You can you can go downfearmongering really quickly as well.
And maybe not you know, but okay.
(32:04):
So that's really interesting.
And again this, this then correspondspretty well with what we read
the whole rest of the New Testament.Right.
It's expectation of God's judgmentthat comes throughout this,
these last, these last days.If we want to call this whole era,
the expectation that believers suffer,
you know, it's what we readthe whole rest of the New Testament.
So and it's what most many Christiansthroughout history have experienced.
(32:29):
that that's a,
that is a really good point It’seasier for us to say, well,
maybe there's going to be sevenbad years in the future.
But for believers and persecuted believersin the Middle East or Asia or whatever,
that makes less sense, right?
It makes a lot more sense to say,
yeah, this is the time that this is a timemarked by tribulation.
You know, that that does it.
And it also takes Revelation instead ofbeing something out there somewhere.
(32:51):
And that brings it down to us and makes itimmediately relevant to us again.
Yeah. Yeah.
tells the people, yeah, that makes sense.
So another one,
that obviously came upwhen we're doing rapture or tribulation.
What's the millennium.
Yeah.
So this we can be quick on I thinkhopefully I say that but then I'm not.
So the millennium refersto how you understand Revelation
(33:14):
chapter 20, which speaks of Satanbeing bound for a thousand years.
Yeah. What what's that all about?
There's only comes from there.
And then after the thousand years,he seems to be released from his cage
and he wreaks some final havocand then is destroyed.
Right.
and this issue, you know,I want to stress that you can,
you can hold to any of the,any of the, the,
(33:36):
the common views on the millenniumand still read Revelation well.
You know,this is not a, it's not a big deal
in history, in recent American history,it has been a big deal.
Right.
Your view on the millennium
has been a litmus test of orthodoxyin some places, unfortunately.
But yeah, you can read Revelationwell and hold two different views.
So the three main views, have been that,
(33:58):
first, that,
that this period of timeis a literal period of time,
whether it's exactly a thousand years orit stands for a different period of time,
whatever, butit's a specific period of time that comes.
So pre millennialism means that Jesus returns first
and then he and then there'sthis thousand year reign of
(34:18):
prosperity with him ruling on,
on this earth before the final judgmentand the new heavens in New Earth.
So Jesus is ruling on the currentsort of unrestored earth.
And then at the end of that,Satan comes back out,
and then he's finally everything'sfinally destroyed and, and, and renewed.
So that's pre millennialism.
(34:38):
There have been some peoplewho've held that throughout church.
Well, especially in the early church, there were people who held a version of that.
But it's not been the dominant viewin church history.
Then dispensationalism came along
with its own version of this.
That's when the rapture.
The rapture, you know, all gets tied intoand the literal tribulation,
(35:01):
all that kind of stuffgets tied into this,
and that then became the dominant viewin the United States.
So that's, that's that
post millennial ism,is like a really interesting one.
I still think you, you have to behave a certain,
I don't know, temperament,very optimistic temperament.
But this it was a big thingback in the day.
(35:22):
Yeah. really interesting.
So post millennial ism is the ideathat, again, there's the thousand years.
It's not a literal thousand years,but it represents this period of time
where the current Earth will basicallythe gospel will have triumphed.
And, you know, people,the Earth, as we, you know,
the current societywill have become largely Christianized
(35:43):
and will be,you know, basically Christian, you know,
and and everything will be awesomebefore Jesus returns.
So it's just that the gospel advancesand everyone kind of gets
people just keep getting saved and like,stuff gets better.
And, and then at the sort of the grandfinale of that, Jesus returns.
And that view has been heldby some significant people.
Jonathan Edwards, Bebe Warfield, etc.
(36:05):
it seems to have fallen out offashion around World War one.
That would make sense.
Yeah, that would that would make sense.
Oh. So, yeah.
So that's,
that is that thenthe final major position,
there is another positionthat's been advocated
more recently called new creation,millennial ism.
But we won't get into that.
But the final position, itwhich has been the dominant position
(36:28):
in the history of the churchis a-millennialism, the a meaning.
No, but it doesn't mean that there's it'skind of a misnomer because,
yeah, it doesn't mean that there'sno millennium, but it understands that
what Revelation is talking about thisthousand year period where Satan is bound.
It understands that as referringto this whole era from of, of,
(36:51):
between Jesus ascensionbasically, and his return.
So between Pentecost and Jesus return,that whole era
is is this period okay.
And that would have been a fairly commonview in like, say, the early church,
for example.
And, and such that
I think that was the more common viewin the early church, I think.
(37:12):
But then it became the dominant viewkind of once Augustine changed.
You know, when Augustine,I think Augustine changed his mind
in favor of this view.
And then it kind of becamethe dominant view, as most things,
you know, that one,whatever Augustine believed
kind of kind of became the dominant viewfor a long time.
he had a lot of influence. Yeah.
So those are kind of the three main onesto keep in mind.
in it. Yeah.
Now what's weird is that peopleI mean, people could say like
(37:35):
how Satan being bound,that just seems bonkers.
Like, how can that refer to this whole erawhen you've also just said,
this is the time when the beast reignsand all this kind of stuff, right?
Right.
So I think,I think the key understanding here
is that Revelation20 speaks of Satan being bound
so that he might not deceive the nationsany longer.
(37:55):
To me, that's the key part of that.
Right?
