Rapture Theology

I must admit, I enjoy a good theological debate. However, I find most Christians would rather endure the pillory or the rack than engage in a good Biblical discussion. I believe people fall into several categories concerning this issue:

1. There are those that think it's a waste of time and divisive. 
2. There are those that feel they are uninformed and have nothing to add.
3. There are those couldn't care less.

No Biblical debates please!

That being said, I will push forward anyway. 

About a week ago I put up a Twitter poll where I asked people the following: "Do you believe in any form of Rapture theology?" I had 1033 kind souls chime in and the results were as follows:

74% voted Yes, they believe in Rapture theology

21% voted No

5% voted that they thought this was song sung by Blondie. (God bless them!)

So as you can plainly see, a vast majority of the people polled believe in some sort of rapture doctrine. Now for full disclosure, I do not believe in the Rapture. Now at this point you may be tempted to pelt me with rocks and verbal rebukes...but please hear me out! 

My first contention, which I will deal with in this post, involves the Rapture theology not being taught in the first 1800 years of church history. It wasn't until 1830 that John Darby formulated this theory. In his own words he said: "it literally jumped out of the pages of the Bible." And while this is all fine and good, we must ask: "is it really possible that all of the church fathers up until 1830 missed this little gem?" 

Church fathers like: Augustine, Athanasius, Ireneaus, Basil, Tertullian, Origen,Cyril, John Chrysotom, Justin Martyr, Jerome, or Hilary. 

Is it also possible that the theologians of the middle ages: Aquinas, Anselm, Abelard, Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli missed it too?

Lastly, is it possible that more modern theologians like Barth, Bonhoeffer, Bulgmann, Moltmann, Tillich, and N.T Wright missed it also?

Now it's your turn...

Creeping Lies of the Enemy

Ugh. Ok friends I can’t post out of nowhere without mentioning that we haven’t posted much in the last year(s).  I promise you, at any given time I have at least 5 blog posts floating around my head, waiting to get out.  I am just undisciplined.  I promise by summer, I’ll have at least 5 more for you (if we have any readers left).

For the past 6-8 months I’ve been experiencing a comforting renewal and regeneration in my faith life.  After a couple years of beating myself up about not being where I used to be, I finally let go of the times I was stronger and just accepted the now. No easy feat for someone who continuously wants to be better and do better in everything.  But I am not in a competition with myself, and no matter the crisis or tragedy that I previously overcame through Jesus, comparing myself to myself was getting me nowhere.  After a long dry season of feeling like God wasn’t speaking to me and wondering why I was more often a hot mess crying on my bathroom floor than pouring over my Bible and breathing in the truth of Jesus, somehow I let go.  Through deepened and almost constant prayer and stepping back my from my intense focus on my desire for children and subsequent pain of those unmet desires while opening myself up to the pain and needs of others,  I could finally hear God again. 

So as I was basking in my resurgence of faith I was surprised to find myself hit with lies from the enemy.  Lies that sound so true, it’s tempting to believe them. I was very tempted to return to my former place of wallowing- usually on the bathroom floor, because I thought Mark couldn’t hear my sobs and would just assume I was struggling with tummy problems and not pressing my face into a towel attempting to both muffle my sobs and drown out the pain.  Sobbing isn’t wrong, friends, but moving in and making camp in a place of wallowing to the point that Jesus seems like a distant stranger is.  I was beginning to believe that I had left such moments behind.  Until that Sunday.