More Conversations with my Internal Hopeless Romantic

Shannon:         Well, are you guys going to the dance this weekend, or do you still not have a boyfriend?

Natalie:             Er, Mal’s never had a boyfriend, because boys aren’t very attracted to her –

Mallory:           Sing it!

Natalie:             – physically or personality-wise!

Mallory:           Oh yeah, I’m plain and dull, Shannon, deal with it!

Studio C, ‘Mean Girls’ (2014)¹

This is a suitably romantic picture, right?

Her:     Hey, um, listen – I’ve been thinking about that last conversation of ours…

Me:      Yeah, me too, actually.

Her:     Really? Wow. Shall we slot in a suggestion here that your readers might like to go and have a scan of that one for context before they proceed any further with this one? Because otherwise, this one isn’t going to make any sense at all.²

Me:      You just did.

Her:     So I did. Well, back to the matter at hand, then, I’ve been thinking about that last conversation of ours, and I’ve been thinking – do you really hate me that much?

Me:      Um –

Her:     Because, you know, you’re allowed and all; heck, you’re entitled to hold whichever opinions you please about the little facets of personality and thinking that hang out in your brain; you’re the boss, at the end of the day, however we might cause trouble and make it blooming difficult for you to act like it; but honey, some of what you said was really harsh.

Me:      Um, yeah –

Her:     And I get that you have to be that harsh with those of us hanging about up here who are relentlessly, irredeemably given over to causing you to walk according to the flesh instead of the spirit,³ but I hadn’t realised that you put me in that category. I knew you thought I was annoying and all, but I also thought you knew that I really do want the best for you.

Me:      Um, yeah, I –

Her:     Because I’m not inherently bad. It’s not a sin to want a romantic relationship. That sort of thinking was the mistake of early Christian ascetics who spurned anything vaguely resembling a material pleasure in the name of achieving a purer sort of spirituality – and that’s not a Biblical idea; it’s a Neoplatonist one draped with a veneer of Christian-ness.⁴ The flesh/spirit divide isn’t about immaterial stuff being inherently better than material stuff; on the contrary, material stuff is good and to be received with thanksgiving.⁵

Me:      Um, yeah, I know, honey.

Her:     You what?

Me:      I know. I’ve also been thinking about that last conversation of ours, and I’ve also been thinking that I was a bit harsh. I was a bit … reactionary. I made a good point, but I made it with excessive vehemence. I don’t really hate you that much.

Her:     Really? I’m so pleased to hear that, honey. I assume this means you’ll be taking my suggestions a bit more seriously from now on?

Me:      Ah. Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Her:     How many times do I have to tell you, the fact remains, if you want a romantic relationship, you’re going to have to form an attraction to somebody, and because you’re naturally completely rubbish at that, you’re going to need my help in order to –

Me:      Whoa, whoa. Backpedal a bit. Why, pray tell, is forming an attraction to somebody an automatic prerequisite for having a romantic relationship?

Her:     Well, it – it just is. What are you suggesting, that you’d be prepared to marry someone you had literally no chemistry with? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Me:      But for most of human history, in most human cultures, it’s been perfectly normal to marry people for reasons other than being uncontrollably head-over-heels in love with them. It’s been perfectly normal to look for a potential match within your limited social circle, and pick one you think would be a decent sort of human being to spend the rest of your life with – probably relying to a large extent on the suggestions of your parents, incidentally.

Her:     Oh, honey, shut up. Arranged marriage? Seriously?⁶

Me:      I’m just pointing out that your idea that substantial romantic attraction must necessarily precede any initiation of a romantic relationship is not a universal one. And even if it’s pretty pervasive in our society in terms of the stories we tell, it isn’t pervasively practised in real life. How is being introduced to someone with a view to considering whether you might like to marry him or her, really that different to, say, being set up, or even using a dating app?

Her:     But –

Me:      And, just to put some icing on that cake, marrying someone for a reason other than having fallen head-over-heels with that person is also very Biblical. That chapter I quoted at length last time to prove that singleness is the ideal also says the following: “because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.”⁷ It doesn’t sound terribly glamorous, but ‘because of the temptation to sexual immorality’ is actually a perfectly good, Biblical reason to seek a spouse. And let’s be real here, you live in my head; you know that that’s a reason that applies to me as much as most people.

 

Some very skilful icing on a rather appropriate cake.

Her:     But – I mean –

Me:      And finally, consider this: if it’s truly your ambition to get me into a romantic relationship, wouldn’t it make your life easier to have that prerequisite of substantial romantic attraction removed? You spend all your time trying to get past that obstacle, and I don’t make it easy for you; suppose you could bypass it altogether.

Her:     But – I mean – if we were to bypass it, and skip straight to trying to form a romantic relationship without cultivating the attraction first – what would that actually look like, in practical terms? How would you go about it? What would you do?

Me:      Well, I don’t know, do I? I don’t deal with that sort of thing. I thought that was your job.

Her:     Oh. Um, yes, well, I suppose it is sort of my remit, really – nobody else up here seems to have any ideas, at any rate – but – but, honestly, honey, I don’t actually know either.

Me:      Huh. I suspected as much.

Her:     See, if you could just cultivate an actual romantic attraction for someone, I’d know what to do…

Me:      Of course you would. Confessing romantic feelings is easy. Well, it’s not easy, but it’s at least straightforward. The course of action to take is obvious. I don’t need your help to figure that one out.

Her:     So here we are again. You have no need of me. You have no desire to ever pay me any attention. Turns out you do hate me that much after all.

Me:      Nah, I don’t. I agree with what you said about yourself: you’re not inherently bad. It’s not a sin to want a romantic relationship. Nor is it a sin – and I think this is a key thing that needs tempering or nuancing about what I said last time – to take actions designed to help you get one.

Her:     Well, that’s obvious. Nobody would ever end up in a romantic relationship if nobody was prepared to do anything to make that happen.

Me:      Yeah, it is obvious, but I think I slightly implied last time that the only non-sinful approach to the matter is to wait for a romantic relationship to just fall on you from the sky or something. What was it I said – “I do not need your so-called help to attempt to engineer things one way or the other”?

Her:     Uh-huh, that was it.

Me:      Yeah, that was potentially not brilliantly phrased. The major thing that I’m getting at there is that singleness is a valid and desirable option, which you refuse to acknowledge as such. And what I’m also suggesting on the side is that your particular manner of attempting to help engineer the alternative option is not very helpful – because, as we’ve just seen, it relies on one specific route to entering a romantic relationship, namely forming an attraction which might then be confessed. Ironic that the only route you can come up with is one to which I am not by nature at all readily disposed. The world calls what I’m like ‘demisexual’, apparently, but I personally consider the usefulness of labels in this sphere to be quite limited.⁸

Her:     All right, honey, so the situation is, I’m a bit rubbish but you don’t mind me sticking around as long as I behave myself?

Me:      Quite. Frankly, there are few facets of personality and thinking hanging about in my brain about which I’m any more positive than that. Count yourself privileged.

Her:     But if you don’t want me to help in the only way I know how, why exactly is it that you want me around?

Me:      You know that point you made earlier about Neoplatonism? That was a nice one. You can keep doing that sort of thing. You can even keep trying to persuade me that it would be a good idea to pursue a romantic relationship, if you like, but you’re probably going to have to come up with some practical advice as to how if you want anything to happen on that front.

Her:     You’re still on the fence about whether you want one, then.

Me:      Pros and cons, honey, pros and cons. It is still true that whether I ever have one or not, everything that happens will be for my good and God’s glory. He may spare me temptation or he may grant me the strength to resist it; either way, my duty is the same: to seek his kingdom first, to love him and my neighbour. At some stage, it may prove to be a good and prudent manifestation of that duty to pursue a romantic relationship.

Her:     “A good and prudent manifestation of that duty”? Dear me, honey, could you have phrased that sentiment any less romantically?

Me:      I doubt I could. Separated from you, I’m not sure I’ve got a properly romantic bone in my body – and you never know, my romantic side may come in useful at some point. Stick around, honey; I may have need of you yet.

Footnotes

¹ I love this sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm1AI3lp0Fo. The quotation doesn’t actually fit this post that well in terms of the actual sentiment expressed, but it’s so funny and I really wanted to stick it in my blog at some point.

² You’re looking under ‘2017’ then ‘December’ in the box on the right.

³ You know, I sometimes forget just how much there is in Romans 8: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8&version=ESVUK.

⁴ Check out the paragraph beginning ‘the view that one ought to deny one’s lower desires’ in this article, for instance: https://www.britannica.com/topic/asceticism#ref150035.

⁵ This concern is addressed by Paul in 1 Timothy 4: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy+4&version=ESVUK. Note that he specifically identifies marriage as a good thing in this category, and the requirement of abstinence from marriage as a false teaching.

⁶ Here’s a really interesting article about a lady who created a board game based on arranged marriage and received some surprising reactions: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-43376355. Some credit is owed here for my last point in the next paragraph, too.

⁷ It’s 1 Corinthians 7, of course: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+7&version=ESVUK.

⁸ Here’s a pretty accurate and readable intro if you’re unfamiliar with the term: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/demisexuality-what-is-it-sex-orientation-emotional-relationships-physical-a7912661.html.

Verifiably False Doctrinists

“There’s something I don’t understand. Our parents were in VFD, but so was Olaf – so is VFD a noble organisation or a wicked one?”

A Series of Unfortunate Events S2 E10 ‘The Carnivorous Carnival: Part Two’ (2018)

Credit is due to whoever decided on the points at which Netflix’s adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events¹ was to be split into individual series; with thirteen instalments to play with, various options were certainly possible, but the one chosen makes for some pleasingly neat storytelling. The biggest mystery set up in ‘The Austere Academy’, the first story of Series Two – namely, to what do the mysterious letters VFD refer? – is resolved in ‘The Carnivorous Carnival’, the finale of the same series. Well, I say ‘resolved’; there’s plenty left that the three Baudelaire orphans don’t know, because that’s one of the key themes or motifs or plot drivers of the whole saga, but they at least find out – here be spoilers – that VFD stands for Volunteer Fire Department, and that the aforementioned Volunteer Fire Department is a secret organisation which uses codes and disguises and a special sort of miniature telescope with a Swiss-army-knife-esque range of capabilities, and to which a host of people the Baudelaires have encountered belong (or belonged, since most of those people have now died in unfortunate circumstances). Their parents were in it. Their former guardians Montgomery Montgomery and Josephine Anwhistle were in it. And the repulsive villain Count Olaf, who has been scheming to get his hands on their fortune by whichever unscrupulous means he thinks might work since Episode One, is also apparently in it.

 

I don’t imagine these firefighters are volunteers, but you never know.

This revelation explains rather a lot. It explains why a secret passage runs from under the Baudelaire mansion (or the site where it was before it was razed to the ground, rather) to the lift shaft of an apartment block whose penthouse is owned by Esmé Squalor, Count Olaf’s girlfriend. It explains why Jacques Snicket, who was doing his very best to help the Baudelaires and their cause until Count Olaf murdered him, had the same tattoo on his left ankle that Count Olaf does. It explains why the various costumes in Madame Lulu’s back room, where the Baudelaires found the documents that informed them about VFD, bear remarkable resemblance to the various costumes with which Count Olaf has disguised himself at various times in order to evade the authorities. What it doesn’t explain is how individuals as noble as the Baudelaires’ parents could have belonged to the same society as individuals as wicked as Olaf and Esmé. The trappings are the same – the tattoo, the costumes, the special VFD spyglass – but the behaviours, the purposes, the values, are so vastly different. So which side represents the authentic version of what VFD is supposed to be?

That’s the question Klaus Baudelaire asks Madame Lulu, aka school-librarian-turned-Volunteer Olivia Caliban, as per my opening quotation. “Jacques said there was a time when VFD was noble,” she replies. “They were dedicated to putting out fires, literal and figurative. There was a schism. You know what that means?”

Klaus does, of course, because he’s very well read. “A division between members of the same organisation.”

Olivia nods. “One side decided it was better to start fires.”

So then, the organisation is supposed to be a noble one, but some of its members diverged from that authentic mission of putting out fires and started to do the opposite. They are completely opposed to what VFD truly stands for – and yet they still bear its trappings. They still have the tattoos and the costumes. They still know the locations of the secret passages and the correct code phrases. They look as if they belong to the organisation, to enough of an extent that an outsider might suppose that the whole organisation were as wicked as they are. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognise them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thorn bushes? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognise them by their fruits.² – Matthew 7:15-20

 

Grapes, not on a thorn bush. Oh dear, I really want some grapes now.

A false prophet bears the trappings of a real one. He looks like a Christian; he knows the right things to say. How can you tell whether he belongs to the authentic strand of the Church, or the divergent strand that’s completely opposed to what the Church truly stands for? Jesus tells us: by his fruits. Logically, a plant only produces fruits according to what kind of plant it is – vine or thornbush, healthy or diseased. That much is straight out of Genesis 1:12, as well. What a plant produces reveals which sort of plant it is.

But what does that mean once you step out of the metaphor and start trying to apply it to human beings? What are these ‘fruits’ Jesus is talking about – these things that a false prophet produces and may be identified by?

Well, it’s always a good principle, when one wants to know what something represents in the Bible, to check out the contexts in which it shows up in the Torah, given that that’s the exegetical core of the whole business. Most of the references to fruit (פְּרִי, p’rī) or producing fruit (פרה, prh) in the Pentateuch are, predictably, about literal fruit, or about increased numbers of human beings; the first instance of a metaphor similar to Jesus’ in Matthew 7 that I can find comes from this chunk of Deuteronomy:

For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we passed through the midst of the nations through which you passed. And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, which are with them. Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the LORD our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poison and wormwood, and when he hears the words of this oath, he blesses himself in his heart, saying, peace shall be mine, though in the stubbornness of my heart I walk – to sweep away the watered with the dry.³ – Deuteronomy 29:16-19

Here, then, it’s really, really clear what the metaphor means: a plant that produces bad stuff stands for a human being who is minded to serve gods other than the LORD; more specifically, it stands for a human being who looks at what God has said and thinks he’s going to be fine if he persists in indulging the inclinations of his own heart. This fits with the whole false-prophet thing: bad fruit isn’t being ignorant of what God has said, but rather knowing what God has said, choosing to follow your own ways instead of his, and declaring a blessing over your decision. A false prophet bears the trappings of authenticity in that he’s aware of God’s revelation of himself, just like a real prophet would be, but he is identifiable as false by the way he refuses to be changed in accordance with that revelation. He is identifiable by the way he does what he feels like, instead of what God commands – thereby committing idolatry – and yet assumes that it will be well with him.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen “by their fruits shall ye know them” used as if it meant that we can tell whether or not a ministry is faithful to God by whether or not it’s ostensibly successful: did a lot of people show up and pray the prayer, kind of thing. Ostensible success, however, is categorically not a good indicator of faithfulness: if it were, the vast majority of the prophets in the Old Testament would have to be relabelled as false ones.⁴ No, the kind of fruit Jesus was talking about was just obedience, faith in practice. There are going to be guys who talk the talk, he says – who bear the trappings, who know the code phrases – but you’ll be able to tell they’re not the real deal by their failure to walk the walk.

In a way, it’s just obvious, really. At the end of ‘The Carnivorous Carnival’, Count Olaf sets the whole carnival premises alight, destroying all the documents in Madame Lulu’s back room along with everything else on site. He might bear the trappings of an authentic Volunteer, but the fact that he’s going around starting fires instead of putting them out shows that his allegiance is not to the true mission of VFD.⁵ Likewise, if someone who bears the trappings of an authentic Christian is nevertheless going around advocating following her own ways instead of God’s – putting forward something other than Christ’s death and resurrection as the means of salvation – that shows that her allegiance is not to the true mission of the Church.

Outsiders who don’t know the nature of the group might witness the wicked activities of its false members and consequently wonder whether the whole group and its cause isn’t likewise wicked – like Klaus wondered about VFD. Those of us who belong, however, and know what our community’s true mission is, and that it is noble, can tell the true members from the false ones by whether or not they pursue that mission. We can tell false prophets by the fact that, although they know what God says, they don’t let it shape their lives, and don’t see anything wrong with that.

We’re going to encounter false prophets – that much Jesus assures us of – and the more experience we have of good fruit, the more easily we’ll be able to tell the bad. So let’s strive not to make the mistake of blessing ourselves as we walk in the stubbornness of our hearts, but rather to cling to the truth that blessing and peace are only ours because Jesus shouldered the punishment for all our stubbornness and idolatry, and, by gifting us his own righteousness in exchange, changed our nature so that we can bear good fruit instead of bad. An altogether Fortunate Series of Events, wouldn’t you say?

Footnotes

¹ It’s well good. I recommend: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80114990?trackId=13752290&tctx=0%2C0%2C6e24fb47-f7c4-4b21-86db-1d40811c331c-7688944%2C%2C.

² Whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+7&version=ESVUK.

³ Again, whole chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+29&version=ESVUK. You’ll have spotted that my translation differs slightly: I felt it was a tad misleading to stick with the ESV’s ‘bitter fruit’ for ‘wormwood’, in that the use of the word ‘fruit’ implied an even tighter connection between the two passages I discuss in this post, and once one has made one change, that sort of opens the floodgates for a host of others. My rendering is, predictably, clunkier.

⁴ Consider, say, Isaiah 6, where God explicitly tells Isaiah that nobody’s going to listen to his prophecies: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+6&version=ESVUK.

⁵ And I couldn’t very well leave without giving you a link to this hilarious song about Count Olaf, now could I? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsS3reVFLJI

Actually, Yes, Your Eschatology Does Matter

Sarah Jane:       And it’s Mrs. Wormwood?

Wormwood:      That’s correct.

Sarah Jane:       As a matter of fact, that’s in the Bible, Wormwood – the book of Revelation. At the end of the world, it describes a star falling to Earth and poisoning the waters – a star called Wormwood.

Wormwood:      Fascinating. Shall we move on to business?

The Sarah Jane Adventures S1 E0, ‘Invasion of the Bane’ (2007)¹

 

So the reason this picture works is because the SJA episode quoted above involved aliens trying to take over the world using a brand of orange fizzy pop, so combine that with the idea of something falling into the water, and there you go.

I think middle-class British evangelicals² generally behave as if it doesn’t matter very much what sort of view we take on eschatology. I think we’re kidding ourselves to a dangerous degree.

Eschatology, in case you’re not as much of a long-word nerd as I am, refers literally to the study of the last things, and in Christian theology to the understanding one takes of what’s going to happen at the consummation of the age (as the New Testament calls it) or the day of the LORD (as the Old Testament calls it). In other words, after now, then what? What’s the next stage in God’s plan for his creation?

It’s a topic the scriptures have plenty to say about, but the trouble is that there is profound disagreement over how the passages in question ought to be interpreted. And I suspect it’s at least partly for this reason that the specifics of eschatology aren’t talked about much in church. I’ve been lucky in that my experience of church at least since I came to university has been one where the fact that Jesus is going to come to earth again is mentioned quite a lot; by contrast, numerous ladies now part of the congregation in question have told me that when they were younger, they barely heard anything to that effect from the pulpit. But still, that basic doctrine itself is rarely accompanied by any actual detail, even when the passage being preached on seems keen to supply some. Someone asks a question, So does such-and-such represent such-and-such? only to be told, Well, the really important thing to get out of this passage is [insert the most basic doctrine you can think of; ‘God keeps his promises’ or something of that ilk]. And I’m not saying it’s never a good idea to emphasise an overarching point at the expense of a more minor one, or that there’s no value in being reminding of basic doctrine again and again and, indeed, again, but I'm thinking of scenarios where everyone in the room was a mature Christian: there should surely have been space to deal with the text in greater depth.

So why don’t we talk about eschatology in church? Well, for one thing, as I already mentioned, because it is so controversial, and we’re worried we’ll end up disagreeing with our brothers and sisters - as if some degree of that weren’t necessary in order for us all to progress to a fuller understanding of the gospel. Also because it’s weird, in that the day of the LORD inherently represents the collision of a natural world with which we’re directly familiar and a supernatural one with which we’re not, and we’d rather not have to confront that - as if locking this jazz up in a box of taboo subjects didn’t colour it as even weirder and more difficult to deal with than it was already. It’s a vicious cycle: we don’t talk about it, and so it becomes something we don’t talk about, if you catch my drift. The guy up the front won’t address it, because he doesn’t want to force his own particular views on the folks in the pews; but all that that achieves is that the folks in the pews never get any teaching on it, and don’t have any tools to evaluate people’s particular views when they come across them. (Another reason why church shouldn’t work like that – but that’s a matter for another time.)

And an inevitable side effect of all this - or equally, given the whole vicious-cycle thing, a contributing factor - is this common understanding that it doesn't actually matter very much what sort of view one takes on eschatology. If nobody in the church is talking about it, it can’t be that big of a deal, right? And so why bother wading into the controversy and the weirdness when you can just smooth over those obscure passages filled with odd details about the day of the LORD by saying, Well, the really important thing to get out of this passage is…

But if we’re in that mindset, we’re kidding ourselves. We’re disregarding truths that our Lord has explicitly told us it is important to understand (more on that in just a moment). We’re cheating ourselves out of a fuller and more awestruck grasp of God’s character and purposes. And we’re also running the risk that we’ll end up conducting ourselves foolishly in our everyday lives, because our view of the endgame has a profound impact on what we think we ought to be doing now.

I was recently out for dinner with a bunch of theologians,³ and the conversation somehow wandered onto the topic of certain Christians somewhere in the world who are so convinced that the day of the LORD is coming imminently that they neglect to take care of their children, because they don’t see the point in bothering if Jesus is going to show up any second now anyway. And yes, there’s a lot else in scripture that one would have to be ignorant of (or choose to ignore) in order to get from the doctrine to the behaviour, but the behaviour is still a result of the doctrine. Or similarly, think of all the believers throughout history who have tried to set up God’s kingdom on earth themselves - often with violence - because they took an eschatological view according to which their doing so constituted a necessary part of the proceedings for the ushering in of Jesus’ return. Again, their eschatology had a massive impact on the way they lived their lives.

Please note that the issue in cases like these is not merely whether Jesus will return or not. Granted, there are people who call themselves Christians and yet live their lives and sometimes even explicitly talk as if the day of the LORD is never going to arrive, but that’s a (more severe) problem all of its own, and it’s not what I’m addressing here. Cases like the above demonstrate that what we believe about the manner of Jesus’ return, and not only whether we believe in the mere fact of it, does influence our present behaviour. They also demonstrate that getting this stuff wrong can lead to a lot of harm to other human beings, which is a totally rubbish witness of the love of Christ to the unbelieving world, not to mention a deplorable sin in and of itself.

And maybe this is another reason why we don’t talk about eschatology – because we’re aware of the kind of damage that can result from people being keenly subscribed to certain eschatological views, and it seems safer just not to situate ourselves in any particular camp. It seems safer to brush aside the issue by saying, Well, the really important thing to get from this passage is ...

But it isn’t safer, not by any means. In which other area of doctrine would we ever cherish and uphold that kind of uncertainty and ignorance? Do we not place enough importance on the revelation of himself and his purposes that God has given us to try to understand what it is saying about the coming day of the LORD? And I do think that a reluctance to try to figure out what’s going on with eschatology reveals a certain disdain for scripture, because scripture is about as blooming clear as it could possibly be that it really matters that we understand this stuff.

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray … when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place” – let the reader understand … - Matthew 24:3-4, 15

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep … for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. - 1 Thessalonians 4:13, 16-18

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or by a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction … 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place … Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. – from Revelation 1:3

I’m not saying that having a correct understanding of eschatology is a necessary condition for being a born-again believer or anything – that would be ridiculous given that we can only begin to understand this stuff once we’ve already been granted the Holy Spirit – but I do think, as I say, that an awful lot of British middle-class evangelicals are kidding ourselves to a dangerous degree by behaving as if, provided we agree that Jesus is going to be returning at some point, it doesn’t matter what sort of view we take on the particulars. Eschatology may be a ‘secondary issue’, but so are an awful lot of the issues that we do talk about in church; just because they’re secondary to the fundamental tenets of salvation, doesn’t mean they aren’t still issues. And on top of that, I think you’ll struggle to find another secondary issue about which the Bible so emphatically urges its readers not to be uninformed or deceived.

All right, so let’s imagine for a moment that I’ve persuaded you, O Obliging Reader, and you’re keen to start figuring out this eschatology jazz, but you’re not sure where to start given that nobody talks about it in church. To you I offer a couple of fairly obvious pointers, which apply not only to this issue, but any other question of spiritual importance about which you feel underinformed:

1)     Read your Bible. And read it again. And assume that it means what it says. And make connections: I honestly think that if we knew our Old Testaments properly, we wouldn’t have very much trouble with the complex imagery in Revelation. And, of course, ask that God would grant you understanding. And don’t be disheartened if obscure passages in obscure minor prophets don’t suddenly spring into total clarity: the better you know the Bible, the more connections you’ll see, and the fuller a picture you’ll begin to understand.

2)    Get opinions. Ask your good Christian friends what they think. Raise this stuff in small-group Bible studies of relevant passages (and there are a lot of relevant passages, so you shouldn’t have to wait too long; praying for opportunities is also legit). Read commentaries.⁴ Look up terminology those commentaries use that you don’t understand. You’d be amazed how much you can learn even from random strangers on the Internet. And if you’re raising an eyebrow at that last possibility – well, that hardly seems a reliable source – then allow me to clarify: don’t mindlessly believe every opinion you gather, which you won’t be able to do anyway, because they’re bound to contradict each other. Rather, test everything against scripture: when you look at the passage in question, can you actually see what so-and-so claims is in there? Does this idea align with the fundamental tenets of salvation? Does it fit into the broader picture of God’s purposes that you’ve been busy striving to discern in ever greater detail, as per my previous point? Are you convinced? And if you’re not, keep digging and thinking and wrestling. It is not going to be a quick and easy process, but it is going to be a God-glorifying one, because you will be testifying that you think what he says is important enough to be worth your time and effort, your fascination and your frustration; and because, in striving to make sure that no one will be able to lead you astray concerning these things, you will be obeying what he has asked of you.

I pray that God would grant us all a fuller understanding of these things of which he has said we are blessed if we read, hear, and keep them; that as we understand more, so might we be more awestruck at and adoring of who he is; and that we would consequently conduct ourselves in a manner that both befits the coming of his kingdom and proclaims it to the world.

Footnotes

¹ The whole run of SJA is currently available on iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b006qgb3?suggid=b006qgb3. You’re welcome. Oh, and thanks as usual to Chrissie’s Transcript Site and NowMyWingsFit.

² This is my best stab at defining the distinct church subsection of which I have had the most experience in the past few years. Other subsections may be similarly afflicted, but I can’t really speak for them.

³ We were at Oddfellow’s: https://theoddfellowsbar.co.uk/. It was very yummy – on the pricy side, but that’s probably at least partly a result of their commendable commitment to buying local.

⁴ Oh, were you expecting a footnote recommending a commentary or two? Nope, sorry, I just wanted to mention that the Babylon Bee’s take on different views about the thousand years described in Revelation 20 is very funny: http://babylonbee.com/news/bee-explains-different-viewpoints-end-times/. Like, maybe don’t start there, but I actually found it surprisingly useful for making sense of some of the stereotypes and pitfalls associated with each position.