Who doesn't like a good conversation about the end of the world/end times/rapture/dispensationalism? We sure do...over a good scotch.
In this episode, we tackle eschatology and end times theology and all the good, bad and ugly of it. Should we be afraid of the future, or hopeful? Is the planet earth going to burn up, or is this all headed somewhere good? What have people thought throughout church history, and why does this all matter?
Oh, and we can't leave out Kirk Cameron and Nic Cage. Shout out to the homies.
The whisky we taste in this episode is the Lagavulin 11 Year Nick Offerman Guinness Cask Finish from the amazing Lagavulin Distillery.
Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
Who doesn't like a good conversation about the end of the world/end times/rapture/dispensationalism? We sure do...over a good scotch.
In this episode, we tackle eschatology and end times theology and all the good, bad and ugly of it. Should we be afraid of the future, or hopeful? Is the planet earth going to burn up, or is this all headed somewhere good? What have people thought throughout church history, and why does this all matter?
Oh, and we can't leave out Kirk Cameron and Nic Cage. Shout out to the homies.
The whisky we taste in this episode is the Lagavulin 11 Year Nick Offerman Guinness Cask Finish from the amazing Lagavulin Distillery.
Content note: this episode contains some mild profanity.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
NOTE: This transcript is for the unedited video version of this conversation, so the time stamps you see here will not match the audio-only podcast version exactly. For the video version, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haDWIBNOQSI
00:02
[Music]
00:05
so you know how whenever you
00:07
are in a plane you got the pilots up
00:09
front and you always want to
00:10
fly with the pilots that aren't
00:14
aren't born again because if if they are
00:16
born again and the rapture happens
00:20
that the plane's going down well thing
00:22
is i'm not going to be there either but
00:24
it's going to be a disaster either way
00:28
wow i thought that was going to be like
00:30
a somewhat intellectually sound argument
00:32
for preacher
00:33
what are you talking about that's
00:34
exactly how it is in the left behind
00:36
books it is that is
00:38
that's exactly where i got no cease of
00:40
my theology
00:42
i don't understand why everyone else who
00:45
believes in the bible isn't post-trib
00:46
because it's the most scriptural i mean
00:48
like
00:49
the bible talks about us going through
00:50
persecution it's obviously going to
00:53
happen
00:54
post-trib is the only biblical way to
00:55
why he's standing up and pacing
01:02
kyle can't even go there i can't even do
01:05
it
01:06
i read every left behind book in
01:08
succession
01:09
including the prequels when i was
01:12
a teenager man i ate it up yeah i
01:16
thought that was sound theology that's
01:18
oh yeah what's gonna happen
01:19
so as soon as i outgrew the hardy boys
01:20
left behind books were like the next
01:22
the next best series loved it yeah yes i
01:25
still feel a little queasy about
01:26
romanian people
01:27
as a result remember
01:32
it was nicolet carpathia right that's
01:35
the antichrist so just watch out for
01:36
that one
01:38
nice kidding totally kidding
01:41
well let's talk about eschatology yeah
01:46
that was the like possible like
01:49
we don't do that anymore no all right uh
01:53
kyle you start us out on this one
01:55
all right welcome to a pastor and
01:58
philosopher walking to a bar today we're
02:00
talking about the
02:01
end of the world wherever we needed a
02:04
echo it's right now the end of the world
02:08
so uh some nerdy christians like to call
02:10
this eschatology which just means
02:13
the end of the world the study of the
02:15
end of the world yes
02:16
yeah so uh you say so many nerdy things
02:20
and you're
02:20
you're calling that nerdy i didn't say
02:22
nerdy was bad
02:23
okay all right all right yeah that's a
02:25
good word
02:26
um and so this is something lots of
02:28
christians have lots of opinions about
02:30
um oh man yeah
02:34
they're it's in the creed right creeds i
02:37
suppose that
02:38
that uh a little bit you know we're
02:40
supposed to affirm a belief in
02:42
the age to come yeah looking forward to
02:45
something happening
02:46
and uh the bible has said some things
02:48
about it that are
02:50
uh perhaps a nice way to put it is
02:53
obscure
02:55
and some christians have tried to make
02:58
it
02:58
clear just that when they try they don't
03:01
agree with each other so
03:02
we're going to talk about lots of
03:04
different ways to think about the end of
03:05
the world and what our own views on it
03:07
are and where they used to be and where
03:08
they've come from and if this is
03:10
important or not
03:12
but we can't agree that nicholas cage is
03:14
the best actor of our time
03:15
absolutely yeah
03:18
i just can't bring myself to watch this
03:20
why would you can't do it
03:22
have you watched the other version of
03:24
left behind yeah the kirk cameron woof
03:25
dude
03:26
ouch bad choice
03:29
i'm i'm proud to say i've never seen a
03:31
kirk cameron movie
03:33
never really no you gotta watch
03:34
fireproof nope oh that'd be good without
03:37
a bottle of whiskey
03:38
so i feel like that might be something
03:40
for our patreon audience would be
03:42
the video of you guys watching yes fire
03:45
protection
03:45
well no we could we could do that with
03:47
our with our top level our
03:51
top shelf patreon supporters we all
03:53
watch fire proof with
03:55
a bottle of whiskey that'd be the only
03:57
way i would agree to it
03:58
fireproof with a bottle of fireball
04:00
there you go
04:01
fireproof with fireball man it sells
04:04
itself
04:05
it's amazing i did i do remember i
04:07
watched uh the gods not dead movie
04:09
with the glass of whiskey and live
04:11
tweeted it
04:13
to get through it this would be very
04:14
much like that that's yeah that's just
04:16
shamelessly
04:17
trying to get more twitter followers i
04:20
mean go find it
04:22
i'm not gonna speaking of bottles of
04:24
whiskey though we've got a really
04:25
interesting
04:26
interesting one in front of us at least
04:28
i hope it's interesting we'll find out
04:30
so i'm a huge fan of parks and
04:32
recreation are you guys fans of
04:34
parks and recreation great tv yeah of
04:37
course
04:39
i didn't know it was called parks and
04:40
recreation i thought it was parks and
04:42
rec
04:42
my daughter told me that that's what
04:44
everybody calls it so everyone's
04:46
favorite character
04:47
on parks and rec is um
04:50
ron swanson the ron swanson yeah played
04:53
of course by
04:54
nick offerman who is kinda ron swanson
04:56
like in real life
04:58
if you watch him delightfully laser
04:59
watches stand up which i recommend
05:02
yeah and so in the show and in real life
05:04
he's a huge fan of lagavulin
05:07
scotch which is one of my wife and i's
05:09
favorite
05:10
distilleries in scotland uh so much so
05:13
that uh the character in the show like
05:16
buys a share in lagavulin
05:17
or you know buys a chunk of the company
05:20
uh but in real life nick often is kind
05:21
of a brand ambassador for them so
05:24
they have done a couple of special
05:26
releases for him and we're tasting the
05:28
most recent one today so this
05:29
is an 11 year old eilee scotch
05:33
isla i should say isla scotch finished
05:36
interestingly
05:36
in guinness casks so you didn't make a
05:39
pleasant face when you
05:40
well you know guinness is not my
05:42
favorite beer but i'm intrigued and i
05:44
trust mr offerman so we're going to see
05:46
how this goes trust mr offerman now as a
05:48
philosopher why would you trust mr
05:50
offroad because i've had
05:51
other again or other lagavulin
05:53
expressions and they are delicious oh so
05:55
evidence-based i suppose i trust
05:57
lagavulin
05:59
and and since he likes them i trust him
06:01
as well so we'll see
06:03
i'm not really sure what to expect here
06:04
we have had on the podcast
06:06
one stout finished whiskey before that
06:10
was an irish whiskey
06:11
and we liked it so scotch is superior in
06:15
every way to irish whiskey so i can only
06:17
imagine that this will be at least i can
06:18
agree
06:20
all right
06:24
i mean it's that big leather nose yeah
06:27
that you get with scotch
06:28
lagavulin in particular has a very
06:31
identifiable nose
06:33
it's not an offensive peddiness though
06:34
like it's
06:37
it's furniture leather furniture
06:41
with some grain oh yeah
06:45
definitely the kind of thing you want to
06:46
sip in a library i
06:48
i can't smell i can't smell at least the
06:50
guinness casks no me neither
06:54
yeah i'm okay with that
07:02
wow
07:06
that oh i got a little bit on the end it
07:08
took a minute though
07:11
up until then it was pretty much the
07:12
standard 16-year lag of villain
07:14
which is impressive being only 11 years
07:16
old but yeah right on the end
07:19
i get a little bit of that stout
07:22
interesting
07:22
it's it seems like it's cut pretty low
07:26
it's not very hot
07:29
let's see what is this 46
07:33
i just want to want to say a first just
07:34
happened elliott lund did the kentucky
07:37
chew
07:39
on the podcast at least i haven't
07:40
noticed it
07:42
i'm trying to figure this out yeah it
07:44
was my last resort
07:45
this is for me this is a very
07:46
straightforward scotch it's
07:49
it's got the peatiness it's got the
07:51
leathery it's got the smoke it's got
07:53
a little bit of oak it's got a little
07:55
bit of citrus in it to me
07:57
got that brightness to it that some
07:58
scotches don't have
08:00
i don't taste the guinness cask though
08:02
but i like it's just like a
08:04
a real quick like tootsie roll
08:08
esque finish doesn't last very long but
