Sunday School | Q&A with Tim on Bible Part I

Introduction

I hope that you have some questions that you wanna ask me because if you don't, we're just gonna stare at each other for forty-five minutes and it's gonna get awkward. What we're going to be doing is a recap of what we have been doing, but first, let me do one real quick announcement y thing. You might want to look at your calendar. I want to tell you what's coming in Sunday school because I generally do a horrible job telling you about what's going to be coming.

So here's the deal. We finished Revelation last week. Today and next week, we're going to be doing New Testament review. And then on April 28, Will and Becky are gonna be back from Cambodia. So they're gonna take over my class. So we'll hang out with Will and Becky. The week after that, this is really important for you guys, on so you might wanna jot this down. On May 5 and June 2, we're not gonna be having my class. We're instead gonna be using this space for VBS training. So we need a there's a million people that we need to volunteer and are volunteering, and so they have asked to take over this space and this time. So you can come. In fact, come and you can volunteer. But May 5 and June 2, there'll be no class.

Okay? So it's going go like this. New Testament summary this week, New Testament summary next week. Then Will and Becky on April 28. May 5, no class for VBS training. Then I'm going to do a little short mini-series, like two weeks, very short, basically on Barbie, the Barbie movie, and feminism. It's going to be two weeks, and it's going to be really fun, and I think you should come. If you have the opportunity to watch Barbie before then, you should watch it, and I'll tell you we'll talk more about it. We're going to show some clips. Think there are some really surprising and powerful insights in that movie, and we're going to talk about it. So that will be May 12 and May 19. Then on May 26, there's no class because it's Memorial Day. And then June 2, as I said, is going to be VBS training. So this is a bunch of weird stuff. Okay? So, in summary, we have two weeks of New Testament review, Will and Becky on April 28, no class for VBS on May 5 and June 2, then two weeks on Barbie and feminism, Memorial Day on May 26, and VBS training.

That's what we're going to be doing. And what we're doing today is a New Testament summary. So let me give you a little more context of that.

The New Testament Walkthrough

If you haven't been here for about the last several months, we've been doing a walk through the entire New Testament. My contention is that we can and should be very well read in the New Testament. Typically, you know, your Bible is going to vary a little bit based on how big the words are, but, you know, it's about 250 pages, the New Testament. It's about 250 pages. So if you make a commitment to read 10 pages a day, which is not that ambitious, you can read the whole thing in less than a month. If you don't have time for that, do five pages a day and you can be done in fifty days. You could start today and you could read the entire New Testament and be done before May. You could just hammer that out. It wouldn't really be that difficult for you.

And if you do that, I think the payoffs are huge. So in support of that, what we've been doing is looking at each book of the New Testament to kind of give you some, like, hey, here's what you might look for. Here's a couple of things that'll help that journey be not quite so much like you're walking through the woods, but more that you've got a map.

If you do it, my recommendation is that you go Luke, Acts, Romans. Luke gives you a very historical baseline to meet Jesus. Then Acts is Luke’s part two. It's his own sequel. So you get about thirty years of Jesus' life and then the first thirty years of the church in Acts, and then I would go to Romans because that really is the theological foundation. Luke, Acts, Romans as a foundation.

And then I would read anything you want. Just read a handful of books, you know, two, three, four letters. And then go back and read another gospel, read five or six letters of gospel, five or six letters, Hebrew, and then the fourth gospel, and then save Hebrews and Revelation to the end. Because they're just complicated and weird and they're maybe better saved until you've kinda gotten some of the other stuff built up.

So Luke, Acts, Romans, and then alternate letters and gospels, and then end with Hebrews and Revelation. That's what I would suggest you do. And if you do five pages a day, it's going to take you fifty days. So write it on your calendar. I'm going to do this.

How long is fifty days? Say. And I'm just going to be done with that. Or do it in twenty-five days if you want to. Right? That's my, that's what we've been advocating for. And in support of that, we've had a lot of classes. Well, twenty-seven. Or more than that because we've got two. But there's twenty-seven books in the New Testament, maybe three of these books we did two weeks on. Hebrews, I think we did an extra week. And you can find all of those things online. If you missed a class and you want to get any of these overviews, just go to chsroanoke.com. You can find our discussions.

