Reading Church History
If you know me you know I’m a lifelong learner and history has always interested me. Over the last several months I’ve read (or listened to on audio books) a variety of things on various periods since the work of Jesus Christ.
- I’m working on the book of 1 Thessalonians for our Adult Sunday School class. The church in Thessalonica had a very real sense of Jesus’ immiment return. Paul has to back them off of it a bit in his letters.
- The church in the Middle ages lived with real uncertainty. Life for many was hard, short and uncertain. From the sack of Rome to the rise and fall of empires to the black death, Europeans lived with the palpable expectation of Jesus’ return.
- Martin Luther, at the end of the Middle Ages believed that Jesus was returning soon.
And what better could he do than take the cowl? Men believed the end of the world already had been postponed for the sake of the Cistercian monks. Christ had just “bidden the angel blow trumpet for the Last Judgment, when the Mother of Mercy fell at the feet of her Son and besought Him to spare awhile, ‘at least for my friends of the Cistercian Order, that they may prepare themselves.’ ” The very devils complained of St. Benedict as a robber who had stolen souls out of their hands. He who died in the cowl would receive preferential treatment in heaven because of his habit.
Bainton, Roland. Here I Stand – A Life Of Martin Luther (Kindle Locations 379-383). Read Books Ltd.. Kindle Edition.
- The 19th century in America was filled with movements that expected the near immediate return of Jesus. Those that grew out of Christianity include the Jehovah Witnesses, the Seventh Day Adventists, the LDS Church, and others. There are also numerous examples of millennial type movements and ideas in numerous political and religious movements around the world.
- In the 20th Century many others came out and prophesied the end of the world both in Christian groups and sects and other religious groups most recently including ISIS.
Skepticism about Religious Prophesy or Future Spiritual Interventionists Continue reading →
