Showing posts with label Joel Richardson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joel Richardson. Show all posts

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Who Is Left Behind? The Wicked or the Righteous?

I am not pretribulational, but I believe those who are left behind in Matt 24 are the wicked and those taken are the righteous.

Sometimes I get the sense that people want to believe that those who are taken are the wicked for judgment because they don't want to share the same view with the Left Behind movie on this point. There is another reason why interpreters have wrongly thought that those who are left are the righteous.

I am posting a video where I was recently interviewed on this topic. I don't intend to start an eschatology debate. My intention here is to bring to light some evidence that is practically ignored in the literature, both scholarly and popular. My point in this interview is to explain that the separation that occurs at the parousia depicted in Matt 24:31 is ignored in every discussion when this topic is broached.
“And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matt 24:31)
And yet, it is the most important point, because the illustrations of those taken and left behind are relating back to the parousia event. It is the whole point of invoking the illustrations, similitudes, and parables in the first place. In addressing this topic, so many interpreters begin by first going outside Matt 24, rather than first starting with the immediate context. 

I also bring to light some meanings of Greek words and correcting a certain bad rendering in many English translations.

Listen to the entire interview before drive-by commenting!






Friday, December 28, 2012

Joel Richardson, Tim Warner, and "The Time of the End"

Tim Warner of the Pristine Faith Restoration Society is the most recent date-setter. Warner has written the recent book The Time of the End, which is a Christian version of the Mayan prophecy. He concludes,
[My] new book The Time of the End provides a complete standard biblical chronology of the entire Bible based on these two calendars, showing that we are only about 2 decades away from the time of Great Tribulation.
Joel Richardson has enthusiastically endorsed Warner's date-setting book. I have responded to both here and here and here. Richardson did not like my criticism to another date-setting book with him deflecting away from the issue saying that I am unloving (as if Jesus and Paul did not have the freedom to be pointed with those who misled God's people). And Warner has responded to me—as predictably as any date-setter has in the past–with, "Read my book!" So according to Warner and Richardson we cannot discourage people away from date-setters until we have read their books. Wow. This is absurd. The fact that date-setting is discouraged by the biblical writers is good enough reason to reject it. Oh sure, Mr. Warner may claim, “I am not really a date-setter because (fill in the excuse).” But that is a shame that individuals feel justified to skirt around this biblical prohibition.