And then up here, John is digging through this accordion file thing. We've got all of them. They're all up here. They will always be up here. And if we run out, I just replenish this every week. But there's a whole bunch. So if you're missing one or you want one, you can come grab them. And I'll just keep this. It's always in that closet there.

We'll have that as we kinda go forward. But the set is done. And if we run out, we'll just print more. Okay? Makes sense?

Alright. That's the extent of my prepared remarks. So anything from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, all the way to Revelation is up for grabs. There may be something you read that you didn't understand. Maybe something that I've said that you disagree with. I love being disagreed with. So we can have that dance, whatever you want to do. It really, genuinely, will get awkward if you don't have questions.

And then if, but if you, we don't, if this turns out to be a total bust, then I'll come up with something else to do next week. But if we have an abundance of questions, we run out of time, we'll do it again next week. So the New Testament was wide open.

Questions and Responses on Various Topics

Gary? My question is about one of the parables of Jesus in Matthew chapter 13. Okay?

He says it's a parable from my Bible, it's called the tares among the wheat. Yeah. And he says, at the end of the age, he's gonna send the angels and they're gonna take away all the people who commit lawlessness first. And this seems like direct conflict with rapture theory. Yes. Okay?

So Gary Gary took a left turn at the end of that question. So Matthew 13 is a very parable-rich chapter. The whole thing is just story, story, story, story, story. Lots of parables jammed into Matthew 13, the way that Matthew has organized it. Within that, there's a story about the weeds and the wheat. And essentially the point of that story is that the farmer sows wheat, and then up among the wheat grows weeds. And the thing about weeds is they look a lot like wheat. And we might want to go weed his garden, and he says, don't. Why? Because you're too stupid. Because you might pull up wheat while you think you're pulling up weeds.

And he says, basically, don't do that, just wait. The angels will clean that up at the end of the game. Okay? That's what's going on in Matthew 13.

But Gary very cleverly was using this as an entree to ask about rapture. Okay? So here's what this is. So the rapture. The word rapture is a Latin word. It's taken from the Latin Vulgate, the Latin translation of the New Testament. And it is based on, as Gary alluded to, 1 Thessalonians 4. Okay?

So in 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul is talking about Jesus' return. And he says, let's see, 1 Thessalonians 4 is largely about this. We'll pick it up at verse 13.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

What's happening here, we probably have always assumed that you're gonna die before Jesus comes back. And like, maybe you're like, maybe maybe he'll come before I die, but you kinda figure everybody else has died, you're gonna die too. This first generation of Christians did not have that assumption. They thought Jesus was coming back like right now. And so when Christians started dying before Jesus came back, they're like, oh, how's that gonna work? Like, and their fear was that, like, when Jesus comes back, he'll take us to be with him. That's gonna be great. But if you die before he comes back, do you miss it? Like, what how does this work?

And Paul says, no problem. When Jesus comes back, he will both raise the dead and he will gather us to be with him. It's going to be fine. In fact, the dead in Christ will rise first. Right? They have six feet further to go, so they get a head start. Right? And then Jesus comes back and we all will be with him.

But then he says this, first Thessalonians 4, where are we at, 16?

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive, people that haven't died yet, and are left, will be, here it is, caught up, in Latin that is raptured, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage each other with these words.

Now, that phrase caught up in Latin, the rapture, the catch, you know, the catching up, that was understood in a particular way for most of the history of the church. About a hundred years ago, a different perspective was offered to explain that, that became very common, certainly in an American church.

And it is the idea I'll give it to you what you probably heard first, and then I'll tell you why I think it's mistaken. The idea that is popularized by Tim LaHaye, although he is by no means the originator of this idea, but for the last, you know, like I said, last hundred years, there is a system of thought within evangelical Christianity that says that what this means is that we're going to be hanging out, living our lives, and then zoom, zoom, zoom, all the Christians just kind of get sucked up off the earth and we're gone.