08:10
it's right there at the end
08:13
but yeah otherwise a very uh i mean it's
08:15
lagerville and it's
08:16
exactly what you'd expect from them
08:18
petey smokey
08:20
easy drinking yeah easy drinking into
08:22
those things which i definitely am
08:24
kind of what you get in uh what you'd
08:26
expect from nick offerman no nonsense
08:28
straightforward scotch
08:31
dusty old attic that's the that's the
08:35
smell for me it's like if you poke your
08:36
head into this attic you know you're
08:37
gonna find some treasures in the boxes
08:39
nice delicious yeah i think your trust
08:41
in nick offerman is
08:43
as well placed yeah tastes like
08:44
libertarianism
08:48
tastes like tastes like libertarian no
08:50
no take that out
08:54
tastes like gun stock
08:55
[Laughter]
08:58
it's good well thank you for tr the
09:01
treat kyle
09:02
yeah lug a bullet i was lucky to get
09:03
this uh
09:05
it's hard to find and sells out fast in
09:07
a local liquor store
09:08
happen to have it and i'm on their email
09:10
list so here we are awesome
09:12
thank you okay cheers
09:16
pause um did you read through
09:20
the stuff that i put about like what
09:21
christians have thought about it is that
09:22
boring or is it helpful or what
09:24
we'll go through and if it's boring and
09:26
cut up cut it or speed it up like you
09:28
did that time philosophy stuff i just
09:29
said
09:30
yeah i'm gonna cut all of that
09:34
it's gonna be 17 minutes i mean i was
09:36
thinking while i was saying it i don't
09:37
know if this is interesting
09:40
all right it was it was interesting it's
09:43
just a bit
09:44
brutal it was dark it was very like you
09:48
know we might want to think about
09:50
putting a little post script on like
09:53
after this one recording a little
09:55
something a little bit
09:56
brighter at for it it's pretty dark
10:00
yeah i mean all of our episodes aren't
10:02
sad but yeah
10:04
all right you want to bring us back to
10:06
eschatology and yeah
10:09
so i remember the first time it occurred
10:12
to me to doubt
10:13
what i was taught about eschatology a
10:15
friend of mine
10:17
shannon maybe he's listening i think
10:18
he's a listener a friend of mine
10:21
and i were sitting in my room in this
10:24
little house that i
10:25
was renting a room in in college and we
10:28
were both part of a ministry that had a
10:30
very clear
10:31
view of this they were pre-trib
10:34
millennialists
10:35
nice listeners are going to know what
10:38
that means we'll explain it it's like
10:39
another language
10:40
i know it's ridiculous but that was the
10:44
the the view of the ministry that we
10:46
were in which meant
10:47
we took for granted that there was a
10:49
thing called a rapture
10:51
and so what this means is eventually
10:54
probably pretty soon if you ask
10:56
most of these people there's going to be
10:57
a time where jesus comes literally on
11:00
the clouds most of them think that he's
11:01
going to be riding a horse
11:03
and he's going to come from the east and
11:07
the people like in the left behind
11:08
series that are true believers true
11:10
followers of jesus true christians
11:13
are going to be taken and in the movies
11:16
what that looks like is their clothes
11:17
crumpled to the floor and their car just
11:19
careens you know
11:22
the people on the plane panic and we're
11:24
talking east of north america here
11:28
the first people to see him will be on
11:30
trying to picture it okay somewhere in
11:32
north carolina
11:32
the leftovers moment because the people
11:36
in the northeast won't be looking
11:37
so so
11:40
so but we we're laughing about it but we
11:42
took it seriously we believed it and
11:45
it occurred to my buddy and i to that
11:48
we'd never really like dug into the
11:49
scriptures
11:50
she kind of took it for granted so we
11:52
were interested in okay well where does
11:53
the bible teach this let's find it and
11:56
so we went digging and there's one verse
11:59
i think it's in like first thessalonians
12:01
or something don't quote me on that but
12:02
it's like somewhere in there one
12:03
piddly little verse and it took about
12:06
the rapture yeah
12:07
well i mean to be fair to you know
12:10
pre-tribbers that i mean jesus talks
12:13
about it in matthew 24 as well he
12:15
doesn't use the word rapture
12:16
but he talks about two workers being in
12:18
the field and one's taken away and the
12:20
others left and you know
12:21
so on and so forth yeah yeah but the one
12:23
that they mostly focus on
12:24
yeah first thessalonians yeah so maybe
12:28
two all right
12:29
and uh and my friend and i were like
12:32
looking into these and
12:33
reading around those verses in the
12:35
chapters and trying to see if we could
12:37
come up with alternative interpretations
12:40
and it was super easy to do so
12:42
um and it just hit us kind of like a
12:44
like a truck that
12:46
wow this whole tradition is based on a
12:49
pretty loose interpretation of this one
12:51
or maybe two
12:52
verses and all of our friends are so
12:54
sure about it
12:56
um and so that kind of drove a wedge and
12:58
our trust for that group we were in and
13:00
both of us continued that trajectory out
13:03
of it eventually but
13:05
yeah that stuck with me this issue was
13:08
one of the first
13:08
to to make me kind of alert to the fact
13:12
that
13:13
gosh all these religious people i'd just
13:14
been believing my whole life
13:17
kind of have some weak foundations for
13:18
some of these views that they put so
13:20
much stock in because
13:21
those views weren't just like
13:23
interesting things that might
13:25
come out after a couple drinks at a
13:27
party like these
13:28
views dictated or determined how you
13:31
voted
13:32
yeah you know and they determined your
13:34
foreign policy they still do for
13:36
lots of americans i mean we're right now
13:37
in the midst of deteriorating i suppose
13:40
is a nice way to put it relations
13:41
between israel and palestine and
13:43
uh my family all my friends all the
13:45
people in that church group
13:48
had very clear views on how that should
13:50
turn out yeah
13:51
and those views were based on they were
13:54
no
13:54
no more strongly supported by the text
13:56
i'll say than than that view of
13:58
the rapture was yeah yeah i mean this
14:01
i had to sort this out early in my
14:03
spiritual journey
14:04
relatively early because eschatology end
14:08
times theology
14:09
what have you messed me up so bad i mean
14:12
i
14:13
i grew up in a setting where
14:16
you know one of my parents had
14:19
subscription to
14:20
a pastor in new york who regularly would
14:22
have prophecies about
14:24
judgment or the end of the world and
14:25
when it would happen and
14:27
i remember i can still picture sitting
14:29
on the edge of my parents bed reading
14:30
this
14:31
this newsletter that a parent told me to
14:33
read and being
14:34
scared out of my mind thinking that
14:38
this is all going to end in three years
14:40
and you know is this real
14:42
and i left i feel i feel like i lived
14:45
with that dread
14:47
for most of my childhood and a lot of my
14:49
youth and but
14:50
in my youth i quickly discovered kind of
14:53
similarly to you
14:54
there's a different way of thinking
14:55
there's a different way of seeing the
14:56
scriptures maybe this isn't as iron clad
14:59
as i was led to believe and i that was
15:02
the first thing that got undone about my
15:04
theology
15:05
because i felt like i had to get to the
15:06
bottom of it because i was so
15:08
full of fear about end times theology
15:12
that i had to figure it out and by no
15:14
means do i think i've figured it out
15:16
but i walked away from that version that
15:18
says rep the book of revelation
15:20
is this very clear you know word that
15:24
says exactly when and how things are
15:26
going to happen and who the antichrist
15:27
is and
15:28
even though the antichrist isn't really
15:29
in the book of revelation at all that's
15:30
in the first
15:31
book of first john but let's not think
15:33
about that so
15:34
yeah i mean this this one thing
15:38
filled me with more fear dread kept me
15:40
up at night as a kid
15:41
and as a teenager than anything i mean
15:44
it is pretty terrifying
15:45
yeah right and it's usually based on
15:48
like whether or not you go
15:49
whether or not you get taken is as as it
15:52
was described to me anyway based on
15:54
beliefs that you hold not so much on
15:56
what you do although i suppose they
15:58
would say the beliefs are supposed to
15:59
result in some action but
16:00
uh but whether or not you've kind of
16:02
understood and signed on the dotted line
16:04
about certain
16:05
doctrinal views so you know there are
16:09
pre-trib people who kind of have
16:11
suspicions that the post-trib people
16:12
might be left behind
16:15
and it doesn't matter that they you know
16:17
give to charity and their churches and
16:18
raise
16:19
good kids or whatever it's belief
16:21
oriented mostly
16:23
and you know as somebody struggling to
16:25
figure out what they believed and
16:27
who who really felt like i had to be
16:29
intellectually honest that's scary
16:30
yeah because i could find myself
16:32
doubting which seemed to be out of my
16:34
control
16:34
and then if it happened then well
16:37
screwed
16:38
and the story they tell about the the
16:40
few years after
16:42
is not good no no it's pretty dark
16:45
it's it's the stuff that allows nicholas
16:47
cage movies to happen
16:48
yeah cheers to nicholas cage by the way
16:51
um in his really terrible career that
16:54
enables him to take these roles
16:56
well i mean the rock though like we've
16:58
still got the rock
17:00
um the only good michael bay movie
17:03
um yeah and the ironic thing is that
17:07
we all felt so certain about these
17:10
things
17:11
and i'm mostly putting a vicarious wii
