Eschatology

January 29, 2015 by kevinstilley

Discussion Questions – – The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Cantos I-IX

What was your reading experience like? Did you enjoy it, or suffer through it? To whom could you recommend this book?

What factors might result in this text being difficult for some people to comprehend or enjoy?

Through where is Dante traveling? Does he ever explain why he is there?

Dante’s circles of hell seem to represent degrees of punishment for sin? What does the Bible say about degrees of eternal reward and punishment?

Is it spiritually beneficial to think of what Hell might be like?

The three beasts in Canto I have been traditionally interpreted as fraud, pride, and greed. How might Jeremiah 5:6 provide insight on the matter? (1.31-51)

Who is his guide? Why this person? (1.73-75)

How are Virgil and Beatrice related to Dante? Why do they appear in this work?

How might this work be considered as a “love story”?

Do you think this work might be considered as both literal (heaven and hell) and as an allegorical reflection of the world in which Dante lives – as a commentary on is own culture and times?

Do you think that it is common for people to systematically evaluate their own life and values when they have lost loved ones?

Why do you think Dante mixes so much classic mythology with Roman Catholic theology in this text?

Were there places in the text that you thought were inconsistent with what the Bible teaches?

How well do you think the average Christian understands the doctrines of sin, salvation, and hell?

One of the most famous lines in all of the western canon is found in Canto 3.9, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” Why do you think that quote has had such lasting influence?

In Canto III it talks about those who commit to neither God nor Satan. Is this possible?

In the first circle of hell (Canto IV) Dante gets invited into a group of poets of immense stature to engage in conversation. This is similar to the modern question, “Who from history would you invite to a dinner party?” So, who would you?

Dante places Aristotle, Socrates and Plato and other admirable people in the first level of hell because they were not baptized. What kind of theology lays behind this?

Who is in Dante’s 2nd circle (Canto V)? It might be said of many from this section that they were “led astray by love.” Do you think this a problem for very many people?

Dante writes “There is no greater sorrow, than to think backwards to a happy time.” (Canto V) Do you think this is true?

Dante’s 3rd circle (Canto VI) includes those who were gluttonous. Is gluttony really that bad? Do we really understand what is entailed by gluttony, or have we turned it into nothing more than “overeating”?
Clergymen are prominent among the greedy (avarice) in Dante’s 4th circle (Canto VII)? What historical reality might have led Dante to put them here?

Can Canto 7.64-66 be seen as commentary the level of satisfaction that the greedy achieve in this world as well as a picture of their eternal condition?

What do the angry in the fourth circle have in common with the greedy? Do you agree with this portrayal? (7.28-30, 112-115)

Dante gets a little payback on Filippo Argenti (Canto VIII). Many other authors have done the same. Do you have someone that you would want to put into a work like this? What might be a better way of dealing with your feelings?

In Canto VIII we see a connection between arrogance and wrath. Do you think this to accurately reflect human proclivities?

Many of you mentioned “fear” in the text as something worth consideration. What was it about “fear” that caught your attention/imagination?

February 12, 2014 by kevinstilley

End-Times Prophecy Book Recommendation

A few days ago a friend sent me this question,

“Do you have a good suggestion of a book for eschatology? Not emotional or slanderous but one that is thoughtful with the relevant texts. Maybe even a little academic?”

I recommended to him The Rose Guide to End-Times Prophecy, by Timothy Paul Jones. It meets his criteria above and I have used it with some success when teaching in Russia. This might also be a good resource for you. Here is a list of its contents:

Contents

Ch. 1 Keeping Your Eyes on the Right End

Nine false prophets who misled people. Gives 4 reasons to study end times.

Ch. 2 Apocalypse Now and Then

Basic explanation of Apocalyptic Literature (Book of Revelation, Daniel).

Ch. 3 What Christians Agree About When It Comes to the End of the World

Includes the 3 truths that all Christians affirm.

Ch. 4 Words You Need to Know When It Comes to the End of the World

Defines 12 key terms relevant to end-times studies.

Ch. 5 What Happens After the End

Ch. 6 How the Beginning Points to the End

Includes God’s promises and covenant with Abraham and the end times. Explains different ways that Christians interpret the fulfillment of these promises.

Ch. 7 The Kingdom That Was, Kingdom That’s Yet to Be

Ch. 8 The Prophetic Perspective

Offers explanations of Gog, Ezekiel’s Temple, etc., and includes possible locations for the Ark of the Covenant.

Ch. 9 Daniel’s Double Vision

Includes a comparative analysis of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (The statue with a head of gold, chest of silver, legs of bronze) and Daniel’s vision of beasts.

Ch. 10 The Mystery of the Seventy Weeks

Show ways that Christians have calculated the book of Daniel’s 70 weeks.

Ch. 11 Why People Missed the Promised Messiah

Explains 4 reasons why some people of Jesus’ day did not see him as Messiah.

Ch. 12 What Jesus Said About the End of the World

Explores Jesus’ parables. Examines Jesus’ Olivet Discourse from 2 interpretive views, using phrase-by-phrase analysis.

Ch. 13 Cast of Characters at the End of Time: The Heroes

What are the 24 elders, the 144,000 witnesses, the great multitude, and the 2 witnesses.

Ch. 14 Cast of Characters at the End of Time: The Villains

Describes the 7 characteristics of the Antichrist, and the symbolism behind the dragon, the 2 beasts, and the mark of the beast (666).

Ch. 15 Understanding the Book of Revelation

Explains 21 symbols in Revelation from 4 different views, using verse-by-verse analysis.