Generally, we picture this when they leave their clothing behind. I don't know where that came from, but that's just the idea, you're just gone and you're gone. This is not actually describing the second coming of Christ, this is describing kind of the 1.5 coming of Christ. The second coming will be seven years after this, but there is this moment where all the Christians just get taken away and gathered off, and that that's what's being described in 1 Thessalonians 4.

If you've ever read a Left Behind book, if you've ever seen any of those TV shows or whatever, then that's kind of the popular representation of that. And in a lot of church contexts, to deny that is like deeply, deeply troubling because this is what the Bible says, and so we should believe what it says.

I deny that wholeheartedly. I think that is a, I think that the way that is generally taught is false and misunderstood.

So, does Matthew 13 work against rapture theory? Well, I think that's a little bit of a tenuous connection, but I think other parts of Scriptures, including 1 Thessalonians 4, speak against rapture theory. Here's the reason. This word, if we usually, I will draw this on a board. Okay? So here's what here's what Paul says. Okay? When Jesus comes back, we will meet him when he comes. Okay? Now, there's two ways that Paul ends the story before the scene really ends. The scene cuts before it's resolved, and you're a people imagine how that story will conclude. So here's what's gonna happen. Okay? I gotta go up.

So, Jesus is back, and I'm gonna go up. Right? I was going to do this. Alright. So, so I'm high. Right? So me and Jesus are hanging out in the sky together. Now at this point, somebody is going to do a U-turn. Agreed? Either Jesus picks me up and does a U-turn and we go back to heaven for seven years while, like, you know, hellfire breaks out on the earth, or I do a U-turn and escort him in.

But we're not going to stay here forever. Do you agree with this? Somebody is doing a U-turn. Now, you look at the text, if you look at 1 Thessalonians 4, it does not resolve the U-turn. It simply says, we meet the Lord in the air and we will be with him forever. And it leaves ambiguous if Jesus does the U-turn or if I do the U-turn.

I want to suggest to you that I'm doing the U-turn, and so are you. That the idea that we're gonna get caught up away for seven years, I don't think scripture supports it. I'll show you the second most common passage on this, but I don't think it's true. The word here, if you look, you don't, if you're looking at like a blue letter Bible or something, then you might notice this thing—the thing that says, we will meet the Lord in the air. Also in verse 17. That word there for meet is apenthesis.

And if I were to look up, I am doing it right now. If I look up the word apenthesis, that we will meet the Lord in the air, the Greek word is apenthesis. It shows up three times in the New Testament. The other two times, unambiguously, it means somebody important is coming into town, and then somebody relatively unimportant goes to meet him and escort him in. That's what the word means.

So in Matthew 25:6, it's the whole story of the, you know, the virgins, they're trimming their lanterns waiting for the bridegroom to come. They go out to meet him, and when they meet, their job is to go meet him and then to be part of the escort back in. The other place, and they traveled as far as the form of Apheus and the three taverns to meet Paul, and then they escort him into the city.

At the very least, 1 Thessalonians 4 is ambiguous, but I think the tie leans toward that we're coming back. Not only that, every other marker in 1 Thessalonians 4, all these things that are happening during this catching up, during this rapture, during this meeting, every one of those markers also shows up in 1 Corinthians 15.

And 1 Corinthians 15 is unambiguously about the return of Christ, not the almost return of Christ. Right? There's this—the idea within a rapture framework is that Jesus already came once; that's over. He's coming again sometime, and somewhere in between these two, he's going to almost come. He's going to bounce off the atmosphere and go. Right? I don't think he's coming two and a half times. That one of the—like this rapture thing, everything that is described around that moment is also what is described in 1 Corinthians 15.

If you just go—you just go through me reading like, ding ding ding ding ding ding ding—it is his second coming. And his second coming, he is coming to the earth. He's not going to bounce off the atmosphere and leave. He's coming all the way. We will meet him, and we will escort him in. Okay? That's 1 Thessalonians 4.