17:13
because i was
17:14
afraid of it but i was given it was
17:17
given to me
17:18
as such a certain ironclad
17:21
you know airtight argument when you
17:24
really just open the scriptures
17:26
it's just terrible exegesis it's
17:28
terrible biblical interpretation and
17:30
reflection it's terrible
17:32
so let's get into that a little bit and
17:34
kind of unpack this thing and why we
17:36
hold the views that we do now
17:37
yeah um
17:41
okay pause for a second where do we go
17:42
from there do we this probably doesn't
17:44
it isn't needed here
17:45
no i think we okay we already did that
17:49
why is this not scrolling because it's
17:53
google docs
17:58
okay do we want to do this well you just
18:01
said we're going to get into
18:02
why the exegesis is bad so we should do
18:06
that okay
18:08
go ahead what was your idea
18:13
okay got it so i want to think
18:17
as we as we begin this conversation and
18:19
get into a little bit of the nuts and
18:20
bolts we are not theologians we are not
18:22
biblical scholars let's just
18:24
say that right off the bat so don't
18:25
expect any
18:27
rich theology or deep biblical
18:30
scholarship because we're neither of
18:31
those things but we've thought about
18:33
these things a lot and
18:35
given ourselves to studying and trying
18:36
to get to the bottom of it
18:38
which there is impossible but i think
18:40
this matters
18:41
i think this conversation really does
18:43
matter i was even thinking about this
18:44
today like should we have this
18:46
conversation
18:47
will people be interested in it first of
18:48
all i think people are interested in it
18:50
because they've been we've been told
18:51
something for our whole lives
18:53
and then when you think that it you can
18:55
pull the needle out of it you can you
18:56
can
18:57
pull the rug out from underneath you
18:59
then it's what what then
19:00
and why so i think for me it matters
19:04
because
19:05
all sorts of people within church
19:06
history have done this poorly and i
19:08
don't mean a majority there there has
19:09
been a
19:10
lot within church history where they got
19:12
this right
19:13
and it wasn't the left behind it wasn't
19:15
the hal lindsey's of the world it wasn't
19:17
the you know fire brimstone preachers
19:19
augustine was pretty smart about this
19:21
and we'll talk about that but i think it
19:23
matters for a couple of reasons for me
19:25
one because we need a better story
19:27
within christianity
19:28
we need a better story about where this
19:30
is all headed yeah
19:31
because who the heck is interested in
19:34
the story that's been told that is
19:36
it's all going to burn up in its fire
19:38
and brimstone and you're either sheeps
19:40
or goats
19:41
and um you know the beast is going to
19:44
come out of the sea
19:45
and who who is that is it you know this
19:47
that or the other politician that's a
19:49
terrible story and it's it's
19:50
it's taking metaphorical language in the
19:52
bible in apocalyptic literature
19:55
in completely misunderstanding what
19:58
apocalyptic literature is completely
19:59
under misunderstanding
20:01
how to get to the bottom of it and just
20:03
making these really
20:04
simplistic overly simplistic
20:07
damaging conclusions and feeding it to
20:10
people and saying this is our story of
20:12
where this thing's all headed that's a
20:13
terrible story and i want to change that
20:15
like it's that's i feel like responsible
20:18
for that do you know what i mean
20:19
like not like i'm going to do it myself
20:21
but we can do that a little bit together
20:23
and then other podcasts pastors thinkers
20:26
followers of christ
20:27
can tell a better story that's more
20:29
biblical and more hopeful
20:31
yeah yeah and i care about i think this
20:33
is important
20:34
because one i mean a kind of
20:37
disappointing percentage of americans
20:39
are basing their foreign policy on this
20:41
so i was
20:42
i was trying to find if there had been
20:44
any empirical research on
20:46
how many um how many dispensationalists
20:48
there are
20:49
and we can define that term in a few
20:50
minutes that'll come up um
20:52
the people that tend to believe in you
20:54
know the rapture and
20:56
certain views of israel and whatnot uh
20:58
that dictates you know
21:00
what they think america should do when
21:01
it comes to um
21:03
you know the israeli government bombing
21:06
palestinian neighborhoods
21:08
um lots of disappointing number of uh
21:11
americans
21:12
based their views of that on these kind
21:14
of hokey readings of the bible that
21:16
you're referring to
21:16
what you're what you're calling poor
21:18
eggs jesus is just
21:20
is deciding how they vote yeah it's like
21:23
it's like 1b to pro-life right is your
21:26
policy on israel yeah yeah yeah and it's
21:28
uh i mean i'm not saying you can't be a
21:30
republican
21:31
or conservative and be smart and
21:32
intellectual and have good reasons for
21:34
it
21:35
but you know lots of republicans are not
21:36
dispensationalists or anything like that
21:38
but
21:38
it's hard to find data but i mean of the
21:40
people that self-identify
21:42
as uh evangelical right there's a huge
21:45
voting block like a quarter of the
21:47
country something like that
21:48
as of i don't know maybe like the most
21:51
recent data i could find was like 15
21:52
years old
21:53
but like more than half of those people
21:57
would would answer affirmatively to the
21:59
view that um
22:01
israel fulfills biblical prophecy which
22:04
is a
22:05
kind of a core dispensationalist
22:07
position so i mean this is like
22:09
politically really important and current
22:12
so that's one reason i care about this i
22:13
also think it's important
22:15
it fundamentally alters your view of
22:17
jesus himself
22:18
like if you think a certain way about
22:22
how the world is going to wrap up
22:25
one very common story from these
22:27
traditions that we both
22:28
grew up in is that jesus is
22:31
fundamentally violent
22:33
or in the end is violent right he he
22:35
preaches this good game about
22:36
non-violence but like when
22:38
when comes to the show to it he comes
22:41
back and
22:41
murders everybody and it's like
22:45
super bloody in their reading of of
22:47
revelation and that changes your view of
22:49
what god is like
22:50
which makes sense because as we're going
22:52
to see
22:53
the the kind of theology that gives rise
22:55
to these views
22:56
wants to take the old testament very
22:58
very seriously
22:59
and wants kind of to make the new
23:01
testament consistent with it
23:02
rather than the other way around and so
23:04
um being a
23:06
person of non-violence he tries to
23:08
pursue that it's important to me for
23:09
that reason too because it turns god
23:11
into a blood thirsty
23:13
vengeful um
23:16
entity yes yeah just unrecognizable to
23:19
me yeah
23:20
and we'll end this why does this matter
23:23
on another very black and white blunt
23:25
statement
23:26
sorry um but another reason why i think
23:29
this matters is because
23:30
i'm sick of christianity large swaths of
23:32
american christianity
23:34
more closely resembling and choosing
23:36
astrology
23:37
over and above theology ouch you know
23:40
what i mean
23:41
like people obsessed about reading the
23:44
tea leaves and the signs and this and
23:45
that and the other
23:47
um i remember see if i can remember how
23:49
this went
23:50
this uh radio preacher that somebody i
23:52
knew was really into for a while
23:54
had this thing where like if you counted
23:58
in the right way chapters of daniel and
24:00
then he like went through this like
24:02
really precise complicated mathematical
24:04
calculation you could just determine
24:05
something about our
24:06
current political situation and it was
24:09
you're right it's i mean it's like
24:11
numerology astrology whatever it's um
24:14
if you know if you read a vague text
24:17
with
24:18
looking for something you're going to
24:19
find that thing and
24:21
boy some of these people have perfected
24:23
that kind of oh boy yep
24:25
intense yeah
24:35
moving on moving on um
24:40
do you want me to take this yeah sure
24:44
you spice it flavor it yeah okay
24:48
so go ahead and ask me maybe yeah
24:52
so randy you know a bit more about this
24:53
than me i kind of had
24:55
my i guess deconversion on this issue in
24:57
college and i haven't
24:59
looked back too much since i had a few
25:01
you know trajectory of views but this is
25:03
not something i've
25:04
paid a lot of attention to recently so
25:06
frame up for us
25:07
what various kinds of christians have
25:09
thought about this what is eschatology
25:11
looked like
25:11
in in church history well a couple
25:14
things first there's not many things
25:15
that i know more about than you kyle
25:17
outside of sports right and uh
25:20
racing that falls under the umbrella of
25:24
sports
25:24
[Laughter]
25:27
that's a different episode for a
25:28
different day um
25:31
also uh i just want to say i'm not a
25:33
church historian
25:35
i'm not qualified to give any
25:36
authoritative lesson lesson on what
25:37
christians have thought about
25:38
eschatology or the end times
25:41
i've studied it basically that's it
25:44
right so i mean the little i've i've
25:45
learned is that the
25:47
early church were still heavily
25:49
influenced in their eschatology by
25:51
jewish ancient jewish eschatology and
25:53
apocalypticism
25:55
right so when we read the new testament
25:58
particularly when we read the gospels
25:59
but also when we read paul in
26:02
john and all of the new testament we're
26:05
reading guys who are still trying to
26:08
figure this out
26:09
yeah now that's a that's a scary
26:10
statement for some people who see about
26:12
the bible a certain way
26:13
but these are these are guys who have
26:15
been taught and groomed just like we
