October 2020

Commentators often make interesting interpretive adjustments when they encounter certain words and concepts in prophetic contexts; they do not allow them to keep the meaning they have elsewhere. Our present passage in 1 Thessalonians furnishes two examples important for our understanding of God’s prophetic word: (1) Paul’s desire to be…

Christians! Let us adopt Paul’s view of the local church. Consider his words in the next section of our study of 1 Thessalonians: But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire…

Paul uses a striking image to describe the tribulation the church of the Thessalonians was experiencing. He says the Jews were “fill(ing) up their sins” so that God’s wrath could come on them. This imagery validates inmillennialism’s view of a two-phased tribulation: the preliminary tribulations and the final “great tribulation”/“wrath” that…

Paul had a perspective of the kingdom that differs from ours; in his day, God was calling the churches into the messianic-age kingdom. Now, the churches of Christ comprise that kingdom.  The prophets had foretold both the coming of the kingdom and the saints taking possession of it (e.g., Dan…

  According to the inmillennial prophetic model, the churches in Paul’s generation were in a unique situation: they were taking part in a New Exodus, a journey to the long-promised messianic (kingdom) age. This pilgrimage was the antitype of Israel’s original Exodus under Moses (cp. 1 Cor 10:1–11). Israel left Egypt…