Matthew Hartke describes himself on Twitter as a “Post-Christian Bible nerd endlessly fascinated with the historical Jesus and the origins of Christianity.” I had a bit of a debate with him a few years back in an Unbelievable podcast about whether Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet. I have some sympathy for his point of view.

This post follows up on a Twitter thread, in which Hartke argues that the most pertinent question regarding Jewish apocalyptic language is not whether it is literal or metaphorical but what “magnitude” of event was envisaged—I guess basically whether the event was on a historical or a cosmic scale.

Here are three missional challenges that the modern evangelical church needs urgently to get to grips with: 1) resist the extreme individualism and narcissism of western culture; 2) tell a compelling, up-to-date-and-beyond story about the living God, the communities that serve him in the name of Jesus, and where things are going; and 3) live out in public the radical and quite possibly uncomfortable consequences of that story.

Writing to Timothy, Paul (presumably) says that a woman should learn quietly in all submissiveness and not be allowed to teach and “exert influence over” (authentein) men because “Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and has come into transgression” (1 Tim. 2:13-14). I argued years ago in Speaking of Women: Interpreting Paul that the point here is not that Eve was deceivable but that the serpent deceived. I was given reason to reexamine this argument recently, and I want to add some further weight to it here.

Jesus did not tell moral fables. He was not a purveyor of uplifting Christian allegories that transcend time and space. He was a prophet in the mould of Isaiah or Ezekiel, telling disturbing, and sometimes deliberately disorienting, stories about the imminent impact of the kingdom of God on first century Israel. Very few, if any, of the parables have direct relevance outside of that historical context.

I rather overlooked the relevance of Jesus’ parable about an unforgiving slave in Matthew 18:23-35 for the recent debate about whether he interpreted the foreseen destruction of Jerusalem as God’s deliberate punishment of his people.

Much of Jesus’ Galilean ministry centred on Capernaum, so it comes as something of a shock to hear him denounce the city in rather forthright terms while things still appear to be going well. Admittedly, a warning note is struck early on when the faith of the centurion is taken as an ominous sign that “the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness” (Matt. 8:12). But by chapter 11 he appears to have written the place off completely.

I have argued that a “day of the Lord” in biblical terms happens not at the end of history but in history. It is a day when the God of Israel steps in to “judge” or “put right” a bad situation—to punish impiety and injustice, to deliver his people from their enemies, to re-establish his reputation among the nations, and so on. There is not one final day of the Lord, there are only days of the Lord—and we may be long overdue for one.