a Schatology and "What I Do Today"	3Back to Home

4 Navigation --------------- Homepage St. Matthew St. Matthew 2 St. Mark St. Luke St. Luke 2 St. John St. John 2 Acts of Apostles Acts of Apostles 2 --------------- The Letters --- Romans --- 1. Corinthias --- 2. Corinthias --- Galatians --- Ephesians --- Philippians --- Colossians --- 1. Thessalonians --- 2. Thessalonians --- 1. Timothy --- 2. Timothy --- Titus --- Philemon --- Hebrews --- James --- 1. Peter --- 2. Peter --- 1. John --- 2. John --- 3. John --- Jude --------------- The Apocalypse

IMPATIENT INQUIRER (who has been trying to get a word in for at least half a dozen pages): This eschatology is all very well, and no doubt very true. But what gets me is what all this has to do with my decisions right here and now. It seems to me that the more you get involved in all this "otherworldliness," the more irrelevant you become. If you are always concentrating on the "last things," or a Kingdom not of this world, aren't you bound to lose sight of the business of everyday living right here and now? This is a fair query. We shall deal with it in three ways, each time showing how they "got at it" in the New Testament Church, and then relating their answer to "here and now." 1. The fact of the matter is that the concern of the early Christians with the "age to come" made them live more responsibly in the present age. This is a fact. We can document it. Take Paul; at the end of his first letter to Corinth he has a long discussion of resurrection -- an eschatological symbol if there ever was one. From this he turns immediately to urge the Corinthians to take up a collection and send the money to the poor in Jerusalem. Not for a moment did he give his readers the option of thinking, "Eschatology is so important that we can forget our needy brethren." As a matter of fact, when some of his flock in Thessalonica did try to pull that line, saying that since the "end" was coming soon they wouldn't work any more but would expect free handouts from the church at mealtime, Paul dealt with this nonsense very sternly by writing to them, "If any one will not work, let him not eat" ( II Thess. 3: 10). Whoever wrote the letter to the Hebrews made the same point in the familiar eleventh chapter. The author stresses that here we have no continuing city, and that we are strangers and pilgrims on earth, but does he go on from this to conclude that we are to sit back patiently and wait for the great day with folded hands? Not for a moment. "Therefore [i.e., because of our eschatological situation], . . . let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us" ( Heb. 12: 1). "The race that is set before us" is right here and now. We have a job to do, and we are to get on with it, and no dillydallying around! Now our situation is not exactly the same as that of the early Christians. They were expecting an almost immediate return of Christ. We see now that this hope was misplaced -- Christ did not return, at least not in anything like the way in which they had expected. In our situation we must take account of what may be a long historical future stretching before us. We can live in the belief that the meaning of our life will be made manifest by God in his own good time rather than ours. Consequently, the lesson we can learn from the early Christians is that we must act as responsibly toward our situation as they did toward theirs. Since our situation makes it necessary for us to take strict account of the historical future, we shall need to do more than give to the needy or take care of our Christian brethren. We shall need to see that our Christian social responsibility is immensely broadened, that our eschatological concern, as we work it out in the practical realm of action, may involve us in a local fight for decent housing, or a foreign policy that is based on something more than mere military might. 2. To be concerned about such things takes not only power and conviction, but courage as well. And here is a second thing which the Early Church shows us. The Christian, secure in the eschatological hope, can live in this world with a kind of abandon or nonchalance. Listen once again to the way Paul puts it: If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living ( Rom. 14: 8, 9). These verses capture the mood of the early Christians perfectly. There was nothing to worry about. You could go about your activities in this world sure that nothing could harm you. If Caesar didn't like the way you were behaving, so much the worse for Caesar. He couldn't do you any real harm, for whether you lived, or whether you died, you were the Lord's and not Caesar's. Your ultimate allegiance to God freed you to live responsibly in the world and made it unnecessary for you to be frightened by "what might happen to you." Rather than dulling ethical responsibility, this kind of eschatological faith strengthened it. There is perhaps no perspective more needed by people who will live during the last half of the twentieth century. This is an age that a novelist calls "The Age of Longing"; that a poet calls The Age of Anxiety; and a journalist calls The Age of Suspicion. It is an age in which people are afraid to speak out for fear they will be branded as "subversive" or "red" or maybe only "pink," an age when people are afraid to join "causes" -an age, in short, when what is particularly needed is the kind of tough nonchalance that eschatological faith makes possible. To believe today, as the early Christians believed in their day, that "whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's," is to be freed and released for responsible, and courageous, living. 3. Christians are helped by this eschatological perspective to see what things are really important and need doing. A splendid sense of discrimination is developed. Paul saw, for instance, that to take eschatology seriously meant that you must revise your attitude toward possessions: If you buy anything, you should remember that you do not have it to keep. If you make use of this world's goods, remember that you have no chance to use them up, for the structure of this world is passing away ( I Cor. 7: 30, 31). And another early Christian writer saw that if eschatology has any real meaning it forces us into certain kinds of activities and concerns us rather than others. He makes it quite concrete and specific: The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be sane and sober and say your prayers; above all, have intense love for one another; be hospitable; and use your gifts in the service of God that he may be glorified in everything ( I Peter 4: 7-11, abridged). These are the things that are important. It is precisely because the "end of all things is at hand" that we must "have intense love for one another." To see the direction in which life is moving is to see more clearly than ever what things are important and what things need doing. Therefore, to take eschatology seriously is not to take ethical demands flippantly. The more seriously you regard your citizenship in the Kingdom that is not of this world, the more seriously do you find yourself engaged in the struggle within the kingdom of this world. Whether that makes sense on paper or not, the whole experience of the Early Church shows that it makes sense when lived. God conquers death God gives us the power to conquer The Only Real "Answer" A Question You Can't Avoid Some Current Answers -- a Dime a Dozen The First Part of the Biblical Answer What Is the "Image of God"? Some Consequences The Second Part of the Biblical Answer What Sin Is Supplying Some Documentation What Sin Is Not Getting Straightened Out How Can I Be Changed? The Third Part of the Biblical Answer The First Step After the First Step The Heart of the Matter Not Once and for All Some Hints for Growing -- Tried and Tested A Final Warning Why Isn't "Individual Religion" Enough? The Case Against the Church -a Bagful of Objections When Did the Church Get Started? Just What Is a "Covenant"? The "New Covenant" Becomes a Possibility Those Words of Jesus to Peter Those "Upsetters of the World" A Rebuttal of the Case Against the Church Why the Church? Last Judgment? Second Coming? What Do They Mean? The Inescapability of Eschatology The Point of Biblical Eschatology: History Is Going Somewhere The Dangers of Literalism Exploring New Testament Eschatology The Kingdom of God A Few Bits of Help The Gift of God Schatology and "What I Do Today" What Happens When I Die? Sheol -- Where God Is Not Present The Community of the Resurrection Paul's Attempt to Describe the Christian Fact A "Spiritual Body" The Facts of the Case I Try to Live a Good Life. Why Isn't That Enough? The "Micah" Variation The "Worship and Action" Variation The "Therefore" Variation The Biblical faith that God is the Creator