Why no biblical guidance for this technological age?

Hey, Viktor! Welcome.

Beginning around January 5th, we’re planning to have an open discussion in this thread about N.T. Wright’s Gifford lectures which (I think) pretty roundly address these very questions you are raising! Some of us have listened to those already, but I don’t want to steal too much of his thunder by plunging into it all here and now.

I’ll just say this though. He spends a lot of scriptural powder and shot taking down the notion that Christian eschatology was ever really about removing us from this world away to some by-and-by heaven.

That’s a good question. And an important one. Authors like Wendell Berry have taken Paul to task for allegedly taking Christianity in that direction. Though I think Wright’s thesis goes a long way toward addressing these questions by showing that none of the apostles and gospels back during that time were actually advancing this modern ‘rapture scenario’ in the way the modern imagination has now crafted it. You’ll have to be the judge of how successful Wright or others are with that critique.

Who says God hasn’t? I suppose the early apostles and prophets had no less urgent stuff also to wrestle with - and potentially complain about wanting more specific guidance from God. They and their families were being brutalized and killed. They were forced to apply Jesus message to their own personal context - which many in the fledgling movement did with joy. I remain to be convinced that we aren’t intelligent enough in our own turn to apply it to our modern situations and contexts. A struggle to be sure - as I’m sure it was for them too.

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