The Study of Last Things

Currently our Bible study group is studying eschatology, or the study of last things. To be honest, this has never been a topic I have been incredibly interested in. For one thing, it is very confusing. Secondly, it is a non-salvific issue (what you believe about this issue doesn't impact your salvation), which automatically makes it at least a secondary issue in my book, so it hasn't been high on my list of priorities. However, there were enough people in the group interested in the topic to do it.

I must begin by saying that Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology has been an incredibly helpful resource. It is a book I think all Christian homes should have on hand, along with a good concordance and Bible dictionary. The notes we have been using as an outline come almost exclusively from his section on The Doctrine of the Future.

It has been very interesting to learn which aspects orthodox Christianity agrees on and which it does not. It has also been very interesting to see the relatively few verses that all the different groups are arguing over and how unclear much of it is. It should certainly give all sides a level of humility and "holding-loosely" to their positions.

Basically, there are three main orthodox positions: Amillennialism, Postmillenialism and Premillenialism. I have heard of another view, Preterism, which believes that everything happened about 70 AD, but I haven't read enough about it to know if it another orthodox option or some form of heresy. FOr the sake of our study, we have excluded it.

I will give a description and some of the highlights of the positions in a future post.