Now, the second thing you need to do is look at Matthew 24.

Diane? Underestimating that Christ can put us back together again?

Okay, so let me pause that. We'll do that. Let me finish this, and then we'll come back to cremation. So if you have a question about cremation, we'll do that in a second. But let me show you the root passage on the rapture is 1 Thessalonians 4. Just notice, at the very least, there's something ambiguous about who does the U-turn. I think that U-turn very clearly leans away from Tim LaHaye's version and into what I'm telling you.

The second most common passage on this might be Matthew 24. So go to Matthew 24, and I want you to see this.

Matthew 24 is also very commonly cited in support of this idea that we're gonna be taken away, you know, for like seven years before Jesus really comes again. And the basis of that is this. We'll start at verse 37.

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. From the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark. And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Here is the punch line. Two men will be in the field, one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill, one will be taken and the other left.

And so that's very almost, you know, cartoonishly represented. Know, we're just two people are hanging out doing stuff and then zoom—the Christian's gone, leaving a pile of clothing behind. And it's just going to be very sudden.

Have you heard that? Have you ever heard that cited as evidence of the Rapture? Yes? Okay.

Here's the problem. Once again, there's an ambiguity that is not often acknowledged. Which one gets taken? Is it taken in rescue, or is it taken in judgment? It just says one will be taken; it doesn't say which one will be taken.

So, at the very least, you have to grant that it's ambiguous—that it's unresolved. But if you just look up, like, one verse, the ambiguity is resolved. I think it's a very clear case.

Listen again to what I just read. Verse 37,

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. There was something about the flood that's instructive for the return of Christ. Something that was true then will be true in the future.

So let's take a look at what it is. For in the days before the flood, people were eating, drinking, marrying, given in marriage, just doing normal stuff. Just going about your business, doing normal things. Maybe you're in a field, maybe you're grinding with a Hindle, you're just doing normal stuff, and they knew nothing about what would happen until, and note the language here, the flood came and took them all away.

Were they taken in rescue or in judgment? Perfectly clear—they were taken in judgment. They knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Two men will be in the field, one will be taken, and the other left. What is the likelihood that in one verse span, Jesus completely inverted what he was talking about? He's saying there was something about the flood that is instructive about the return of Christ. And the thing that he specifically identifies that was instructive about the flood is a sudden taken in judgment, and he says, so it will be when I come.

There will be a sudden taking in judgment. Do you see it? So the two central texts that are used to teach this kind of pre-millennial dispensational theology, if you care—and it's okay if you don't—but that says it's 1 Thessalonians 4 and Matthew 24. I think they're both just simply misunderstood.

So there will be, we will greet him, we will escort him in, but both of those two passages are teaching something other than the way they're generally taught. And so I don't believe that what Tim LaHaye taught in his Left Behind series is reliable or a true take on these things.

Jeremy? Just to back up what you're saying right there, there's also the parallel in Luke 17 beginning in verse 26. It talks about what happened in those days of Noah down to Sodom. Then, as you go all the way to the bottom, it truly defines that also the body that's taken is dead.

Yeah. So, yeah, so you've got, if you're looking at Luke 17, so this is called, by the way, the Olivet Discourse. This is a basically a discourse, a conversation that Jesus had on the Mount Of Olives. It shows up in Matthew 24, it shows up in Luke 17, Mark does it too, but I forget where.

But you see that parallel here. Verse 34, I tell you on that night, two people will be in one bed, one will be taken and the other left. Two will be grinding together, one will be taken and the other left. Now, he doesn't make as plain how it's going to play out as it is in Matthew. Luke just doesn't include those details.

So what do you see, Jeremy, in the Luke version that's clear? I feel like the Luke version is more ambiguous than Matthew. Is there something, a clue there that you're seeing?

Well, what happened—what's a clue for me—is in verse 37, where 12:36, two men will be in the field, one will be taken, and the other left, and responding they said, where, Lord? He said to them, the body is, there also vultures will be gathered.

Oh, so you're saying that just kind of has this connotation of judgment?

