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The term “Apocalypse” comes from the first part of the Book of Revelation ἀποκάλυψις ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ (The Revelation of Jesus Christ). Some even still call the book “The Apocalypse.”

The term itself simply means “to reveal” or “to show” and only took on the connotation of “the end of the world” because most take the book of Revelation to be dealing with that topic.

In my own life, “End-Times” has always been a topic of fascination and something that I’m very interested in from the perspective of the New Testament. When I went to college I was confident in my opinion and I could draw a detailed chart revealing all the events surrounding the end of the world. Fortunately, I learned that Freshmen Biblical Studies majors know nothing of value 😉

I signed up for a class called “Eschatology” by Dr. William E. Bell Jr. because, in my mind, that would be an “Easy A,” after all, I already know all the answers… (HA!).

As it turns out, I did make an A, but it was not easy… far from it. I was shocked to find that there were “options” of interpretation within conservative theology!

Over the next couple of years I dove into the Bible like never before and started a journey that continues even today of interpreting the New Testament’s picture of “End-Times.”

But here is the problem with “End-Times” studies, most of them are simply repeating the same old tired maxims and applying them to new headlines to convince people that the end of the world is next Thursday.

The latest example of this was Harlod Camping’s prediction of the end of the world in May. (See my blog post Chicken Little Theology)

How many times can people say that the end is happening RIGHT NOW? The problem is, most people present their views as “the Bible says…” and then they present their wacky interpretations, and everyone who heard them have another stone to throw saying “see, the Bible isn’t true…” and after a short time, people won’t even listen any more.

Well, the Bible IS true! And this is a topic that we must tell people about. But because of what I call “Apocalypse Fatigue” they are not willing to hear.

…This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

-Acts 1:11

Jesus is coming back, but let’s be careful to speak only of what the Bible actually says, not what our imagination can come up with.

We see the same thing in politics. Why did we all vote overwhelmingly to “bailout” the banks? Because it was the end of the world if we didn’t. Why did we approve the government putting us TRILLIONS of dollars into debt on a peace-time spending spree unprecedented in the whole human race? Because it would be armageddon (the final war in chapter 16 of the book of Revelation, which is an allusion to Megiddo as a place of great defeat of unrighteous kings 2Kings 9:27; 23:29 or just search “Megiddo” in the OT) if we allowed our unemployment rate to go above 8% (it’s currently 9.2% over 2 years later – not to mention, Gov’t spending, regulation, and unemployment benefits don’t bring down unemployment).

Now the latest “Apocalypse” is congress reaching it’s self imposed “spending limit.” This is ridiculous. Our problem isn’t that the world is ending, it’s that we don’t want to allow ourselves to feel the pain of failure. When we fail it hurts, and we learn not to do that again.

Most of us, now, simply tune people out when they begin to argue that “the world is going to end if we don’t…” – but the problem with Apocalypse fatigue is that there really is a day of judgment coming:

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

-Acts 17:30f

The big picture here is, live your life knowing that God will set everything right one day. The secondary lesson is, don’t listen to “Chicken Littles.”

Jesus is approached by an expert in the Hebrew Law and asked what is the most important thing, and Jesus’ answer is love from the Shema in Deut 6. Mark records Jesus’ quotation of Deut 6 (specifically v.5) as:

…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

-Mark 12:30

The OT Shema from Deut uses the terms καρδία (heart), ψυχή (soul), & δύναμις (strength) – which is what you find Jesus saying, but in Mark he separates δύναμις into διανοια (mind) & ἰσχύς (strength).

I think this is a good pattern for our lives to keep us balanced in our day-to-day, and perhaps even in our churches. Try to regularly participate in each of these four:

• καρδία – with your emotions, the core of your being, worship God and love his people
• ψυχή – with all of your life, not just on Sunday, engage God and his people with the essence of who you are
• διανοια – challenge yourself to think about God and increase your understanding about him and his word on a regular basis
• ἰσχύς – love God with your actions, with your hands and feet, by loving people

This is certainly not intended to be an exhaustive list, but it’s a great way to seek balance in your life. Each of us probably naturally leans towards one or two of these, and we’d ignore others without being intentional.

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The Apostle Paul writes to the church why each person is individually gifted by the Spirit:

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

-1Cor 12:7

So, each one of us has been given a unique “spiritual gift,” but why? Well, Paul says that at least one reason for that is for the “common good.” That is, you are not gifted for yourself. You were not saved and empowered only for yourself, God has a job for you to do, and it’s a job to be done within the church.

