Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10154. Practical eschatology is not a phrase you will find in Scripture, but it describes something the New Testament does constantly: it tells us about the future and then immediately tells us how to behave on Monday. Prophecy in the Bible almost never arrives without an application attached. That is worth saying, because end-times…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10153. The blessed hope is one of those expressions that has been said so often in Christian circles that it can slide past the ear without registering. Paul used it once, with great precision, and he attached it to a very specific event rather than to a general optimism about things working out. What…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10146. Whenever a new invention arrives, some part of the Christian world immediately maps it onto prophecy, and modern technology has been identified as the fulfilment of end-times passages more times than I can count. Barcodes were the mark of the beast. Then credit cards were. Then microchips, then smartphones, then digital currency, then…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10145. There is an eschatological tension running through the New Testament that trips up almost every new reader of the Bible sooner or later. You are told you have been saved, and then told to work out your salvation. You are told you possess eternal life, and then told to lay hold of it….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 19. Why are so many Christians still spiritual infants after years of faith? It troubles me, and I suspect it troubles you, that so many believers remain spiritual infants long after they should have grown up. They have been in church for a decade or more, they love the Lord in their way, and…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10111. Scripture names five heavenly crowns promised to believers: the imperishable crown, the crown of rejoicing, the crown of righteousness, the crown of life and the crown of glory. They are given at the judgement seat of Christ, they are rewards for service rather than payment for salvation, and they end up back at…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10110. The Bema seat is the judgement seat of Christ, where believers will stand to have their service assessed and rewarded. It is not a trial to determine whether we are saved. That question was settled at the cross and received by faith, and no Christian will ever face it again. What happens at…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 10092. Wars and rumours of wars have marked every generation since Jesus spoke the phrase, and every generation has been tempted to read its own headlines as the final act. I have lost count of the conversations that begin with a news alert and end with the question, is this it? The question is…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10081. The doctrine of imminence is one of those phrases that sounds like seminary furniture until you notice how much of your life it touches. Put simply, it means that the Lord’s coming for His Church could happen at any moment, that nothing in prophecy has to occur first, and that no believer is…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10063. Are there degrees of reward in heaven? Scripture answers yes, and it does so often enough that I am always a little surprised how rarely the subject is preached. We are so anxious to protect grace from any hint of earning that we quietly drop a whole strand of New Testament teaching about…