Let us talk about boxes, the kind that people fit into.
We are to the point of learning regarding eschatology that I need to mention certain words. Inevitably when I mention these words I will immediately be shoved into a box. These boxes have names, they are easy labels to attach to systems of belief, that allow the hearer to immediately dismiss the ideas being presented as “wrong doctrine” or the presenter to be dismissed as “one of those people”.
I hate boxes. I am not a box person. After a person has “boxed” me, I will very likely say or do something on purpose to make that person remove me from the box I was so quickly sorted into. Given that I guess that makes me a contrarian, but then that is a box, and I would be forced to agree. (Think about it…………I will wait)
These boxes that we will be talking about all have good things in them. If you take from just one of these boxes and only one, you will miss out on some great stuff in the other boxes. There are some great teachers in each one of these boxes. I like to reach into them and learn from all of them, which would undoubtedly irritate them, but there you go. Each of these teachers can use Bible verses to convince you that theirs is the only box that is correct. What does that mean? That means that none of them can use the Bible to absolutely prove the others wrong, they can cajole, argue, get snotty, get snooty, get rooty, get tooty, er……sorry.
What it really means, is we are not talking your personal salvation, we are dancing around the edges. The stuff we are going to talk about is not spiritual life and death…what we call a closed fist issue. There are great teachers who disagree with each other. That is okay. It really is. This is interesting stuff that we will be talking about, but your neighbors still need to hear about Jesus. That much is certain.
Boxes next, then the good stuff.
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