26:16
just talked about how we were taught and
26:18
groomed about
26:19
what what happens at the end of the
26:21
world what's uh you know they were given
26:22
an eschatology
26:24
and that was rooted in their ancient
26:25
jewish world view
26:27
of the end times and what's going to
26:29
happen and so
26:30
as we read things like matthew 24 as we
26:33
read things like
26:34
um first thessalonians like we've
26:36
mentioned
26:38
we're talking about guys who are still
26:39
working this out and trying to figure
26:41
this out so in the early church it's
26:42
very muddy and there's all sorts of
26:44
um really honestly i would say bad
26:47
understanding and bad eschatology
26:48
it's because it's mixed up with a lot of
26:50
things from their history they're still
26:51
it's still synthesizing
26:53
so if you talk about what origen thought
26:55
about eschatology is a pretty good one
26:57
but there's a number of church followers
26:59
fathers who had
27:00
kind of weird eschatology because
27:03
they're still trying to figure it out
27:05
where things changed was with augustine
27:08
augustine in the fifth century right
27:12
did all sorts of i mean he's he's
27:14
probably the most famous theologian and
27:16
most influential theologian in all of
27:18
church history
27:19
in augustine took all of these theories
27:22
about end times and really like
27:25
millennialists people who thought that
27:26
there was going to be this
27:28
future time of a thousand years where
27:30
all is right in the world because jesus
27:32
will reign and all that stuff that was a
27:34
big huge doctrine
27:36
in the early church in augustine thought
27:38
it was all silliness
27:40
and in the city of god if you read it he
27:42
wrote about how
27:43
basically there's the city of god the
27:45
kingdom of heaven and
27:47
the city of this world the the
27:50
basically um
27:53
so we're gonna have to edit this out
27:55
what's the word i'm looking for the
27:56
terrestrial yet
27:58
so there's a city of god and the the the
28:01
kingdom of heaven basically in the
28:03
city of this world or the this world the
28:05
terrestrial world
28:06
and that terrestrial world is always
28:08
going to be flawed it's always going to
28:10
be broken so don't
28:11
ever try to hope for this thousand-year
28:13
reign of christ when everything's gonna
28:15
be perfect
28:16
what we have to wait for is when jesus
28:18
the second advent of christ when jesus
28:19
comes back and returns and judges the
28:21
earth and
28:22
makes all things right new creation
28:24
happens and he was pretty insistent
28:26
that no one knows no one knows where
28:29
no one knows when no one knows how no
28:31
one knows who is going to be saved
28:33
in all of that business but our job is
28:36
just to be faithful
28:37
yeah i think that's a pretty good
28:38
eschatology and that
28:41
once augustine kind of laid that out
28:43
that ruled the day
28:44
mostly in the church for the next many
28:46
centuries probably seven or eight nine
28:48
centuries
28:48
that was just normal eschatology in the
28:50
church pretty healthy
28:52
along the course of those seven eight
28:54
nine centuries there were the outliers
28:56
who thought
28:56
really crazy things and who believed all
28:59
the post-trib pre-trib millennius
29:01
millennial stuff
29:02
and usually that was based upon
29:06
world events that were happening trying
29:07
to make sense of things like black death
29:09
in i think the 14th century or trying to
29:12
make sense of the hundred year war
29:13
or trying to make sense of all this
29:16
horrific stuff we see and so
29:18
they would take those things and say
29:20
well this means that the thousand-year
29:21
reign of christ is about to begin
29:23
which you can kind of understand right
29:25
absolutely we just lived through
29:26
probably the worst year
29:27
collectively of any of our lives right
29:30
you're a little older than me but i
29:31
suspect there hasn't been a 20 20 in
29:33
your lifetime
29:34
anything to really compare to that i
29:36
mean killer bees
29:37
right like do you remember hilarious
29:40
meme i saw on facebook that was just
29:41
like
29:42
frame after frame of like thing that
29:44
just keeps happening and
29:46
you see it all kind of laid out all at
29:47
once not just the virus and not just the
29:49
political stuff and not just the
29:51
you know the social stuff but all this
29:53
random [ __ ]
29:55
like you know freaks of nature and you
29:58
know things that are probably due to
29:59
climate change we had
30:00
i think more hurricane like named storms
30:02
last year than any year
30:04
ever and like stuff like that
30:08
and you can kind of see i get it yes i
30:10
understand why
30:12
i remember uh when i was growing up
30:15
every president was the antichrist yes
30:19
uh specifically the democratic ones in
30:21
your house but there was somebody yeah
30:23
in my house but there was somebody that
30:25
was willing to say that every president
30:26
was antichrist
30:27
what i thought was hilarious was when
30:28
trump was elected in 2016 who was
30:31
as far as i can tell the most likely
30:33
candidate we've ever had
30:34
to actually be the antichrist and i'm
30:36
basing that on the left behind series by
30:38
the way
30:39
um no probably never crickets man i
30:42
didn't hear anybody claiming he was the
30:44
anarchist
30:46
the the the same people that were like
30:48
ready to say it about
30:50
every other president we're dead silent
30:51
well sure of course yeah i didn't i
30:52
didn't hear a word
30:54
but i can get the i can get the
30:56
motivation right
30:57
things are really bad they've never been
30:58
this bad before we've got to be getting
31:00
close to the end
31:01
what does my tech say about this yeah
31:03
yeah i mean
31:05
going back into church history and what
31:07
if one of the christians thought about
31:08
this
31:09
john calvin had pretty good eschatology
31:11
as well uh he had
31:13
quite good eschatology and then his
31:14
followers actually kind of twisted a
31:16
little bit
31:18
when things started getting weird luther
31:20
i mean the reformers were mostly good in
31:21
their eschatology except for luther
31:23
thinking that the catholic church was
31:25
the antichrist and the [ __ ] of babylon
31:27
in the pope was the beast out of the sea
31:29
other than that it was pretty solid
31:30
maybe a biased view right
31:32
right um where things went
31:35
quite sideways for american christians
31:37
is
31:38
not even just american christians
31:40
western christians because this guy i
31:42
don't know if he was irish or scottish
31:43
or english but john nelson darby
31:45
is kind of the father of
31:46
dispensationalism and that's when things
31:48
got wonky
31:49
in my estimation if you're listening and
31:51
you're a dispensationalist
31:53
we love you but you're going to get a
31:55
little angry about this stuff
31:56
coming up but um that's when things got
31:59
got weird
32:00
and wonky and the dispensationalism
32:03
turned into like you've been alluding to
32:04
kyle zionism as well yeah
32:07
which is weird and then all of a sudden
32:08
it turned into this
32:10
horoscopy astrology you know reading the
32:12
tea leaves when is it going to happen
32:14
and coming up with all these signs and
32:16
you know hints as to who's the
32:18
antichrist who's the beast out of the
32:20
sea who's the [ __ ] of babylon all that
32:21
stuff
32:22
and that's when things got funky and
32:24
then
32:25
the 1970s happened when pop culture
32:28
basically pop culture eschatology
32:29
happened
32:30
and this guy by the name of hal lindsey
32:31
wrote a book called the late great
32:33
planet earth
32:33
and if you're old enough to live through
32:36
the 70s you know what i'm talking about
32:37
or i'll bet your parents if you're not
32:39
old enough but your parents
32:40
if they're evangelicals good
32:41
evangelicals have a copy still sitting
32:44
somewhere in dusty location in their
32:46
in their library but the late great
32:48
planet sold
32:49
millions of copies and became basically
32:52
functional eschatology for many
32:54
christians and then
32:55
you know this movie in the 70s called
32:57
the thief and the night happened i
32:58
watched it when i was in like
33:00
freshman year of high school and the art
33:02
of it was just
33:04
shockingly bad but it was scary it was
33:07
for real scary and that's what they were
33:08
trying to do
33:09
and then if you're well enough you
33:11
remember the 90s the left behind series
33:12
which you guys have been
33:13
talking about i had never read one of
33:15
the books because i i had already done
33:16
the work at that point
33:17
and realized that this this is a bunch
33:19
of garbage but that was
33:20
hugely formational for so many people
33:23
our age in particular but in the church
33:25
in the 90s
33:26
and the crazy thing is is that this
33:28
eschatology this end times theology what
33:30
we believe
33:31
happens at the end of all things was
33:34
formed in the evangelical church in the
33:36
last 30 years
33:37
by a bunch of fiction writers and i'm
33:39
not
33:40
exaggerating when i call them fictional
33:42
writers they're not theologians they're
33:43
not biblical scholars
33:45
they're just decent writers who tell a
33:46
good story yeah
33:48
we're not so decent writers
33:52
yeah and make you know movies that
33:55
for some reason are successful yeah
33:59
so we should also say that
34:02
one way that this kind of seeped into
34:04
the culture so that books and films like
34:06
that could be really successful is that
34:08
people like darby
34:10
and schofield who's a guy who followed
34:12
him
34:13
were successful at getting their
34:15
commentaries to the masses yes
34:17
so i remember when i just like first
34:20
learned what commentaries were
34:21
like there are these aids that i can
