Dr Paul Allen

When Christians are asked which millennial view they hold, some of the more cynical among them will sometimes answer: “I’m a panmillennialist. I believe it will all pan out in the end.”  Much of this cynicism is due to frustration over the seemingly never-ending debates about the last things. In some cases, it may also be due to exasperation with the endless train of falsified predictions of the rapture and/or second coming of Christ. For centuries, misguided teachers have repeatedly promised or strongly suggested to their contemporaries that they are the generation that will finally witness the end.  Isn’t it as plain as day that Napoleon Bonaparte was the Antichrist and his exile was a sign that the end of the world was imminent? Some Christians who lived in that generation thought so. Their generation was not the first to fall into the trap of date-setting, and it certainly wasn’t the last. For centuries, numerous Christians have compared the headlines of their day with the...

Robb Brunansky  Those of us old enough to remember will never forget the mass hysteria that gripped the globe in 1999.  The world stood on the edge of a new millennium, the year 2000. Not many people, historically, live to see the turn of a millennium, so the excitement was palpable. But the anticipation of seeing not one, not two, not three, but FOUR digits in the year column of the calendar change overnight was overshadowed by the fear that a computer bug known as “Y2K” might bring the world to a screeching halt. Computers went mainstream in the late 20th century, but unlike today, storage in computer systems was massively expensive. Because of the exorbitant price tag, computer programmers tried everything they could to save space.  One strategy they used was to minimize the amount of data required to store dates; so instead of storing the full four-digit year, they only stored the last two digits of the year, cutting the storage space used in half. They realized that ...

  Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10who died for us so that whether we a...