May 21, 2011 – Joel 1 - 2

It is kind of interesting that we have a chapter or two on a very serious plague or series of disasters that will befall at the end for today because of all the hoopla that surrounded the end of the world talked on Saturday. Obviously it didn't occur the way people said it was going to, but that didn't stop people from talking about it or thinking about it. I don't know a whole lot about the rapture talk and were it comes from or what it actually is described as, but I do know that it has many different forms and many different explanations. I also know that the only really concrete thing the Bible says about the end days is that no one knows when it will happen. So really when someone says that the end is coming on a certain day all they're really doing is guaranteeing that it will not happen on that day, which is quite humorous.

It's my understand that rapture theology is very new relative to even Christianity, and even the Reformation. And the whole idea of that believers will be taken away so that they will not have to suffer through the tribulation does not appear to be a truly Christian understanding. We see here in Joel that God allows the transformation through suffering, through the plagues, through the exile. It is only through suffering that we achieve a pure and closer relationship with God. The whole idea that there will come a point when believers will be taken away so that they do not have to suffer on Earth and will go straight to heaven doesn't correlate with the understanding that suffering here on Earth brings us closer to God. God does not allow us to suffer because he doesn't care for us, exactly the opposite reason. It is because he loves us so much in wants us to be closer to him that he allows are suffering. And when we think of suffering, what do we think about. The loss of our physical health, or material goods, or fame power popularity. All these things if they become our focus take us away from God and there being taken away brings us closer to him. Christ never says that people that believe him will not suffer, he never says that his believers will not be a part of tribulations. It is exactly these things that we're called to suffer in be part of persevere through to be called Christian. I just feel that the rapture theology doesn't understand the benefits of suffering and the grace that comes with it and the purification that we need in order to be closer to God.