34:23
look to and i don't know what the bible
34:24
means i can kind of look that part up
34:26
and then read what this
34:28
presumably more educated person had said
34:29
about it so i went digging around for
34:31
free commentaries online
34:32
the first one you discover is likely to
34:35
be
34:35
darby because it's so widely available
34:38
and uh you know somebody that's really
34:40
close to me had a bible
34:42
that was like gifted to him from a
34:46
loved relative and this was sort of the
34:49
bible that he
34:50
like was a baby christian with and so
34:53
kind of learned faith from and it was a
34:54
scofield reference bible which meant
34:56
that it's first of all choosing a
34:59
translation
35:00
that is easier to interpret in in line
35:02
with certain dispensational views but
35:04
also if there's ever a difficult passage
35:06
to interpret or if there's a passage
35:07
that might possibly
35:09
be referencing something about the
35:11
future well
35:12
there's a footnote there to tell you
35:14
exactly what that means and so for a
35:16
brand new christian reading a bible like
35:17
that thinking this is just the faith
35:19
gospel yeah it's it's easy to come away
35:22
with the view that well okay this is how
35:23
we should read history and this is how
35:25
we should read the bible and it fits
35:26
together in all these ways and
35:28
it gives me good reason to think that
35:29
certain things are going to be happening
35:31
in the future and that it's relevant to
35:32
my life and political systems and
35:34
whatever so
35:34
like it seeped into the culture in the
35:37
church before it
35:38
then translated into popular culture
35:42
yeah yeah i mean it got so
35:45
thickly ingrained starting the 19th
35:47
century moving forward
35:49
particularly in the west that you can't
35:52
separate in some ways end times theology
35:56
and i would say poor in times theology
35:58
and
35:59
western christianity and by and large
36:02
you can't
36:02
separate uh the
36:05
astrology feeling and the zionism in the
36:09
the intensity of all of that without
36:12
having nothing
36:13
it's almost like creationism for for
36:15
some some wings of them branches of the
36:17
church
36:18
if you take away this this end times
36:20
theology and this way of seeing
36:21
the end of all things what else do you
36:24
have there's a lot of overlap there and
36:25
i think uh
36:27
like people in the same traditions tend
36:28
to gravitate towards both of those
36:30
things
36:31
um i think reasons for that include that
36:34
there are
36:35
certain ways of reading the bible that
36:37
are very literalist
36:38
yeah right um that the bible is supposed
36:42
to be clear
36:43
and it's supposed to be understandable
36:44
without having to try real hard
36:47
and to the average person yeah and in
36:49
these traditions and so
36:51
if it seems to me that it's saying that
36:53
creation happened in six days
36:55
uh then that's what it means and a day
36:57
must mean the same thing for me is it
36:58
meant for the people that
36:59
wrote it or whatever and if it seems to
37:01
me that jesus is saying that
37:04
you know in the future he's gonna come
37:05
back on the clouds and take people into
37:07
the air well that can't be a metaphor
37:08
because
37:09
god wouldn't lie to us right why would
37:11
he give us something hard to understand
37:13
and so that must be what it means so
37:14
this kind of literalism
37:16
straddles that both of those things
37:19
yeah no i get it
37:22
so let's think about what the bible says
37:24
about eschatology
37:25
let's just try to yeah or it doesn't say
37:27
or doesn't say right i mean there's
37:30
there's all sorts of things that again
37:32
is extra biblical that we've
37:33
come to believe is gospel truth but
37:35
there are some things in
37:37
the bible about eschatology and end
37:38
times that are
37:40
for somebody who holds the position that
37:42
we would
37:43
are a little bit problematic let's just
37:44
be honest like matthew 24 is probably
37:47
the biggest one
37:48
um for me when you just go look through
37:50
matthew 24 and it's jesus talking about
37:53
what seems like the end times of this is
37:56
how you know the end is coming and
37:57
you know there's nation against nation
37:59
and there's wars and rumors of wars
38:00
there's
38:01
there's all these crises happening and
38:03
people crises have been happening
38:06
in every single decade of every single
38:07
century of human history right and so
38:09
that
38:10
naturally people read those words of
38:11
jesus and they think this must be it
38:14
right we're in one of those moments 2020
38:16
is not the worst worst
38:18
year that's ever happened in the history
38:19
of world sorry to disappoint you
38:21
but there's been worse ones but we're
38:24
prone to saying this this has got to be
38:25
it there's something out here right so
38:27
in matthew 24 jesus does say things like
38:30
there's going to be two people working
38:31
in the field one will be taken the other
38:33
will be
38:33
left behind basically there's a reason
38:35
that the left behind series gets so big
38:37
is because it seems
38:38
it's jesus said it he'll he said things
38:41
like
38:42
i will come like a thief in the night
38:43
and you won't know the hour of the day
38:45
now that part a lot of these folks just
38:47
leave behind and we want to know the
38:48
hour and the day
38:50
but a thief in the night we get that and
38:51
it makes a good movie title yeah
38:53
um so matthew 24 though is there's this
38:56
debate within biblical scholarship
38:59
where some people really do think that
39:00
jesus was talking about the literal end
39:01
of the world
39:03
some people other biblical scholars
39:04
think that jesus was talking about the
39:06
destruction of jerusalem in
39:07
80 70 or ce 70. i don't know which one i
39:09
should say now a d or c
39:10
e uh ce is the one the scholars use but
39:14
that means the same thing yeah whatever
39:16
so it's either about the end times or
39:18
it's about the destruction of jerusalem
39:19
which actually happened
39:20
in 1870 yeah so this is like after i was
39:23
a pre-trib you know the rapture is going
39:25
to happen and then there's going to be
39:26
this thousand years and then jesus is
39:27
gonna come back and kill everybody
39:28
before like i transitioned into thinking
39:32
okay well maybe it's not pre maybe it's
39:34
post but this like millennial thing is
39:36
still in there
39:36
so it's important that we you know it's
39:38
part of revelation right there's gonna
39:40
be this thousand year reign of christ
39:41
and it's important that we preserve that
39:43
and so i like went through this litany
39:45
of like views and eventually arrived at
39:47
one called preterism which is this idea
39:49
that
39:50
we should interpret passages like
39:51
matthew 24 to be about something that
39:53
really
39:54
has already happened and it happened in
39:56
the first century
39:57
when uh rome was burned basically
40:01
jerusalem yeah yeah sorry jerusalem and
40:03
then rome started to fall
40:05
and so like all these it's not that
40:07
there aren't prophecies
40:09
it's that there are and then they
40:11
happened the privacies were accurate
40:13
and now we're kind of living in you know
40:16
you don't have to consider it a thousand
40:17
year thing but like we're living in the
40:18
kingdom of god and it's now our job to
40:20
do something
40:20
so that kind of gravitated towards a
40:23
view like that
40:24
yeah way better i've since left that
40:25
behind too but
40:27
but uh yeah that sounds that's that's an
40:29
option
40:30
that might be wondering yeah and i say
40:32
that i mentioned these words and these
40:34
phrases to
40:35
to say it's not crazy i don't think
40:38
that to believe in left behind stuff
40:40
it's not crazy to believe in that jesus
40:42
you know
40:44
a thief in the night movie the rapture
40:46
stuff it's in the bible
40:48
right but this is like any other
40:50
theological
40:53
understanding is the bible is a messy
40:55
book
40:56
it's not clear it's not easy and it was
40:58
written by guys who were trying to
40:59
figure it out
41:00
and it's our job to not just grab that
41:03
one little verse in matthew 24 grab that
41:05
one little verse
41:06
in first thessalonians but to consider
41:08
the whole narrative of the scriptures
41:10
and when we're talking eschatology more
41:12
so the whole narrative of the new
41:14
testament
41:15
and say what are the meta narratives
41:17
what are the big themes that we see
41:18
coming out over and over again that are
41:21
the things that rise to the surface that
41:23
we can put a put our faith in and say
41:25
this seems to be what jesus is talking
41:27
about this seems to be what
41:28
the new testament the writers of the new
41:29
testament are trying to get us to
41:30
understand
41:32
and the book of revelation is another
41:35
huge one that i'm sure listeners are
41:37
like why are you when are you going to
41:38
talk about the book of revelation
41:39
the book of revelation i think probably
41:42
might be the most misunderstood book
41:44
in the bible you can debate there's
41:46
other books in in the old testament that
41:47
are pretty misunderstood as well but
41:49
revelation is right up there
41:51
and we have to figure out what the book
41:54
of revelation is primarily about firstly
41:56
right
41:57
is the book of revelation end times
41:58
theology and predictions about
42:00
uh what's going to happen at the end of
42:02
the world and how jesus is going to
42:03
judge the world
42:04
is it that primarily or is it primarily
42:07
a book
42:08
a letter that was written to a
42:09
persecuted church about
42:11
where calling in to question where your
42:13
allegiance lies where your worship
42:14
should be and about empire
42:16
and about the ultimate victory of god
42:17
