Tag Archives: Eschatology

The Forgotten Second Coming

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As Christians, we are fond of reminding people that the Bible is a book of history.   It is not just a book of rules, nor a collection of philosophical treatises, but is decidedly a book about the past.  It is about what God has done in real time and space.  Indeed, that is the core of the Christmas message we have heard over the last month—two thousand years ago, God became man.

But often forgotten in our zeal to show that the Bible is a book about the past, is the reality that the Bible is also a book about the future. The Christian message is fundamentally eschatological (to use …

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“Is Everything Sad Going to Come Untrue?”: Eschatology in the Lord of the Rings

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In my opinion, some of the most overlooked portions of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy are the chapters right after the final battle in The Return of the King.  In these chapters, Tolkien expresses a vision for cosmic renewal that closely mimics the one laid down in the biblical accounts themselves.  In Rev 21:5 we read, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”  God has declared that one day he will set all things right.  Likewise, at the end of The Return of the King, Tolkien describes how evil has been vanquished and all things set …

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10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: #2: “Nothing in Early Christianity Dictated That There Would be a Canon”

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Note: This is the second installment of a new blog series announced here.

Contemporary challenges to the New Testament canon have taken a number of different forms over the years.  For generations, scholars have mainly focused upon the problem of the boundaries of the New Testament. The perennial question has usually been “How do we know we have the right books?”  But, in recent years, a new challenge has begun to take center stage (though it is really not new at all).  While the validity of the canon’s boundaries is still an area of concern, the attention has shifted to the validity of the canon’s very existence.  The …

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