The apostles plus 2,000 years
It is generally recognized that the early church believed Jesus' second coming was tangibly close. Jesus in the Gospels has a message of immediacy to reinterpret the Kingdom of God and has a mission that takes place in the span of his life. Everything is now.
If the apostles knew earthly existence would extend 2,000 years beyond their lives, would their scriptures have been any different? Would the value of land and living a peaceable life have had more pragmatics? Would we have a better idea of when to kill for justice or find that notion counter to the Gospel? Would we have more/better principles to guide us through corporate law, issues of societal harm such as ecological war zones that kill or disease generations of people? Would capitalism, socialism, communism, or theocracy have been spelled out as divinely inspired? Would economic realities that take into account leveraging capital, stocks, etc. have been expounded? Would we have had clarity in how all of the world's religions were supposed to fit, or would we find that indeed much of the world is destined for hell and that's just the way it is? Would we have found more attention to ritual and how to handle life when the ritualistic expectations are unfulfilled?
Sometimes I find it hard to find meaning in this land between times. Sometimes I find it hard to live a sustained, truthful life in the Gospel and want to find a reason why.
If the apostles knew earthly existence would extend 2,000 years beyond their lives, would their scriptures have been any different? Would the value of land and living a peaceable life have had more pragmatics? Would we have a better idea of when to kill for justice or find that notion counter to the Gospel? Would we have more/better principles to guide us through corporate law, issues of societal harm such as ecological war zones that kill or disease generations of people? Would capitalism, socialism, communism, or theocracy have been spelled out as divinely inspired? Would economic realities that take into account leveraging capital, stocks, etc. have been expounded? Would we have had clarity in how all of the world's religions were supposed to fit, or would we find that indeed much of the world is destined for hell and that's just the way it is? Would we have found more attention to ritual and how to handle life when the ritualistic expectations are unfulfilled?
Sometimes I find it hard to find meaning in this land between times. Sometimes I find it hard to live a sustained, truthful life in the Gospel and want to find a reason why.
posted by Learner at 6/10/2006 05:14:00 PM
2 Comments:
I think they (the apostles) were both right and wrong. They were right in that it was close - so the immediacy of what they were doing...but I am not always sure they understood just how close, as in...it was there all along.
Jesus told them to pray for the kingdom to come now on earth as it was in heaven, because that was what Jesus ushered in. So, they were to participate in it daily, for the kingdom may come tomorrow, God may break in, and they have to be ready for that moment.
Their eschatology might have looked a wee different from Jesus...but the end result was the same...Jesus and His kingdom want to break in now...it is at hand, it is close, it is near, it is among us...all those things that Jesus said.
So, I don't think it should have changed, even if they fully grasped it, perhaps it would have been more of an imperative, and more time crictical (for them and us) if we realized the Kingdom of God is now, and every moment is a kingdom moment.
I hold to what you're saying, but I think there seem to be more pragmatic issues when leaving a house within a life time Vs. a couple of years. In both cases you live, but there are more complications to the life time reality. Perhaps the ambiguity is part of the plan...
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