and his kingdom of g of the way of the
42:19
lamb
42:19
which is it it can't be both one's a
42:22
better understanding of revelation than
42:24
the other i think
42:25
yeah if you want to hear more about
42:27
about that check out our
42:29
interview with brian zahn we kind of
42:30
went a little deeper on that question
42:32
sounds like you think the latter is
42:34
probably the better kind of reading
42:36
by far yes yeah but the thing is though
42:38
i remember um
42:39
when i was in middle school we had like
42:41
mandatory chapel services because i went
42:43
to a christian school
42:44
and they were just mind-numbingly dull
42:46
even for a middle schooler
42:48
and so they were of course we met in
42:50
church and so there were bibles in the
42:51
pews and so i would just read the bible
42:53
while we were in these chapel services
42:55
and the most fun part of the bible is
42:57
revelation so that's what i read i sat
42:58
there and read you know as a
43:01
how old are you in seventh grade i don't
43:03
know
43:04
uh about 13. okay i was about a 12 or 13
43:06
year old then so
43:07
old enough that song of songs is the
43:09
most interesting part of the bible
43:11
i don't know what you're doing in
43:12
revelation
43:15
but i would say and i literally read
43:16
just this king james version of
43:18
revelation because
43:19
you know i'd absorbed what i'd been told
43:21
about it and it was just
43:22
it's dramatic it's interesting there's
43:24
four horses and they're bringing death
43:26
and it's
43:27
you know it's amazing um it's like some
43:30
of the most beautiful pros in the bible
43:31
i think
43:32
but yeah so so obscure
43:37
yeah and so difficult to interpret i
43:39
mean and it's
43:41
that's what apocalyptic literature is
43:43
supposed to be right i mean
43:45
it made a lot more sense to the to the
43:48
ancient
43:49
readers and hearers of the first word of
43:52
john's revelation
43:53
but apocalyptic literature gets so
43:56
misunderstood
43:56
i mean apocalyptic literature can i can
43:58
i just geek out just for a little bit
44:00
sure
44:00
yeah i mean cut it out yeah good
44:03
apocalyptic literature is not primarily
44:06
basically
44:07
uh a symbolic
44:10
key code that we have to crack in order
44:12
to figure out what's gonna happen at the
44:14
end of the world that's not apocalyptic
44:15
literature apoca the word apocalypse in
44:17
the greek
44:18
literally just means to reveal to to
44:21
uncover it's an uncovering it's an
44:22
unveiling right
44:24
and so the best way to think about
44:25
apocalyptic literature whether we're
44:27
talking about the book of daniel
44:28
in the old testament or the book of
44:29
revelation is
44:32
basically apocalyptic literature is put
44:34
pulling the veil back
44:35
on human history on reality to show
44:38
the church to show the people of god in
44:40
a time of crisis
44:42
what's actually happening within reality
44:44
yeah does that make sense
44:45
yeah but not in the sense that what's
44:48
actually happening is you know the
44:51
president of this country
44:53
is is inhabited by a demonic spirit
44:57
right right not not in that like really
44:59
kind of hokey literalist sense but
45:01
in a more interesting political sense
45:03
like there are these human tendencies
45:06
that that drive political systems
45:10
and we have some things to say about
45:12
that as christians
45:13
right this has some like stern warnings
45:16
for certain ways of making decisions
45:18
and for certain ways of grasping at
45:20
power
45:21
in institutions like that's actually in
45:23
the bible
45:24
and so it's so ironic and sad when that
45:26
stuff is instead interpreted as
45:29
an unveiling of like
45:32
individual personalities so that we can
45:34
like look out for who's actually on the
45:36
side of satan and who's actually on the
45:37
side
45:38
it's actually much more interesting than
45:40
that much more deep and complex than
45:42
that
45:42
yeah i mean it's one of the main reasons
45:45
why we
45:46
american christians have such a hard
45:47
time understanding the bible is because
45:49
the bible was written two and four
45:51
primarily a marginalized people
45:53
in the israelites and in the early
45:55
church and so when you look at
45:56
apocalyptic literature whether it's in
45:58
the book of daniel
45:59
when the israelites were oppressed by
46:00
the babylonians first and the persians
46:03
or when you look at the book of
46:04
revelation where the church was being
46:06
brutally persecuted by the roman empire
46:08
this apocalyptic literature is basically
46:11
this message to the church to say hey
46:12
check out what's really going on i know
46:14
it looks like these maniacal leaders
46:16
are who are slaughtering your family and
46:17
friends and who are taking away your
46:19
your your religious and cultural
46:21
identity it looks like they are going to
46:23
win
46:23
but i want to pull the veil back a
46:25
little bit and reveal to you
46:27
what's really going to happen and that
46:29
is that jesus the slaughtered lamb
46:32
is going to win and this is this kingdom
46:35
this
46:35
the real empire that will have no end is
46:37
the kingdom of christ the kingdom of in
46:39
the way of the slaughtered lamb
46:41
so be encouraged
46:44
this is what apocalyptic literature does
46:46
it encourages the people of god in times
46:48
of crisis by showing them what's really
46:49
going on within human history and where
46:51
this thing is all headed
46:52
either in daniel or revelation that's
46:56
totally different than what i was given
46:57
with the book of revelation yeah what
46:59
you were given just totally missed the
47:00
point right what we were given like it's
47:01
almost like
47:02
jesus tells a parable and there's a
47:04
character in the parable and everybody
47:06
after the parable is like
47:07
who's he talking about let's go figure
47:08
out who's that was he talking about uh
47:09
this political leader was it that
47:11
political was it this guy
47:12
and so like one of the reasons i've
47:13
moved past preterism is like
47:16
even in that view you're still trying to
47:17
kind of locate the historical event that
47:19
the described
47:20
preterism for us yeah just the
47:22
prophecies about the end times were
47:23
fulfilled in the first century with the
47:25
destruction of jerusalem and
47:26
the eventual downfall of rome and then
47:29
jesus kingdom inaugurated this new thing
47:31
that the bible just doesn't have much to
47:32
say about
47:33
but even there you're you're you know
47:35
you're putting a lot of emphasis on the
47:37
fact that say
47:38
666 in revelation are first to nero
47:40
which is still kind of a personality
47:42
thing it's not false probably that's
47:43
kind of the best who the authors had in
47:46
mind right
47:47
but at the end of the day i don't think
47:48
the point was nero's evil
47:50
the point was the seeds of evil are in
47:52
you the villain of
47:55
revelation isn't nero it's me right
47:58
it's it's the same tendencies that lead
48:01
political systems today
48:03
to persecute marginalized people that
48:06
happened in nero and it's happening now
48:08
and it's in my heart and so like you
48:11
know
48:11
trying to pick out who's who in my
48:14
current political environment is just
48:16
totally missing the point yeah
48:18
and i get accused i don't get accused
48:20
but people
48:21
observe that on sunday mornings my
48:23
preaching is a lot more um
48:26
large scale in nature it's less
48:28
individual
48:29
talking about individual sin and more
48:31
talking about systemic things
48:33
and the reason for that and that's true
48:35
that that is actually true we're talk
48:37
i talk more about communal things i talk
48:39
more about collective things i talk more
48:40
about systemic
48:42
governmental things you know and the
48:45
reason for that is because this
48:47
really formational literature in the
48:49
bible called apocalyptic literature
48:50
is obsessed with systemic issues and
48:54
with
48:54
power and with empire in the ways of the
48:57
empire and succumbing
48:58
not being not being glossed
49:02
or sorry there you go
49:06
he's been waiting yeah not
49:10
in not being suckered into believing
49:12
that the way of the empire
49:14
is the way that's going to win and
49:15
that's what we do
49:17
in the church that's what the early the
49:19
israelites in the early church which
49:20
suckered into thinking that the way of
49:22
empire the way of violence the way of
49:23
dominance
49:24
the way of grabbing power the way of
49:26
greed the great way of manipulation is
49:28
the way to achieve success in victory
49:31
in apocalyptic literature is telling us
49:33
that is actually the opposite of the way
49:35
of victory the way of success the way of
49:36
life
49:37
the way that we're supposed to walk is
49:39
in the way of the slaughtered lamb
49:41
and that is why i get so obsessed with
49:43
the systemic stuff that's why i get so
49:45
obsessed with the empirical stuff
49:46
because
49:47
what's happening in the church in
49:49
america right now is we believe that the
49:51
way
49:51
to accomplish jesus purposes and bring
49:55
about the kingdom of god is through
49:56
political power
49:57
and that is just so antithetical to the
50:00
narrative of the scriptures
50:01
yeah it's literally the thesis of the
50:02
book and
50:04
hard to understand obscure bugs granted
50:06
but i mean yeah that's
50:07
almost certainly more in line with what
50:09
it was actually getting at the
50:12
a guy on twitter named david dark who we
50:14
should try to get on the show
50:15
uh likes to make people uncomfortable by
50:17
saying things like
50:19
the the bible is a critical race theory
50:21
book
50:24
that the idea you know started in the
50:26
bible uh and i think a lot of what
50:27
you're describing is
50:29
evidence of that i mean we're not the
