What is the rapture?
Reading Time: 6 minutesWhy we should believe in the ‘Rapture’ (from the Latin for ‘caught up’)
What is the difference between the rapture and the Second Coming?
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10023. The second coming of Jesus and the rapture of the Church are often folded into a single event, and that folding causes more confusion in prophecy than almost anything else I can name. Keep them distinct and the whole prophetic landscape comes into focus. Blur them and you will be forced to spiritualise…
Is the rapture taught in Scripture?
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10022. Critics love to say that the rapture is a nineteenth-century invention, cooked up in a British parlour and unknown to the church before then. It is a confident charge, and it is wrong. The rapture is taught in Scripture with a clarity that only a settled prejudice could miss, and I want to…
What are the signs of the times?
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10021. The phrase the last days stirs up more confusion than almost any other in Christian conversation, because people reach for it every time an earthquake or a war fills the news. So let me draw a careful line through the subject. The signs of the times are real, the Bible speaks of them…
What is eschatology?
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10000. Biblical eschatology is the study of last things, and it is far more than a hobby for prophecy enthusiasts with wall charts. The word comes from two Greek terms, eschatos, meaning last or final, and logos, meaning word or study. Put them together and you have the doctrine of the last things: what…
What does “all Israel will be saved” mean in Romans 11:26?
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10017. “All Israel will be saved” is one of the most argued-over clauses in the New Testament, and no wonder: five Greek words carry the weight of the whole debate about Israel’s future. Paul writes: “a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this…
What will happen when Jesus returns?
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10012. What happens when Jesus returns is mapped in Scripture with far more detail than most Christians suspect, and the map matters, because vagueness about the programme produces confusion about the hope. When Jesus returns to earth, He comes not as the visitor of Bethlehem but as the King of kings, and a rapid,…
When will Jesus return?
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10011. The return of Jesus is the most asked-about event in Christian teaching, and the question people actually put to me is nearly always the same one the disciples put to Him: when? Let me answer honestly from the start: I do not know, you do not know, and anyone who claims to know…
Why did Jesus ascend? Why not stay on earth?
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3041. The ascension of Jesus is the forgotten doctrine of the Christian faith. We celebrate the incarnation at Christmas and the resurrection at Easter, but Ascension Day passes most evangelical churches without a mention. Yet Luke thought it important enough to record twice, and Jesus told His disciples plainly that His leaving was not…
Where Is Jesus Now? Understanding the Session of Christ
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3021. Where is Jesus now is a question with a precise biblical answer, and theologians have a specific term for it: the session of Christ, His seated reign at the Father’s right hand following His ascension. This is not a vague spiritual metaphor. Scripture is remarkably concrete about His present location and activity. Let…