Well, yeah. But what but from a historical perspective, Josephus actually records that it was actually when the Roman army surrounded Jerusalem, and their shields looked like an eagle, considered a vulture in that day and time.

So, yeah, so what Jeremy is describing—this is complicated, this would be its own whole class—but the Olivet Discourse, Matthew 24, Luke 17, are talking about two different things in ways that are somewhat hard to disambiguate. Is that the word? It's hard to separate them out.

He's talking about both the coming judgment in AD seventy when Jerusalem gets sacked, and his own second coming. And sometimes we look at those two things and have a hard time distinguishing which one has already happened, and which one has not yet. So some of the invoking, like the destruction of Jerusalem in seventy AD, that was a foreshadowing and a partial fulfillment of what will happen when He someday comes again. That's a whole big long thing to unpack.

Cremation and Resurrection

Now, Diane, you talked—you asked about cremation. Certainly, when Jesus comes back, and he raises from the dead all those who have fallen asleep in him, some of us will be freshly dead, and some of us will have been dead for millennia. Right? And those that have been dead for millennia have long since disintegrated. Right? Some of those who are freshly dead have bodies that are more or less intact. Some of us will have bodies that have been cremated.

And so none of those—there is no scenario that's going to be a problem for him. There's no—it’s not as if, and you know, some of our bodies got thrown off a ship in war and have been eaten by fish, and it's just dissipated. Any number of things will happen to our bodies. There's nothing that He won't be able to redeem and to resurrect. That's going to happen across the board, not just for believers but for unbelievers. All the righteous and the unrighteous will be raised, some to everlasting life and some to judgment.

All of it, he can reconstitute us without any difficulty.

Awesome. However, Christians historically never burned their bodies. Not because we're trying to do him any favors. It's not like, hey, I can make this easy on you. That's not—that's never been the perspective. But we've always buried our bodies because we honor the body. It's a way to say this is coming back to life. It would be more like an Eastern pantheistic world that would burn their bodies, have funeral pyres.

It is a novel phenomenon that Christians would burn their bodies, and it's entirely economically driven. It costs like $12,000 to bury somebody, which is kind of insane. Right? So I don't think that there's any material difficulty with God raising a cremated body, but I do think it is worth Christians considering the messaging of how we honor our bodies, even the bodies of the dead, in anticipation that we will be raised like he will be raised.

Right? So it's more a theological and philosophical reason that I think Christians should consider burial over cremation, but there is no practical difficulty for a cremated body to be raised.

Alright. Jesse? Was Saul and his sons being burned? Judgment. For sure. So, yeah, absolutely. So we bury, I mean even like with Abraham's bodies, not only did he want to be buried, but he wanted his bones collected and moved. There's an enormous honoring to the bodies of the dead.

So, when you see in the Bible somebody's body being burned, that's a judgment, that's shame, that's not an emulatable thing. That's very like—it's pretty consistent. I say Christians, Jews, I mean, it starts with the Jews. They honor, we honor the body. It's just very different.

It's really—a whole big point. I understand it economically, I completely understand it. But it is a, it's a new feature that Christians would even consider burning their bodies. It's a strange twist within the history of the church.

The New Testament and Love

Now, in the New Testament, Alex? Killed or something about it, and they put coins in their eyes, and their bodies? I don't know. Maybe that's true. I don't know if that's true.

I'm sure plenty of—in war, there's all sorts of difficult, you know, difficult things. You've got a field of 40,000 bodies laying in some field. I imagine there's all sorts of things that happen. But I don't know about the coins. There's a lot of things I don't know. But generally speaking, we honor bodies. I'm sure there's practical solutions. Like I said, drop them off into the ocean—that's another thing. If somebody dies at sea, that's commonly going to happen too.

Yep, Zach? New topic. New Testament. Let's go.

I once helped reconcile, yeah. I want to reconcile that. Okay. So, is there a contradiction? I just want some public.

Sure. Okay. So, is the—is the antinomy there, the apparent contradiction, that some places we are told to give away our money, some places we are told to store up our wealth for our children? Which is it? Is that kind of how you are feeling it?

