Wisdom from N.T. Wright
The lead article of this edition of Currents is about the rapture. We know, historically, that it is an invention of a man named Darby in the 1830's in Britain. The article concludes with a call to give attention to the background of ideas.
That could also be said about our understanding about the, related, end times. When Jesus comes back. Let us get rid of ideas about Great Aunt Nettie dancing the cha-cha in heaven right now. There is no biblical foundation for that idea.
Similarly, we have inherited false notions from the Greeks about where heaven is and many other erroneous ideas. I like the way N. T. Wright challenges these notions in this week's reading.
"We are called to live at the overlap both of heaven and earth--the earth that has yet to be fully redeemed as one day it will be--and of God's future and this world's present. We are caught on a small island near the point where these tectonic plates--heaven and earth, future and present--are scrunching themselves togeter. Be ready for earthquakes!" On Earth as in Heaven, page 176.