50:30
first to think in institutional terms
50:32
and we're not the first to think of sin
50:34
in institutional terms yeah
50:36
so let's get at while we're talking
50:37
about the book of revelation
50:39
um let's can we hit on a little bit of
50:41
like what actually is going on primarily
50:43
primarily at the end of revelation
50:46
and i'm thinking two things primarily
50:47
you brought up the violent bloodiness of
50:50
you know warrior jesus in the end of
50:52
revelation which if
50:54
no if you haven't seen it google snl
50:57
what's it called i don't know i don't
50:59
know what you're talking about i did a
51:00
skit on snl
51:02
oh it was uh jesus unchained
51:05
jesus spelled with a d like the
51:08
tarantino movie
51:09
pause this and watch that and then come
51:11
back
51:13
i want to do that because i haven't seen
51:15
jesus unchained i don't think
51:17
that's amazing
51:24
wow we will have to watch it after that
51:26
yeah oh
51:27
100 um
51:33
ask me some leading questions kyle oh so
51:35
you're not here not here but
51:36
about what do you think of what's
51:38
happening jesus and then what
51:41
where is this whole thing heading in so
51:44
if jesus
51:44
isn't this guy that's gonna come back
51:46
with a sword and
51:48
you know fill the valley of megiddo with
51:50
blood or whatever
51:51
nice um how do you how do you read that
51:54
stuff how do you
51:55
interpret how things are going to wrap
51:56
up that's more consistent with what you
51:58
see
51:59
in other parts of the new testament um
52:03
well first you have to zoom out a little
52:05
bit and get an understanding of um
52:08
first the word judgment is really good
52:10
to understand um
52:12
revelation really is a book about one of
52:14
the main themes is judgment
52:16
but when i say judgment i don't mean
52:18
slaughtering
52:20
millions of human beings who were
52:21
disobedient to the way of jesus that's
52:22
not what
52:23
judgment is about when you look at
52:25
judgment in the new testament
52:26
it's always about god setting the world
52:29
to rights
52:30
okay that's just when jesus says
52:34
jesus said in the gospels i have come to
52:36
judge the world
52:37
it's i've come to it's not that jesus
52:40
said i come with a flamethrower to
52:42
burn up all the all the heathens it's
52:45
that i've come
52:46
to set things right because things have
52:48
gone wrong so that's what judgment is
52:50
primarily first and foremost in the book
52:52
of revelation
52:53
along with in the throughout the rest of
52:55
the scriptures
52:56
also when you look at that bloody scene
52:58
that everyone you know the market
52:59
schools of the world love to
53:00
love to just say this is what jesus
53:02
really is what we fail to recognize
53:04
first of all
53:06
is that jesus the jesus of that
53:08
revelation 19 i think it is
53:10
he comes into the battle already bloody
53:14
right like before any any blood has been
53:17
shed
53:18
jesus comes in with his robe and it's
53:20
already been dipped in blood and the
53:21
thing is is that it's not the blood of
53:22
his enemies it's his
53:23
own blood so there's huge is how you
53:27
read that doesn't it
53:29
so there's like okay we got to
53:31
reconsider this
53:32
and then when jesus talks when he talks
53:34
about jesus slaying his enemies
53:37
it's with a sword that's coming out of
53:38
his mouth right and so that is
53:41
metaphorically speaking to this reality
53:43
that the
53:44
the word of god is the thing that sets
53:47
the world to rights that jesus
53:49
is is judging judging things with the
53:51
word
53:52
of the word that's coming out of his
53:54
mouth so it's this metaphorical
53:56
sword that judgment is happening because
53:58
of
53:59
and this all is happening because the
54:02
lamb has already been slaughtered the
54:03
victory has already been won
54:07
so this is this picture that we get the
54:09
blood that's
54:10
shed in revelation 19 happened before
54:13
and it's jesus dipped in his own blood
54:16
who's slaughtering his enemies and his
54:18
enemies are probably not actual human
54:20
beings that he loves and created and
54:22
died for
54:23
right let's let's keep the gospel in
54:24
mind his enemy
54:26
his enemies are things like greed
54:30
injustice oppression racism evil
54:33
violence all of that jesus is setting
54:36
the world to rights
54:36
and jesus is overcoming them by the word
54:39
by by his own death he's overcoming all
54:43
that's holding back humanity and
54:45
all that's gone wrong within human
54:47
history that's what's being judged
54:49
yeah so that's a little little snapshot
54:52
of like
54:52
man this looks really bad but if we
54:54
actually just look under the surface
54:55
just a little bit
54:56
it's kind of beautiful actually yeah i
54:58
mean if you think that it
54:59
literally is he's coming back to like
55:01
kill the sinners
55:02
and damn them yeah then you think
55:05
revelation
55:07
and its authors are contradicting paul
55:10
right which i'm fine saying but most of
55:12
the people that take these views are not
55:14
fine
55:14
because paul is very clear that it's not
55:16
flesh and blood
55:17
that we're fighting against it's systems
55:20
he didn't use that word
55:21
powers and principalities not a bad
55:23
translation right powers
55:25
he probably had rome in mind uh it's
55:28
it's
55:28
it's not individuals yeah absolutely i
55:30
mean um
55:33
go back to romans or i'm sorry
55:35
revelation 4
55:36
revelation 4 and 5 when you john gets
55:38
beamed into the throne room
55:41
and he hears what sounds like a lion and
55:43
then he turns and he sees the lamb
55:44
that's been slaughtered
55:46
that's the thing that the whole
55:48
narrative is centered around
55:49
and how victory is accomplished is the
55:51
lamb who is slaughtered
55:53
his overcome this this is central
55:57
the central vision of the book of
55:59
revelation
56:01
and then you get into the fun parts of
56:03
you know you go further into revelation
56:05
and you hear about where this is all
56:06
heading and it's not heading towards
56:08
fire and brimstone
56:09
and you know gnashing of teeth
56:12
it's headed towards jesus saying behold
56:15
i am making all things new
56:17
it's headed towards the city whose gates
56:19
will never shut
56:21
and all who will come may come it's this
56:24
invitation this eternal grand beautiful
56:27
invitation
56:28
to new creation and resurrection this is
56:31
where it's all heading towards jesus
56:33
making all things new and that all
56:34
things means all things
56:38
this is the story that we get in revel
56:39
this is why the book of revelation might
56:42
is like a top three book for me yeah
56:47
what else do we got here
56:55
you can talk a little bit what's our
56:56
time do we know what uh
56:58
since we started this one uh
57:02
yeah i'm not gonna be able to look
57:03
easily without stopping it okay
57:05
let me let me just put a little script
57:07
on that and then we can go and should we
57:09
just talk about these things like
57:12
this i think we can take out because we
57:14
can talk about what's a better way
57:16
um so we i think we just answered this
57:21
yeah i just want to post script
57:24
the stuff that you see in the book of
57:26
revelation primarily in revelation 20 as
57:27
well about
57:28
um the disobedience and the vile and the
57:31
the ungodly going away to
57:33
to misery i think
57:36
all of us are going to have to face that
57:38
in some way shape or form like
57:40
the the judgment of god setting the
57:42
world to rights happens to me
57:44
personally as well i believe i don't
57:46
think any of us get out of
57:48
the fiery all-consuming fire of the love
57:51
of god that will burn away and purify
57:53
all that is not of the way of agape love
57:57
and so i really think all of us will
57:59
face that fiery judgment
58:01
of the love of god it's just that
58:03
someone for some of us
58:04
it might last a little bit longer than
58:06
the others and it's going to take a
58:07
little bit more
58:08
fire and pain to burn off that
58:10
brokenness and that
58:12
that that ugliness of evil and violence
58:14
and in the ways of the world
58:16
than for others but i think all of us
58:18
should fear that i think that's a
58:19
that is real yeah for those who are
58:21
saying what but that's in there too yep
58:23
that's real and i think all of us should
58:25
have a healthy fear of god about that
58:26
because
58:27
the fiery love of god will not tolerate
58:30
any selfishness wickedness
58:32
evil violence you name it yeah
58:36
yeah i remember trying as an
58:38
undergraduate to figure out
58:39
what is this fear of god thing that
58:42
certain parts of the bible seem to be
58:44
really in favor of
58:45
certain a lot of christians seem to be
58:46
really in favor of but then other parts
58:48
of the bible seem to like
58:50
maybe be in tension with like perfect
58:53
love casts out fear fear is like a bad
58:54
thing you know
58:56
and that's that's kind of what i came to
58:57
is that
58:59
yeah it's a fearful thing to recognize
59:01
that that god's nature
59:03
is pure love because mine isn't you know
59:05
and that
59:07
one of my uh academic mentors
59:10
writes about the severity of god in the
59:13
sense of
59:15
to be in relationship with god in the
59:18
christian tradition anyway and the
59:19
jewish one
59:21
is to have moral demands placed on you
59:23
it's to have a person on the other side
59:25
of your conscience
59:27
and that can be really scary to know
59:29
that
59:31
when i make a selfish decision or when i
59:34
i don't know assume that because someone
59:36
is different from me that they're
59:38
therefore lesser that this is something
59:40
god will not tolerate
59:42
and that my existence depends on
59:45
overcoming that because i'm also uh part
59:48
of my you know trajectory out of this
59:50
