Peter & Paul

This week I’d like to look at the controversial question of Christ’s “imminent” return for the church, but from a different angle than most of you might have approached the subject before.

Today many of my peers believe that this event could have taken place at any point after the death and resurrection of Yeshua and that there is no “prophesied event” that needs to take place before this “rapture” of believers transpires. Here is how two of today’s highly respected evangelical prophecy teachers see the subject:

 A foundational aspect of the rapture, as taught in Scripture, is that it is imminent. By imminent we mean it could happen at any moment, and there is no prophesied event that has to take place first before the rapture can occur. It is the next event on the calendar. (Ed Hindson & Hitchcock, Can We Still Believe in the Rapture? (p. 123). Harvest House Publishers. Kindle Edition.)

Is Mr. Hindson & Mr. Hitchcock’s perspective on the subject accurate? To be fair, it’s a perspective shared by many respected expositors of the Bible.

To hopefully give you some additional insight into this question I want to look at the subject through the perspective of the apostle Peter. You know, I sometimes forget that the books of the Bible that comprise our New Testament are for the most part actually letters written by the apostles to specific members or groups of what became known as the “Christian” church. Often in my mind I lump them together as just a collection of books written to the church without considering the context and perspective of those to whom those letters or epistles were written.

Let me give you an example of why context is so important. How many of you can tell me what the words in the following picture mean?

The words don’t make much sense, do they? What if I told you that I was responsible Continue reading →