That's the idea of society. Some Christian society is like, the only way to heaven is we are born.

Yes. Some, though, the best giving you can do can happen when you have a 22.

Yes. Okay. Great. Excellent. Let's go to Mark 10.

Okay. Mark 10 is the rich young ruler, and you guys will recognize. If you go to Mark 10:17, it says this. We'll just take a look at what's going on here.

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. Good teacher, he said, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus responds, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Now, Jesus is not denying that he is good, but he is absolutely raising a conversation of what is good? Why do you call me good? What's your definition of good?

Verse 19, Jesus says, you know the commandments. So the guest says, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus says, you know the commandments. And then he just gives a subset of them, the easy half.

You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.

This is like the human side of the Ten Commandments. You know, the first four are Godward, the last six are manward, and he just gives them the bottom list.

And then in one of the most absurd things in the Bible, this guy responds in verse 20, Teacher, he declared, all these I have kept since I was a boy. Okay? Nuts. Just so stupid. Okay?

So Jesus says, you want to go to heaven? Just live a perfect life. And the guy is like, Yeah, man, check, check. And Jesus responds, look at what it says, Jesus looked at him and loved him. That means that he looks at him with some sense of like, You silly, silly boy. Bless your heart.

Jesus looked at him and loved him, and then he says this, One thing you lack, just one thing, go sell everything you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me.

Basically what Jesus is doing there is this guy has come to him and he's like, hey, what do I need to do to have eternal life? And Jesus said, just, you know, just obey everything. And and that's the purpose of the law. We're told to look into the law to see the standard, that we'll say, is there an alternative? Is there a plan b? Do you curve the test? How does this work? Because that is never going to work for me.

And instead, this guy is like, yeah, man, check, check. And so Jesus looks at him, sees him in his absurd arrogance, and he's like, oh, well, good for you. I forgot—I forgot how easy this is for you. So, I mean, come the boys and I were getting on the bus in like an hour. Just great. Just come. Oh, one more thing, just real quick, this will be easy for you. Just sell all you own, give it to the poor, and we're heading out of town. Right? He basically is calling his bluff. He's like, so all you do all day long every day is consider the good of others above the good of yourself. Your whole life is oriented away from selfishness and toward the blessing of others. Well then, shoot, I guess, oh, this would be easy for you. Just sell everything and we'll go.

And the man goes away sad because he had great wealth. Okay?

And I think what we're going to take from that story, Zach, is not that Jesus is telling everyone that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, you must become materially impoverished. Rather, he's telling a very particular—he's using poverty, wealth, and poverty, to a particular person to say, do you not see how you have a distorted vision of yourself? That you evaluate yourself far more highly than you ought, you act like this is easy, and if I were to give you this one thing, which PS, Jesus did sell all that he owns.

Right? Jesus is the only guy that's really fulfilled that command. Right? Nobody else even comes close. He's so he's not telling us everybody has to sell everything they own. We are gonna be told in other places that we are to be generous people. Right? But the New Testament is filled with wealthy people who use their wealth for the good of the kingdom.

Right? Lydia makes her money selling purple cloth, and she's a wealthy woman, and she has a home, and her home becomes a base camp for the church. She didn't sell her house. She kept her house, but she used her house to the benefit and blessing of others.

So we, some perhaps, are going to be inclined to too much generosity. Some perhaps could impoverish themselves in a way that would be foolish. But the vast majority of us are more likely to be tight-fisted.

So the New Testament will advocate for a life of radical generosity, but this passage here in Mark 10 is not saying that you can't go to heaven unless you sell all you own. It's just simply exposing, helping this particular person see the real condition of his heart in a way that we should also look at that and recognize how do I treat my material possessions, and could it be that I am not as righteous as I think because I am not as generous as He wants me to be?

Is that cool? Alright, very good. Couple more if you want. Questions? Anything? The whole New Testament is up for grabs.

Where am I at? Yes.

As opposed to, like, the unbelieving world?