kind of thing was
59:51
towards a view called annihilationism
59:53
which i think is also your view
59:55
um i'm assuming that maybe it's not it
59:58
used to be we should talk about that but
60:00
the idea that it you know if if my
60:01
existence is owed to god my being is
60:04
sustained by god then my continual
60:06
rejection of god will ultimately entail
60:07
my non-existence and so if i can't
60:09
ethically get there
60:11
then i just stop being and that's pretty
60:13
scary you know yeah
60:14
so that that that's fear inducing but
60:16
but not in a way that god is like
60:18
angry or judgmental or anything like
60:20
that yeah
60:23
all right we got we could talk about
60:25
resurrection but i feel like we have
60:27
in some ways um we can talk about what
60:30
we
60:31
actually think about it and then what
60:33
takeaways are
60:35
sure yeah seems like that's the way to
60:38
go with it
60:40
we've said enough about resurrection you
60:41
think i think so yeah
60:43
okay all right and that'll come out in
60:45
what we think about it because that's
60:47
so um
60:51
go ahead elliot so it's a lot of talk
60:55
about
60:56
how we think about all of these things
60:57
but i'm really curious just like to
60:59
concretely get down to it
61:01
randy what do you think kyle what do you
61:02
think i'd love to hear just
61:04
how you think about this now and and
61:07
have evolved in your views
61:09
what do you think yeah um so
61:12
in talking about the episode before um
61:15
recording it you
61:16
elliott said i'm in the uh don't really
61:19
give a
61:20
flip category anymore i understand that
61:23
i'm
61:24
psychologically kind of there as well i
61:26
don't think
61:27
that whether or not you think there's a
61:30
thousand year reign in our future makes
61:33
a huge difference
61:35
uh it does except in so far as it makes
61:37
a difference
61:38
and how you vote or in in the kinds of
61:41
uh
61:42
you know social policies you're willing
61:43
to support now uh
61:45
if it starts to creep into that then i'm
61:47
interested
61:48
and let's have a conversation about it
61:50
and i'll try to convince you otherwise
61:51
but as far as
61:53
you know is there any actual prophecy in
61:56
the bible
61:57
because that's kind of a question that's
61:58
bound up with this prophecy in the
62:00
futuristic sense not in the sense of
62:02
uh speaking to power because that's
62:04
obviously in the bible but like is there
62:06
anything in the bible that predicts
62:08
something that's going to happen i tend
62:10
to think not but i also tend to think
62:12
it doesn't really matter acceptance so
62:15
far as you let that
62:16
influence your ethics and your politics
62:19
and a lot of people do
62:20
right so i think it like this is where i
62:24
kind of end up on all these things we
62:25
talk about on the podcast
62:26
if you can believe those things like say
62:28
you think there's a genuine prophecy in
62:30
the bible
62:31
it will be fulfilled at some time in the
62:32
future we can have
62:34
fellowship together and i can respect
62:36
your view and so far as you have some
62:37
humility about it
62:38
and you recognize that it doesn't entail
62:41
that you need to vote for a politician
62:44
who's going to support the current state
62:45
of israel you know because
62:46
because that implies a kind of
62:47
confidence that i think just isn't
62:49
possible given the evidence that we have
62:51
so
62:52
personally i just don't care
62:55
acceptance so far as it impacts things i
62:58
do care about
63:00
yeah yeah i mean for me
63:03
eschatology all boils down to one word
63:06
and that's resurrection um you could
63:10
add it two more in there new creation
63:12
but those are the things that i think
63:14
we are headed towards those are the
63:15
things that all of humanity
63:18
all of reality is headed towards is
63:21
restoration redemption new creation and
63:24
i think
63:24
i get that from the scriptures i get
63:26
that from the apostle paul in romans 8
63:27
saying that
63:28
all of creation groans like in
63:30
childbirth for the sons of god to be
63:31
revealed
63:32
i th you can get that from uh
63:36
the apostle paul in i think romans 6
63:38
talking about how if you've we've been
63:40
united with christ in his death how much
63:41
more in his resurrection and then you
63:43
could you could go on through the book
63:44
of revelation and talks about new
63:46
creation and restoration and redemption
63:48
and
63:48
resurrection so that for me is
63:52
a more scriptural story and it's a
63:55
better story
63:56
it's a way more hopeful story that i
63:59
think the eastern orthodox
64:01
tradition has gotten way better at than
64:03
the western church to be honest with you
64:04
throughout church history
64:06
um and if you're interested in the stuff
64:08
if you're
64:09
wanting to kind of maybe work through
64:11
your your thoughts in the book of
64:12
revelation and eschatology end times
64:14
things
64:14
primarily rooted out of the book of
64:16
revelation i'm going to recommend that
64:17
you go
64:18
and pick up at your local bookstore
64:20
amazon
64:21
reading revelation responsibly by
64:23
michael gorman
64:25
reading revelation responsibly by
64:27
michael gorman it's i think
64:29
the best work and it's short it's not
64:31
academic
64:32
it's it's written by an academic and
64:34
it's brilliant and it talks through
64:36
what these sequences of bulls and
64:39
trumpets and
64:40
cups are in the book of revelation and
64:41
it works through all the metaphors and
64:43
symbolism and what it's really about so
64:46
but i believe
64:47
that resurrection and ultimate
64:50
restoration
64:51
is where this whole thing is headed and
64:53
i think that that's scriptural
64:55
i think the apostle paul would agree
64:57
with me because he wrote
64:58
something like nothing will separate us
65:01
from the love of god
65:02
not heights nor depths nor with nor you
65:05
know
65:06
nor death nor any other thing can
65:08
separate us from the love of god in
65:09
jesus christ
65:11
i take him by his word on that and i
65:13
that's that's where i think this is all
65:15
headed and that's where i think we
65:16
should be thinking about when we talk
65:17
about eschatology
65:19
and end times will there be tribulation
65:22
and
65:22
hard times i don't know i don't think
65:25
like
65:26
i think we're going through hard times
65:28
right now
65:29
we're going through intense things that
65:31
feels fiery and feels
65:33
difficult and painful and and heart
65:36
wrenching
65:37
and our job is to make sure that our
65:39
allegiance and obedience and worship
65:41
and all of us belong to the lamb of god
65:44
the slaughtered lamb
65:49
yeah we'll put that book in the show
65:53
notes
65:54
good yeah um
65:59
so you're gonna have to chop this up a
66:02
lot but
66:03
so i think listeners i don't want we
66:05
don't want to tell you we're not in the
66:06
practice of telling you
66:07
what to think right i don't i don't want
66:09
to tell you like
66:11
well pastor and philosopher said it in
66:12
the bar it walked into a bar senator
66:14
kyle said it or randy said it so
66:16
i'm just going to walk away and think
66:17
that do the do the work yourself
66:20
read read the books and have these
66:23
conversations with friends
66:25
and you know email us if you want and
66:27
let's get a conversation going but
66:29
i want to encourage you there's a better
66:32
story than the one that many of us have
66:33
been given
66:34
and there's a better there's there's a
66:36
more scriptural way of understanding
66:38
these complex things and it is complex
66:41
and it's difficult to navigate but i
66:44
believe scriptures tell us that this
66:46
is all headed somewhere good can i like
66:50
i just want to pause there for a second
66:54
in the reality in the year that we've
66:56
just had in the year and a half
66:58
that we're still in and that we're still
67:00
trying to figure things out my
67:01
life has been disoriented in intense
67:04
ways
67:06
but what what gets me through it
67:08
currently right now
67:11
all of the disorientation and pain and
67:14
uncertainty
67:16
is resurrection is what i believe
67:19
is real that this is all headed
67:21
somewhere good
67:23
that's a story that the church should be
67:24
telling yeah
67:27
yeah one of the things that gives me a
67:28
lot of encouragement despite all the
67:30
things that i've questioned and doubted
67:32
and given up on
67:33
is the hope that
67:37
when it says that jesus endured the
67:40
cross because of the joy
67:44
that was in store the hope that that's
67:47
true
67:48
and that that god wouldn't incarnate
67:51
if not for a good and ultimately
67:54
successful and
67:56
i can't say i'm certain about that but
67:59
it's encouraging it uh it's
68:02
it's a marked difference from what i
68:04
used to think which is that
68:07
jesus did it for what ultimately turns
68:09
out to be vengeance
68:11
that doesn't appeal to me anymore yeah
68:13
um
68:15
that's susceptible to all sorts of
68:17
critiques from people like nietzsche and
68:19
others
68:19
so now the idea that what i'm enduring
68:23
now what we've endured as a species
68:26
that what's going to bring jesus back is
68:29
the same thing that brought him the
68:30
first time
68:31
which is beauty
68:35
love community not
68:38
ugliness and vengeance and judgment
68:41
yeah yeah and the the judgment
68:46
is reserved for the evil
68:50
and the the broken ways of
68:53
this world that has plagued humanity
68:57
it's not reserved for primarily for
69:00
human beings
69:01
who jesus died for that's a that you you
69:04
have to reconcile that
69:05
either jesus died for these human beings
69:08
to have
69:09
life and to save them from all of that
69:12
or jesus is going to kill them
69:15
and let them suffer eternally those two
69:18
things don't drive so well i don't think