Why Does It Matter to Understand Events Around Jesus Return?
As strange as this question sounds at face value — it's a common unspoken one in deep Christian circles.
There is an interesting type of theological relativism that starts to happen when the subject of Jesus' return comes up.
It's eerily similar to the line of reasoning you hear from an Atheist when it comes to morality and belief in God.
- "Who could possibly know the truth?"
- "Just let everyone believe what they want to believe."
- "It's arrogant to assume YOU have the answer."
We say the same thing but we dress it up with Christianese (that's the language for how Christians talk to each other. It's a top secret language that only a select few are privileged to understand.),
- "No one knows the day or the hour"
- "It's a non-essential and not something we should divide over."
- "It's intriguing to study but at the end of the day everyone's just guessing."
And so on.
In the following articles I want to be simple, straight forward, and concise while answering why it's important.
There are two types of people who ask the question of "Why does it matter to understand Eschatology?" (the study of the return of Jesus)
The first — is genuinely asking.
They honestly don't know why.
They haven't heard their pastor speak about it, the podcasters they listen to don't discuss it in detail much other than vaguely saying it feels like we are getting closer, and their small groups rarely discuss any serious theological concepts at all let alone the return of Christ.
On top of that — the few people who do try and discuss the topic seem like they are on the spectrum who drank a little too much of their own kool-aid (sorry to my fellow Spectrumites.), into quite a few conspiracies, are always moving goal posts on the subject any time they get certain details wrong, and come across a little harsh.
As a result of the lack of open teaching and discussion going on — it creates the assumption that it's not a very important topic to understand. As a result — these people move on never really knowing much about the subject. They'd like to know more — but who do they ask and where do they start?
That's most common amongst your average church going Christian. I have a lot of sympathy for this person and plan to do our best at helping them know where to start and why it's important.
What about the second person?
They are not genuinely asking.
They've made their mind up that the topic is a very low tier theological topic that they simply have no interest, time, or desire to try and navigate.
They decided long ago that there are "closed handed issues", "primary issues", or "essential doctrines" and then there are "open handed issues", "secondary issues", and "non-essentials".
Eschatology is cleanly placed in the "non-essential" category — and just barely at that. I'm pretty sure if there was another box labeled "DO NOT TOUCH" or "RADIOACTIVE" it would go in that for them.
After all — they commonly joke — it will all "pan out in the end". (Only experts in Christianese will get this.)
This person is usually an overly confident Christian who themselves haven't taken the time to understand the topic — so in an effort to justify why they haven't studied it they have to downplay its importance to understand in the first place.
I would like to address both of these people in the articles below.
Person 1: Click Here
Person 2: Click Here (Coming Soon!)