Yes. Okay.

Yeah. So, first John, all of John's favorite words is love. Right? You see it in his first epistle. You see it in all three of his epistles, and you see it in his gospel, maybe not as much in Revelation. I don't know. I'm not aware. Love in Revelation. I don't know. But John loves the word love.

And over and over and over again, he's gonna talk about love. Love, if you if you recall from 1 John, his purpose in 1 John is to answer the question, how do I know that I'm really a Christian? What is the evidence that I'm in him? He says, I write these things to you, believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know you have eternal life. He wants them to be like, okay, I did some really stupid things yesterday, my heart is condemning me, but it's okay because if I zoom out and I see the big trend, we are moving more towards him, and I really am in him.

It's writing to reassure. And one of those lines of evidence that he provides is the way that you love your brothers. Right? He's gonna say, if you really are going to obey, you're going to love, you're going to have the Holy Spirit. These are the three main lines of evidence. And the one that he picks, or one of those three things that he hits, and the one that you're touching in on, is in particular a love—not just for the world, but a love for believers.

This is absolutely a feature, it's not unique to John, it's all throughout the New Testament. We are to love our enemies. Right? We are to love our neighbors. We are to be a people who are loving writ large, but just like Jesus loves his bride in a particular way that is just—he, he this, this rich young ruler that we saw in Mark 10, Jesus looked at him and loved him, but there's no sign that this guy ever comes to faith. Now maybe he does, I don't know if he does, but it doesn't happen on camera, if it happens at all.

Jesus loved him, and we can look at anybody and say that God loves you. We can live out kind of the the imperative of the gospel to show love to unbelievers, to show love to our enemies. But, I love Kelly differently than I love anyone in this room because she is my bride. Right? And Jesus loves his bride in a particular and distinctive way. And so also, we are to love the bride of Christ in a particular and more pointed way.

Right? So Paul is gonna say, here's another way that Paul jumps on this train. Go to Galatians. Let's see. It's the end. Bear with me.

We can race to find it. It's either 5 or 6, probably 6.

Galatians 6:10. Here's the way Paul kind of captures this idea.

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

So, we are to be loving to believers and unbelievers, but in particular, we are to love the body, just like Jesus loves his bride. Good enough?

Okay. Alex. It says in the Bible, I don't remember the verse, but Christ says, take up your cross and follow me daily. When he says that, what exactly does he mean by taking up your cross?

Great. So, guys, race with me here. Take up your cross. Where is that? Probably in all the synoptics. We're on a race. Whoever wins, wins.

Matthew 16. What's your verse there? 24, you said? I think it was 24:16. Okay. Let's see. Yeah. Here we go. We'll start here.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life from me will save it.'

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? What can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Now, Alex, when we hear that, we associate Jesus with his cross because he was crucified. When Jesus said this, he hadn't been crucified. And he told his disciples what was going to happen, but they were like, what are you talking about? Obviously you don't mean what you just said, so I don't know how to make sense of this.

Right? So when he said, you must take up your cross and follow him, they would not at that time have known what in the world that meant. It might have even just passed through their mind without really gripping.

But he means what he means is the cross is the method of death. He's saying, if you want to follow me, you have to be willing to die. And that's not just the death at the end of your life, but it is the habit of dying little deaths all the time. That in this particular moment, I could give in to this temptation, and that would be so fun and so satisfying, and I want to, but I'm going to choose to deny that.

I'm going to die to that temptation, and I'm going to choose to live in a way that he wants me to. I could keep my money, I'm going to give it away. I could enter into the gossip, I'm going to walk away. All these different opportunities we have, that I'm going to make a decision to, and his next phrase here is to deny myself.

He says, whoever wants to save their life will lose it, whoever loses their life for me will find it. That's going to happen once at the end of the story, but it's going to happen 10,000 times every day that we walk with him.

Scott? You wanna speak to that?

Probably. I mean, the synoptics have an enormous amount of overlap. So Mark 10 is the place to find it. And is there more insight there that he says that adds any flavor, do you think?

