So the weirdest things happened to me today. I got really challenged on something that I have come to just accept as truth.
The “Rapture”.
I’m reading a book all about Jesus. It speaks about who he was, who he is to today’s world and trying to expose the truth of who Jesus is.
Anywho, he goes on to start speaking about how we tell the story of Jesus is as important as what we believe about Jesus. So he started into the way that in some peoples lives Jesus is the Jesus from Revelation where he is the Jesus of judgement.
He then spoke about the Rapture.
Here is something I had no idea about. The first mention or idea of the Rapture actually came about in the 1800’s. It was never a teaching of the early church or christians and that the most people that believe in the Rapture actually believe that it is just something that everyone knows and it has always been.
Uhh yeah imagine me raising my hand right now cause that was me. I had no idea that it was such a new theology.
Now here is the thing. I can’t say my mind has been changed because he really didn’t speak against it, but it did get me thinking and made me really want to do some research and find out more about it.
So if you are reading this I would love some feedback…
To Rapture or Not to Rapture? That is the question.
Where do you stand and why…
Later
28
Feb
08
I have just finished a PhD thesis researching the origins of Left Behind eschatology, that is the belief system that contains the pretribulation rapture idea. I found a midtribulation rapture in a sermon by Morgan Edwards (a Welsh/American Baptist) in the early 1740s. Some consider this to be a pretribulation rapture, though in my view Edwards teaching seems to favour the midtribulation idea.
But the collection of beliefs that can be fairly considered to be Left Behind eschatology, complete with a pretribulation rapture, did not emerge until the late 1820s to early 1830s. This came about through the Albury Conferences in England (1820s) and the Powerscourt Conferences in Ireland (1830s). The man who drew all the pieces together was John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren.