Eschatology
Who are the 144,000 in Revelation, historically speaking?:
Kevin DeYoung asks, “Who are the 144,000 in Revelation?” Are they a remnant of ethnic Jews who are left behind after the rapture, who will evangelize the Gentiles, as presumably dispensationalists would argue? Or does this symbolic number stand for the “entire community of the...
(23 Jan. 2012)
The curse of patriarchy and the hope of new creation:
What impressed me most in Daniel Kirk’s discussion of the place of women in the story of God was his argument that the church is called actively and concretely to realize in the present a future new creation in which it will be unnecessary for the man to rule over the woman.
There are two...
(20 Jan. 2012)
The parable of the two houses and the apocalyptic storm:
In a brief exchange with Daniel Kirk about the apocalyptic character of the story that is being told in the New Testament I touched on Jesus’ parable of the two houses, which is found at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7:24-27). We usually understand this passage as a description of...
(17 Jan. 2012)
Free e-commentary from Robert Gundry (and the clash between Christ and Caesar):
Baker Academic is promoting a new series of “ebook shorts” from Robert Gundry by offering his commentary on Ephesians as a free download for a period of 24 hours on Monday 9th January. You can get it from Amazon, CBD and Barnes and Noble. This is what the publisher says about the...
(8 Jan. 2012)
How do we get our names into the book of life?:
My Kindle book Hell and Heaven in Narrative Perspective is selling like hot mince pies on Amazon, which is quite a bit less than hot cakes but much more festive. Can you think of a better way to make a loved one very happy at Christmas for just $3.29 (or the equivalent in pounds and euros)? One...
(23 Dec. 2011)
Kindle book: Hell and Heaven in Narrative Perspective:
I have collected together most of the stuff that I have posted on this site on the subject of “hell” and life after death in a new Kindle book called Hell and Heaven in Narrative Perspective. Much of it was prompted by the controversy surrounding Rob Bell’s book Love Wins: A Book...
(7 Dec. 2011)
A second question about annihilationism:
This is the second of two questions about annihilationism. The first had to do with the origins of the argument that the “hell” language in the New Testament refers not to suffering after death but to historical events interpreted as divine judgment, which could be quite unpleasant...
(1 Dec. 2011)
A question about annihilationism:
A couple of questions were sent to me recently regarding my view on “hell”. I have blogged far more than I ever intended to on the subject over the last year, mainly because Rob Bell’s Love Wins put the Emergent cat among the excitable Reformed pigeons. I take a rather...
(30 Nov. 2011)
Empire and the completion of Israel's story:
I suggested in my post on N.T. Wright’s inaugural lecture at St Andrews that the lines of Jewish narrative converge not at the end of history but “on the moment of the concrete victory of Israel’s God over the powers of paganism, which historically speaking is the conversion of the...
(9 Nov. 2011)
Why N.T. Wright's narrative of Jesus is not narrative enough (reflections on the inaugural lecture):
In his recent inaugural lecture at the University of St Andrews Tom Wright talks about his leading concerns about the state of Gospel studies. In particular, despite generations of redaction criticism and narrative criticism, he remains unconvinced that that “the main message of the gospels...
(7 Nov. 2011)
