Ancient Paths Blog

The Rapture - Obsession or Encouragement?

Obsession

• The domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.

• Compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea, unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.

When I came to faith in Christ in my early twenties I soon became involved in churches which held to what is called dispensational theology - a way of reading the scriptures that sees God's plan of redemption divided into several epochs and phases called dispensations.

Dispensationalism, as it looks to the end times, describes itself as being pretribulational and premillenial - which means they see Christ coming to rapture the Church just before the tribulation and returning again at the end of that time to establish His 1000 year kingdom.

In most dispensational churches prophetic teaching in general and on the rapture in particular is more than an important topic, it is a fundamental belief, even a test of orthodoxy on par with the deity of Christ.

The Rapture - Ecstasy or Event?

Our Wednesday night Bible study has been going through Paul's letter to the Thessalonians in recent months.  This correspondence is unique in that it is chock full of material on the "end times."  It's also the only place that mentions the so called rapture of the Church - a doctrine popularized in recent years by Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" series of books.

It's interesting, by the way, the amount of draw this doctrine has relative to the very little that is said about it in scripture.  It's as if the rapture were the sum and substance of the Christian's hope for the end times.  One wonders if it would matter a whit to most Christians if Christ were part of it at all.