Join us in our journey to becoming fully-devoted followers of Jesus!
Volume 69, Issue 19, October, 2017
Join us in our journey to becoming fully-devoted followers of Jesus!
In the aftermath of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, along with the wildfires in Montana and Oregon, several people have asked me if these events somehow play in to the return of Jesus. Some have even gone as far as to point out that we had the eclipse on August 21, Harvey made landfall in the U.S. on August 25, and August 26 the flooding in Houston began. Then they quote Luke 21:25-26 where Jesus speaks of signs in the sun, moon, and stars, as well as nations in anguish at the roaring and tossing of the sea, and then His return. What do I think about all this? First of all, the chapter and verse numbers in Luke are completely manmade and arbitrary. Stephan Langton created the chapter divisions in 1227 A.D., and the verse divisions were added in 1555 by Robert Estienne. They have nothing to do with specific dates on our current calendar, which wasn’t instituted by Pope Gregory XIII until 1582. The only connection Luke 21:25-26 have with August 21, 25-26, 2017, is that of coincidence. Secondly, I would say that we as Americans are rather self-centered. Natural disasters, wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and eclipses happen all over the world all the time. The fact that we live in a media-saturated culture leads us to believe that our U.S. issues are the only ones God cares about, because they’re the only ones we really care about. Meanwhile, the magnitude of regularlyoccurring disasters in third-world cultures would be staggering to us if we shared in them personally. Finally, even though I reject the notion that all natural disasters point to the soon return of Jesus, I do believe they point to the fact that we live in a fallen world that is waiting to be redeemed by our Creator God and His Son Jesus Christ who, at least according to Him, is returning soon. And while none of us knows the day or the hour, I pray that we’re all ready for Jesus to return at any time. 😊
Join us in our journey to becoming fully-devoted followers of Jesus!
In the aftermath of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, along with the wildfires in Montana and Oregon, several people have asked me if these events somehow play in to the return of Jesus. Some have even gone as far as to point out that we had the eclipse on August 21, Harvey made landfall in the U.S. on August 25, and August 26 the flooding in Houston began. Then they quote Luke 21:25-26 where Jesus speaks of signs in the sun, moon, and stars, as well as nations in anguish at the roaring and tossing of the sea, and then His return. What do I think about all this? First of all, the chapter and verse numbers in Luke are completely manmade and arbitrary. Stephan Langton created the chapter divisions in 1227 A.D., and the verse divisions were added in 1555 by Robert Estienne. They have nothing to do with specific dates on our current calendar, which wasn’t instituted by Pope Gregory XIII until 1582. The only connection Luke 21:25-26 have with August 21, 25-26, 2017, is that of coincidence. Secondly, I would say that we as Americans are rather self-centered. Natural disasters, wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and eclipses happen all over the world all the time. The fact that we live in a media-saturated culture leads us to believe that our U.S. issues are the only ones God cares about, because they’re the only ones we really care about. Meanwhile, the magnitude of regularlyoccurring disasters in third-world cultures would be staggering to us if we shared in them personally. Finally, even though I reject the notion that all natural disasters point to the soon return of Jesus, I do believe they point to the fact that we live in a fallen world that is waiting to be redeemed by our Creator God and His Son Jesus Christ who, at least according to Him, is returning soon. And while none of us knows the day or the hour, I pray that we’re all ready for Jesus to return at any time. 😊
