VISIONS OF RAPTURE
THE PROBLEM WITH WATCHING AND WAITING by Jeremy Wike
I Theology is a funny thing. It has consequences. It draws our attention to certain themes in the Bible and blinds us from others.
remember a pastor telling me once that he hoped that the world would rush toward evil sooner so we could expedite the Rapture. Crassly put, we should wish for more evil and suffering in the world so we Christians can escape sooner. I was a bit speechless when he said it so matter-of-factly, but as I’ve gotten older and seen deep human suffering, I find a range of emotions come to the fore. Certainly, God never intended our theology to siphon out compassion from us. Theology is a funny thing. It has consequences. It draws our attention to certain themes in the Bible and blinds us from others. As we’ve all navigated this global pandemic, we see the effects of a culture that has lost its sense of hope in God’s sovereign reign in the world. But far too many Christians use the future fulfillment of the visible reign of King Jesus as an excuse, worse yet a badge of honor, to sit idly looking into the heavens for the trumpet to sound and not around them for people to love as we are called. I’d like to briefly revisit our theology of hope through the lens of the early church in Acts. What I trust we’ll discover is a biblical picture of hope that is not devoid of theology but is dependent upon the truth of God’s mission for His Church today. We ought not to use our hope in what is to come as an excuse to be, as the adage goes, “so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.”
4 GraceConnect | Summer-Fall 2021