Mark 10. Oh, I see. It's right there in the same passage of Mark 10. My brain didn't connect to Mark 10. So the Synoptics, I have a hard time separating out where things are in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. So it would be the same passage, same zone as the rich young ruler story, for sure.

One more question. It's 10:43. We do one more if you want to. You got one?

Yes. And how Noah's family was carried away before God's wrath was poured out. And then I think it was last week we were discussing it in terms of, like, Moses and the plagues. And so there were part of the plagues in the beginning that God's, that the Hebrews also experienced, and then some of the plagues towards the end were directed just at the Egyptians. Can you kind of speak to where are those passages? What people are referring to with the Mid-Trib, or are there other passages without that?

Okay. So when we break down, if we try to organize different views on eschatology, last things, the end times, there's multiple questions that get asked and answered. The first general organizing question is: is Jesus going to come back before his thousand-year reign described in Revelation 20? Is he going to come back after the thousand-year reign described in Revelation 20 because that reign is figuratively taking place through his church?

So there is pre-mill, He is going to come back pre the Millennial. There is post-mill, He is going to come back after the Millennial. This is based on a couple of verses in Revelation 20. Or the third view is amillennial, which is there is no Millennium—that you're taking Revelation literally, and you're not supposed to do that, dummy.

That's that. I'm over here in the amill camp. Okay? But, if you answer that question pre-mil, then the second question on your outline is: when is the tribulation going to be?

So, a pre-mill, pre-trib would mean that I believe Jesus comes back before his thousand-year reign, which is a literal thousand-year reign, and then I believe that right before that happens, there's going to be a very specific seven-year period of tribulation. And with that tribulation period, it's just going to be really rough—the rapture, I don't believe any of this is true. I'm just explaining the paradigm.

The rapture is either going to come before the tribulation, in the middle of the tribulation, or after the tribulation. So if you're premill, then you're pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib. Okay? And the question here is: what does the Bible have to say about that?

And what the Bible has to say about that is that there's more than seven years of tribulation. Right? Like, the whole time from the first, like, we live in such a funny little, happy little American, you know, bath of tepid waters. But they've been killing Christians for centuries. Right? There have been Antichrists for a long, long time.

So, do I think that things will go from bad to worse? Yeah. Absolutely. Right? And I think things are gonna get better. There's this—it's both—things are getting better, things are getting worse. That's always been the case. I don't know how the whole math of it is going to work out.

It's not at all surprising if, before Jesus comes back, there's more opposition because before Jesus comes back, we're going to fulfill the great commission, and that's going to annoy some people. So there will be this kind of tribulation. Will Christians go through the final tribulation? Well, they've been going through tribulation from day one. We just happen to live in a very safe part of the story, at least so far. But who knows? That could be breaking down before our very eyes. And we could be all kinds of misery that lies ahead. But I think that Christians suffer all sorts of difficulty from an unbelieving world, but what we don't suffer is the wrath of God.

The purpose of 2 Peter 2 and Jude, if you go back and look at those conversations, is that, listen, God is able to judge these and rescue this. He's able to bring me, and you, and all of us, and rescue us from that. I think that will be true up until the time that Christ comes back as well.

So I don't think there's a—I'm not in the pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib camp because I don't believe in a rapture. I don't think it's going to happen. I think that when He comes, He comes, and it's go time, and we're all going to be there when He comes. But when He comes, we're not going to face His wrath because we are hidden in His Son.

Right? The very end of Psalm 2 says, kiss the son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. He is, for those who are hidden in him, a strong tower, a place of refuge, and He will be—dreadful to those who refuse to come under His gracious rain—they will cry out for the rocks to fall on them to hide them from the wrath of the lamb. But not us, for we are hidden in Him and His blood was shed for us.

Okay. Here's my question. We’ve got to go to church. Do you—okay. I don't have time. Do we want to do this again next week, or do I need to prepare a lesson? Will you guys come with some more questions?

Okay. We'll do it one more time, and then there's all the funny weeks off that I told you about. That is all for now. Thank you.