And when you look at the history of
what God has been tryingto do in the world
from creation to, from the fall,let's say, to now and redemptive history,
Pentecost marks this moment
where from then on,the gospel has like exploded.
(38:16):
Okay, there's been highs and lows, but,
the people from all over the world,
are believing God and Israel'sGod and submit to Jesus now,
like in ways that beforeJesus coming were not the case.
Right.
There was this one little camp, Israel,who had the knowledge of God and the rest.
(38:38):
Like so Paul says,you know these times of ignorance.
God winked out. He overlooked, right?
But now he commands all people everywhereto repent and so a-millennialism
says, yes, the devil.Sure there's another.
There is one. From what?
Taken from one angle,
the devil has lots of powerand he's doing all sorts of crazy stuff.
The beast is very much roaming,
but from another angle,the Satan's ability to keep the gospel
(39:01):
from spreading to the nationshas been curtailed in a way, right?
We have like thethe the way the gospel has spread
in the last couple thousand years,the way that the reason any of us
are sitting here, just obviously assumingthat that the Bible,
that we have a direct relationshipto Yahweh through Jesus,
I mean, that's that's so unheard ofin the Old Testament, right?
(39:23):
It's only when the spirit is poured out,
that this changed and you
start having people from the nationsthat embrace, embrace the true God.
So that's the understandingof of how that how that works.
And then and then thethen then they say, well,
so that that's what that that means.
And then right when Jesus comes back,the devil will do his last to try to
(39:45):
to try to bring everyone in rebellionagainst against God.
And Jesus will triumph that that'sthat's a summary, if that makes sense.
Yeah. That's okay.
That actually it does kind of make sensewhen you think about it.
Like they do have some pointsthere, you know, about the gospel
spreading to every corner of the globe,which is, which is true.
And, and the, the growth of the churchthat we've seen in the last 2000 years.
(40:05):
Fascinating.
So all of you, you know, you canyou can have
I think post-millennialismis at least plausible to me.
I lean a-millennial, but,
but I think that all of these views have,have their weaknesses too.
Right.
And so, I,I think we don't want because it's
mostly just a matter of interpreting onechapter of Revelation.
(40:27):
This doctrine doesn'tshow up other places.
So one of the reasons I'm hesitant to say,yeah, this is definitely teaching
a literal millenniam because it's like,it's nowhere else in the Bible.
And Revelation isspeaks in figures and imagery.
So it's, you know,
it's somethingthat we should certainly shouldn't
make a big issue out of,but those are kind of
that's kind of an overview of the overviewof the views and, you know.
(40:51):
Yeah.
So maybe, maybe the takeawaybeing don't, don't worry about this,
but but so much like it would be easyto, to overemphasize the importance
of this particular view of thisor that or, you know, because
because like you had saidin, in the American church,
there would have been a timeand maybe still is in some places.
You know, pre-millennialismwas essentially
a litmus test in some cases of like, well,if you don't believe this,
(41:13):
I don't know, you're
kind of outside of the bounds of whatwe can handle here, you know, and that's
and that just see it, it does seemreally sad that you would make
there are some things that are worth
drawing lines over,you know, and being tests of orthodoxy.
And that just seems too much, you know.
So maybe that's a piece to leave with. Is
there's a lot to this text.
(41:34):
There's a lot of different waysof, of looking at
there's a lot of different opinions.
But also maybe the sense ofwe should be gracious with each other too.
Yeah.
I justit feels like there's too many, people do
get too emotionally investedsometimes in their particular view.
I don't know.
And that has thathas been more of a problem than it is now.
And my For me personally,
(41:54):
speaking autobiographically, isthat was one of the things
that sort of turned me off to Revelationwas like, it's all this weird.
Everyone's like all hyped up about this
weird, this weird debates over arcanematters, right?
And then when I started studying itmore in depth,
in the context of New Testament studiesand Second Temple Jewish literature
and such and the Old Testament,I start realizing, whoa,
(42:15):
this book is not about,quibbling over, you know,
lines on a prophecy chart.
It's about weaving togetherthe whole story of the Bible and
and calling us to live in a certain waybecause,
you know, a different, basically
a different packaging of the same teachingthat the rest of the New Testament has,
you know, and then I think it's somethingthat can be exciting and not,
(42:38):
either dry and arcane or sort of
unnecessarily, divisive.
Yeah.
I feel like that's a really goodone to end it on is like, let's.
Yeah. Not unnecessarily divisive.
I think thatI think that's a good one. And,
yeah, there's, lots of different thingsout there on this.
And I just.
Yeah.
Thanks for taking the time to to dive,like, just right into some of the, the,
(43:01):
core of this, you know, the rapture,the tribulation, the millennium.
These are almost, almost becomelike buzzwords or, you know, it.
It's just hard to again, peel backall the layers. Okay.
What's the text actually say?Let's get back to that.
So yeah, I appreciate you, coming onanswering some of these questions
and then, just want tomaybe leave it with,
if someone's listening to this,tell them to, you know, leave a comment
(43:21):
if they have further questions and maybewe can, hit it in a future episode.
So, yeah, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for
listening to this questionand answer episode with Paul Lamicela.
If you enjoyed this conversation,please leave us a rating on whichever
platformyou use to listen to this podcast.
It really does helpmore people find our episodes.
And of course, you can find
all our content on our websiteat anabaptistperspectives.org.
(43:45):
Thanks againand we'll see you in the next episode.
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