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

-1Cor 12:15

Paul uses the analogy of a “body” for the church, and specifically the (in this case Corinthian) local church. Do you feel like you’re not a very important part of your church? Well, that doesn’t change the fact that you are (or, more accurately, you SHOULD be). Every member is important, whether they feel like it our not, every person is a vital piece in the puzzel that God has in the mission of each local church congregation, regardless if they think they are “gifted enough” or not.

Maybe you feel like you are not integral part of your church because you have not taken full advantage of the giftedness and ministry that God has given to you, maybe you’ve never thought of it that way. Maybe you’ve always thought of church as “somewhere you go” rather than the body within which you serve.

How many Sundays a year do you skip? Think of it this way, how many weeks of work could you miss in a row before someone said “Hey, where’s <insert name here>.” How many weeks of vacation do you take from work each year? Two? maybe Three? Now how many weeks of church do you skip each year?

“Well that’s different, I have to go to work, that’s how I get paid…”

Really? Why do you have to make as much money as you do? We’ve all made choices in our lives. What if you lived in a home with half the mortgage (or half the rent)? What if you had paid cash for your car(s), and bought a car half the price? Would you then have to work as much as you do?

Don’t get me wrong, work, go for it, and work hard as though you are working for God (because you are cf. Col 3:23f), but if you work so much that you can’t spend time with your church body, are you working “for the Lord?” Which is more important, our money or our church family? Maybe that’s why so many don’t step-up into a vital ministry in their church because they don’t want that responsibility, maybe they enjoy vacations too much (and work won’t let them off).

How vital of a body part are you?

Are you the hands and feet of your church providing real ministry to others, or are you an appendix that no one really knows why you are there?

Are you the eyes and ears of your church looking for and listening to the needs of others, or are you the tonsils that become an irritation if they hang around too long?

Are you the heart or mouth of your church proclaiming the gospel to the world, or are you the gallbladder that can be toxic if not removed?

You are gifted to serve as a vital part of your church. If you realize it or not, there is a ministry for you at your church that cannot function without you. Let me encourage you to rethink the amount of time you spend with your church body. It’s not about attendance, the “roll” will not actually “get called up yander” – what it is about is you becoming an indispensable part of your church, that’s who we are all called to be.

This probably doesn’t mean taking over something that’s already happening at your church, but more likely it’s an opportunity for you to create a new ministry that will lead people closer to Jesus, what an exciting idea!

So, I guess the question isn’t “did you miss 2-weeks in a row this year…”, rather the question should be “could you miss 2-weeks in a row this year…?”. If you can, then perhaps God is calling you to “step-it-up” a bit. When you are not there, it’s not whether or not anyone notices, it’s about whether or not you’ve made yourself such in integrated part of your church body that they can’t fully function without you… that’s how important your giftedness is… that’s God’s plan for you…

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

-1Cor 12:27

We are going through the book of Song of Solomon in my Sunday School class, what a great book on how relationships should be.

Our culture has filled our heads with false notions of what sex and relationships should be. We’ve bought into it, whether we know it or not, we have.

Part of what destroys marriages (and people) in the church is that we think we have to be perfect, we think somehow that we can never make a mistake. We spend all of our time projecting an image of what we think the perfect married couple should be. Eventually, our problems will get so out of control we can’t hide them any more and we’re out, once the “shoe drops” we give up and think “oh well, we blew it…” and the couple divorces thinking they can start over.

This is a terrible way to live life, because we will never be perfect. The Jews in the first century were great at thinking they could follow the law, but no one can. If you think you can follow the letter of the law, you are fooling yourself (see the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7).

Even if you did dating & courtship perfectly (and few of us did) you will make mistakes along the way. If you were not pure on your wedding day, you are not alone. If you or your spouse have been unfaithful, this is a terrible thing, but it’s not the end of the world, we serve a God of restoration…

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten

-Joel 2:25

God will take your mistakes, the things that you wish you had done differently, and he can restore it. Our savior is the carpenter’s son, he fixes things. It’s usually not too late, allow God’s healing power to restore that which has been destroyed.

Our God is a God of grace, not just for salvation at the end of our lives, but for life every day. We’re not perfect, we make mistakes, we always will. It’s not that you have to keep yourself 100% clean, you just need to know where to go to get clean…

Let him heal your life, let him restore your marriage.

Sometimes people need to grow-up, we all know folks like this. Just look at the video game industry, they clearly market their games to young men (or boys) up into their mid-30s. How about the guy who still live with mom & dad in his 30s? Not someone who’s had a hard event in their life and needed to move back in, but just never moved out. These are “man-boys” and there’s no excuse for it. Be a man…

But this blog post isn’t about the sad state of affairs manhood finds itself in today, it’s about the sad state of affairs some churches are in. But here’s the good news, we can change it! The church is the bride of Christ and we’re tasked with the mission to change the world. I praise God that I’m a part of a local church body who have a history of reaching their community with the gospel.

