ClearWords

One of the signs we are told will mark the last days is a 'secret power of lawlessness' (2 Thessalonians 2: 7). Now there are powers of lawlessness that are not at all secret. Anti-social behaviour, gun crime and terrorism are some very visible examples. They are visible because they create not only lawlessness, but disorder. But there are other powers of lawlessness that are less visible, and very ordered. For example, Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein was far more orderly than it has been since - but in terms of godliness and spirituality, it was equally lawless. Saddam was a law unto himself, recognising no higher moral or legal authority, using fear and violence to control his subjects so that he could do as he pleased. And that is the heart of lawlessness - to place my heart and will at the centre of everything, and seek to control my universe in my own way, with no reference to God, his will or his purpose. May God open our eyes and expose that secret ...

Most of the time I prefer to avoid the issue of the millenium - the 'thousand years' referred to in Revelation chapter 20. But every now and then, I think about it again. And I have a question. I almost hesitate to ask it, the issue is so divisive. We already have sections of the church who believe the millenium will come before the final return of Christ (post-millenialists); others who think it will come after (pre-millenialists); and still others who don't believe in it at all(amillenialists). Come to think of it, that about covers all the available options - which makes it logically impossible for the church to be any more divided on the issue than it already is. So I guess anything I might say will be relatively harmless. So my question is - what does Jesus believe about the millenium? Given that he does not know the hour or the day of his return (Mark 13: 32), does even the Son know whether it will be before or after the millenium? In fact, has the Father ev...

I'm always a bit doubtful when I hear Christians predicting that Christ is going to return soon. After all, they've been saying that for centuries. Sure there are signs that we are in the 'last days'. That's no surprise. The coming of the Holy Spirit is recorded in Acts 2 as a fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel, and that was a 'last days' prophecy. So, we have been living in the last days for 2000 years - and who's to say for how much longer? Maybe the real question is, 'Are these the last last days?' Are we near the time of the end? We can look to biblical prophecy for an answer, but it's generally risky to interpret prophecy out of its context. And by definition, the context of the last last prophecies will only appear in the last last days, when they are about to be fulfilled . Until then, Christian 'teachers' will continue to make a name for themselves with weird and not-very-wonderful interpretations of the more obscure rev...