Tag: Bible reading

  • End Times Speculation- Why I’d Rather be Found Faithful

    sideways hourglass - no one knows the day or hour

    I’m probably going to push somebody’s buttons this morning. I’m sometimes asked why I don’t write about eschatology (the study of the end times) more often. I’ll often talk about what the Bible reveals about life with Jesus but very seldom about the timing.

    My reason is simple: I believe that Christians spend far too much time debating the “when” and “how” it will happen. We divide about the timing of the rapture and the nature of the thousand-year reign. We argue and split over whether or not someone holds our views. We spend more time trying to figure out if this “is it” than we do loving others and sharing the gospel.

    Is the book of Revelation to be viewed from a Preterist, Historicist, Futurist, Idealist (symbolic), Progressive Futurist or some other view? Should we be Premillennialists, Postmillennialists, or Amillenialists? Perhaps some combination of the above or even none of the above.

    Now, please understand. I am not saying the end times are unimportant. I’m saying we put too much time and effort into figuring them out. You may or may not agree. We’re only going to know who was correct when it’s done, and then, frankly, I don’t think we will care.

    Jesus is returning; the Scriptures are clear on that. But the Bible also very clearly says:

    Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.  For just as the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be.” Matthew 24:25-27

    If you have the date figured out, I can promise you that you are dead wrong. Many have claimed to have it and they have all been proven liars.

    We know He is returning. The Lord tells us that for two important reasons.

    • Give us real hope when times get dark
    • Spur us on to loving one another and sharing the gospel.

    Debating the exact nature of the eschaton can be interesting and even fun. Let’s make certain, though, that it doesn’t divide us needlessly or take away from our real mission.

    He might come before I finish this issue of Gleanings. He might not come for two weeks, two years, two decades, two centuries or two millennia. It will be sudden and surprise us all. 

    Let’s be sure to be found faithful when it does occur.

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God)

    Be blessed

    Kevin

    SUMMARY

    I explain why I rarely write about the timing of the end times, even though people often ask me to. I believe Scripture calls us to hold the certainty of Christ’s return with humility about its timing, and to spend our energy loving others and sharing the gospel instead of debating dates and systems.

    TAKEAWAY

    No one knows the day or hour of Christ’s return, so anyone claiming to have figured it out is guaranteed to be wrong. 

    Debates over rapture timing, millennial views, and interpretive frameworks for Revelation too often divide believers rather than draw us closer to our mission. 

    The certainty that Jesus is coming back should give us hope in dark times and spur us on to love one another and share the gospel now.

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  • Nobody Told The Bees – Lessons in Obedience

    Yesterday, I was once again enjoying the busyness of the bumble bees at the lavender in the backyard. I was pondering the myth that bumble bees and honey bees shouldn’t be able to fly and wondered where that came from.

    I did some research, and according to one source, “The origins of the honey bee flight myth are hazy, but the most enduring version involves an aerodynamics engineer casually calculating that a bee’s weight-to-wing-area ratio made flight impossible. Though some accounts attribute the claim to scientists like Ludwig Prandtl or Jakob Ackeret, it likely stems from a misunderstood 1934 observation by the French zoologist Antoine Magnan, who applied fixed-wing flight equations to insect wings and concluded — incorrectly — that insect flight defied aerodynamic theory”.

    Of course, both bumble bees and honey bees can fly, as we well know. Apparently, nobody told God that they couldn’t fly and certainly no one told the bees.

    That took me down the rabbit hole of thinking about how we come up with reasons we can’t do things that God asks of us.

    I thought of Moses standing beside the burning bush. He had plenty of excuses.

    But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Exodus 3:10

    Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am about to come to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ And they will say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” Exodus 3:13

    Then Moses said to Yahweh, “Please, Lord, I have never been a man of words, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your slave; for I am one with a hard mouth and a hard tongue.” And Yahweh said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh? So now, go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth and will instruct you what you shall speak.” But he said, “Please, Lord, send now the message by whomever You will.” Exodus 4:10-13

    Let’s make that more current, no burning bush. “Kevin, I want you to invite your neighbor to church”, saith the LORD.

    “Who me? You must be mistaken. I wouldn’t even know what to say.”

    “Yes, you! Did I stutter?”

    “You must be mistaken. Send someone else to ask them. Someone who has the gift of inviting.”

    Now, it might not be inviting that the Lord has called us to do, but all of us have something the Lord has told us to do that we fight Him on with excuses, pass the buck to others, or just plain pretend not to hear.

    The Lord knows our shortcomings as well as He knows that bees are perfectly capable of flight. If we have a shortcoming, He will provide what we need.

    For consider your calling, brothers, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are, so that no flesh may boast before God. 1 Corinthians 1:26-29

    As someone once said (and I can’t find an accurate attribution), “God doesn’t call the equipped; He equips the called.”

    Obedience when we know it’s our gifting is easy. When we’re not certain, or worse yet, convinced we can’t do what God asks, it’s even harder. Still, if God has called us to it, it’s for a reason.

    It’s time we traded our excuses for obedience. God knows what He is doing, even when we think He’s wrong. Maybe I’ll just go talk to that neighbor today.

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God)

    Be blessed

    Kevin

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