Ch. 16 Overview of Amillennialism

Ch. 17 Overview of Postmillennialism

Ch. 18 Overview of Dispensational Premillennialism

Ch. 19 Overview of Historical Premillennialism

Ch. 20 A Quick Guide to Four Views of the End Times

Diagrams and explanations of the four views. Includes names of key pastors, theologians and scholars who hold each view.

Glossary of terms

Notes Carefully annotated book with well-supported arguments (184 endnotes).

Index

May 31, 2012 by kevinstilley

The Future – select quotes

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
~ Niels Bohr

The great problem with the future is that we die there. This is why it is so hard to take the future personally, especially the longer future, because that world is suffused with our absence.
~ Steward Brand, in The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility, page 150

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.
~ Albert Camus

I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.
~ Albert Einstein

Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.
~ Euripides

That Being, who gave me existence, and through almost threescore years has been continually showering his favors upon me, whose very chastisements have been blessings to me ; can I doubt that he loves me? And, if he loves me, can I doubt that he will go on to take care of me, not only here but hereafter? This to some may seem presumption ; to me it appears the best grounded hope ; hope of the future built on experience of the past.
~ Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to George Whitefield 19 June 1764, published in The Works of Benjamin Franklin

Hold fast to the Bible. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization and to this we must look as our guide in the future.
~ Ulysses S. Grant

In the face of all terror and uncertainty and illusion about the future we gladly point to Jesus and say that he is the future.
~ Theodore W. Jennings, Jr.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
– Alan Kay

The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.
~ Gerda Lerner

Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.
~ Abraham Lincoln, quoted in Herndon’s Life of Lincoln by William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik (New York, Da Capo Press, 1983), p. 354.

Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.
~ Machiavelli

We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government. Far from it. We have staked the future on the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, control ourselves, and to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.
~ James Madison

If you want to predict the future of our land, go to school and look around.
~Richard Mitchell, in The Graves of Academe

The stupid speak of the past, the wise of the present, fools of the future.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Man is unable to accurately predict events which are but twenty-four hours distant; only the Divine Mind could have foretold the future, centuries before it came to be. Hence, we affirm with the utmost confidence, that the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies in the Bible attest and demonstrate the truth that the Scriptures are the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God.
~ A.W. Pink

To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes, the wise and the good learn wisdom for the future.
~ Plutarch

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
~ George Bernard Shaw

When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past.
~ Wislawa Szymborska.

Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.
~ Alvin Toffler

“At some point in his life
there came a shortage
of future”
~ Steve Turner, from the poem “Aging” in Tonight We Will Fake Love

Without forgiveness, there’s no future.
~ Desmond Tutu

No one is less ready for tomorrow than the person who holds the most rigid beliefs about what tomorrow will contain.
~ Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor and Howard Means, Visionary’s Handbook : Nine Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business

In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.
~ Andy Warhol

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
~ Oscar Wilde

Don’t let the mistakes and disappointments of the past control and direct your future.
~ Zig Ziglar

The future just isn’t what it used to be.
~ Unknown

A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.
~ Honore de Balzac

May 21, 2011 by kevinstilley

Beware: The End of the World is at Hand

Today, Saturday May 21, 2011, is the day that Jesus comes back. At least, that is what Harold Camping is telling us. According to Camping Jesus will touch down today at precisely 4:00 PM Central Standard Time.

This isn’t the first time Camping has predicted the return of Christ and the Rapture of the Church. Camping previously predicted that Jesus would come back in 1994. Oops.

Dr. Harold L. Willmington shares the following list of other End of World prophecies that did not come to be:

2800 B.C.: The oldest surviving prediction of the world’s imminent demise was found inscribed upon an Assyrian clay tablet which stated, “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common.”

Second Century A.D.: The Montanists, founded around A.D. 155 by a man called Montanus, were perhaps the first recognizable Christian end-of-the-world cult. They believed that Christ’s triumphant return was imminent and established a base in Anatolia (699 A.D), central Turkey, where they anxiously awaited doomsday.

1284: Pope Innocent III predicted Christ’s second coming would occur in 1284. He arrived at that year by adding 666 years to the date of the inception of the Muslim faith.

February 1, 1524: Panicked by predictions made by a group of London astrologers, some 20,000 people abandoned their homes and fled to high ground in anticipation of a second great flood that was predicted to start from the Thames.

1556: Martin Luther felt this might be the year.

1715: Isaac Newton thought Christ would return.

1792: Shakers predicted the end of the world.

1914: Jehovah’s Witnesses have set several dates for the prophetic end-1914, 1915, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, and 1994.

1844: Baptist preacher William Miller predicted Jesus would return to upstate New York on October 22, 1844. This became known in American history as the “Great Disappointment.”

1988: There was even a major book titled 88 Reasons Why Christ Will Return in 1988, by Edgar Whisenant. The following year he published 89 Reasons Why Christ Will Return in 1989, claiming to have been slightly off on his calculations. Make that twice.

July 4, 2007 by kevinstilley

Vern Poythress’ commentary recommendations for the Book of Revelation

During the Fall Semester of 2005 at Westminster Theological Seminary, Vern Poythress taught a seminar on the Book of Revelation. He prepared a very useful bibliography for that class. He annotated the bibliography according to the following categories:

Recommended purchase.
Of general interest for students. Buy selectively.
More specialized. The well-equiped pastor’s library will have them.
Necessary for advanced study. Be aware of them, but buy only as you have need.
For laypeople.

Below you will find some of his recommendations for commentaries on the Book of Revelation. I have reorganized them into the categories above, rather than alphabetically.

Recommended Purchase