In the middle of a great little pericope about the church, Paul says:

…no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ

-Eph 4:14f

In other words, “grow up!”

I read a great article about the “7 Deadly Sins of a Dying Church” and it resonated with me. I know people at churches like this. It’s really important to constantly take stock of yourself to make sure that you are where you need to be with your relationship with the Lord, and the church is the same. Every church needs to assess their position in the mission that God has called them to (i.e. making disciples in all the earth), and the effectiveness of their unique purpose within that mission.

Throughout the life of a church, prayer has to be a given. Everything must be bathed in prayer and pleading with the Lord. But after that, we’ve gotta be teaching people God’s word. This is a must. This is how we keep ourselves from being “tossed to and fro.” Every church needs a serious plan to teach the Bible, this is (essentially) what Jesus commanded us to do (cf. Matt 28:17ff).

But we also need to have the right focus. We are not teaching just for information, we are teaching so that people’s lives can be changed. We are “teaching them to observe all that I [Jesus] have commanded” but we are also making disciples FIRST. It is imperative that we teach, but it’s equally vital that we first reach-out and “make disciples.”

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

-1Pet 2:1-3

When we “grow up” as churches, we don’t have divisions within us, because we’re more focused outward than inward. See, when we have an outward focus, our “internal struggles” are minimized, and people long to learn God’s word. We don’t have to force people to study the Bible, they “long for” God’s word as though it is “pure… milk.” When we minimize divisions in our church, and focus outside of ourselves, people will desire to learn.

I’ve often heard it said that “if we just ‘disciple’ people, that will lead to evangelism.” I can say, from the Bible and from my professional experience, this is never the case.

There are a lot of problems with this statement, for one ‘to disciple’ in terms of teaching is not a Biblical verb. But it’s also in the wrong order. We’re called to “make disciples” and then “teach them.” To “make disciples” is evangelism, to “teach them” is what we call today “discipleship.”

So, first things first, you need a plan and a passion of evangelism, and then you need the resources and structure to teach those who long for pure Biblical teaching. Disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

In the “7 Deadly Sins…” article, the things that can kill a church (or at least show that a church is dying) are: Doctrine Dilution, Biblical Illiteracy, Loss of Evangelistic Passion, Failure to be Relevant, Few Outwardly Focused Ministries, The Priority of Comfort, and Conflict Over Personal Preferences.

The last couple that I mentioned are the ones that really resonated with me. When churches start to argue, with passion: the color of carpet, the style of seating, the kind of music; that church is headed in the wrong direction.

I think, in recent history, one of the most divisive and unspiritual arguments in church has been over the “style of music” that is played during worship services.

…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

-Eph 5:18ff

See, we should be “filled with the Spirit” and singing songs and making music, but the important part with regard to the song is the heart of the one singing it. Our goal is submitting to one another, not fighting for the “style” that we prefer.

What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.

-1Cor 14:26

The point of worship is for building-up the church. As for me, I have no preferred music style. I’ve seen older people say things like “if it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for them,” and I’ve seen younger people scoff at the music of generations gone by. Both of these attitudes are not good at all.

I’m a big fan of doing it all. All styles, done well, to build-up believers. If you can pigin-hole your church into one “style” then I think you’ve missed the point. Worship isn’t a performance for an audience, it’s an opportunity to build-up the church and glorify God.

Music is not an “outreach program.” I heard of a church who spent $3.5M on an organ and justified it because it would draw so many people in. WOW!

I’ve also heard people in churches say silly things like “we need some more contemporary music to reach young people.” A few comments on this one. Music that’s a decade or two old and performed in a style made popular in the late 80s is not “contemporary.” Additionally, the advantage of current music is not that it draws in the “right” people, but that it keeps the “wrong” people away. Honestly, the kind of people who will publicly complain about a church’s music style, while a part of that church, are the “wrong” kind of people.

When a Christian comes to a church, their personal attitude should NOT be: “I am an honored guest.” Rather, a Believer who is visiting a new church should think to themselves: “I’m honored to be a guest.” Beyond guests, certainly a member of a church should not look “…only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil 2).

We need to grow up, we need to realize that we are saved to serve, we need to stop looking out for ourselves through internal arguments and we need to reach out to the world around us and share the gospel to make disciples in all the earth. Check your focus, and when it begins to turn to the things you prefer (rather than the things that will help us to best spread the gospel) be on guard, pray, and seek God’s direction.

We can do it! We can change! We can see more people come to know Jesus than ever before… we just have to be willing to see past ourselves, and we all have a hard time with that one. God help us (and he will).