Scholarship • Serving • Ministry – Ian Paul
Yesterday I was the guest on the hour-long ‘Bible surgery’ on Premier Christian Radio, hosted by Maria Rodrigues and recorded over Zoom. It was the first time that I had worked with Maria, and she is a lovely person! Although the programme was an hour long, with songs and breaks my contribution was about 35 …
With the advent of Advent on Sunday (!) we make the move in the lectionary from Year C to Year A. So, after journeying through Luke all year, this Sunday’s gospel reading comes from Matthew, Matt 24.36-44. This short section of text contains some important ideas and images, but we cannot make sense of them …
How should we respond to forecasts of the end of the world and a coming apocalypse? Will there be a ‘tribulation’ and a ‘rapture’? And what does the Bible really say about the end of the world and the return of Jesus?
These questions keep swirling around—but it is not always easy to find sensible answers.
In this accessible study morning, we will look carefully at the teaching of Jesus, Paul and others in the New Testament to see what they really thought. It turns out that expectation of ‘the end’ was important to the first followers of Jesus—but in ways very different from what we might find in the latest Hollywood blockbuster.
There always seems to be a rash of ‘end times speculation’ material coming to us from across the pond. The latest one is all about the mystery planet Nabiru, the alignment of planets and constellations, and a bad misreading of Revelation 12—but we don’t actually need to worry about that one. Three years ago we …
The latest prediction of the end of the world, based on an ‘interpretation’ of Revelation 12, is that it will all happen at the end of the week on Saturday 23rd September. [This was first written in 2017. I now see that the linked video has been switched to ‘private’ to cover up the failure …
There seems to be a rash of ‘end times speculation’ material coming to us from across the pond. The latest one is from someone called David Jeremiah—which I guess is a good name for someone claiming to have power and to be a prophet! (Think about it…). I haven’t looked in detail at this one, …
There is going to be a flurry of interest in the whole question of ‘End Times’ in the autumn, as two films are released on the subject. The first is a remake of the ‘Left Behind’ film, based on the idea of the ‘rapture’ which forms part of J N Darby‘s dispensationalism, interpreted through the …
Like many, I had to preach on Mark 13 yesterday, though unlike most it was a dialogue sermon where I was asked (prepared) questions, and we then opened it up to the ‘floor’ for further questions. So I had to make my mind up about this passage! There are three main ways this has been …
Matt 24.36–41 is one of the two key passages used to teach the doctrine of the ‘rapture’, the idea that believers will secretly be taken up to be with Jesus at some point before his ‘return.’ (The other passage is 1 Thess 4.13–18.) But close reading shows that Jesus teaches no such thing. The passage …
