What Paul is describing in 1 Thessalonians is the completely opposite type of encounter. In Paul’s twinkling of an eye, Jesus returns for good. He never turns around and goes back to heaven.

Regardless of their origin, the dispensations are kind of like the contents of Pandora’s box. The box has been opened, and there’s no putting the dispensations back inside—at least not for those who believe they’ve uncovered a great biblical secret.

Here lies the ultimate problem with end-times theology: it values prophecy more than people.

eisegesis: that is, a reading of a text that projects one’s own presuppositions and biases onto it in order to find a meaning one wants to be there but isn’t actually supported by the text itself.

This is where a healthy faith lives: in a place of critical reflection that pursues the greatest depths of knowledge, accepts the things found there, and keeps diving deeper, but without the delusion of ever thinking we have it all figured out.

Myths have a power to convey truth that literal events don’t always have.

the ironic thing about learning. The more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know.

heaven is not so much a destination as it is a source of hope and inspiration.

humanity is God-breathed. And yet . . . we’re not perfect. If we were, we would simply be God or, at the very least, a bunch of little gods. But we’re not perfect; we’re God-breathed, not God-incarnated. God-breathed doesn’t mean perfection, because God doesn’t take over our lives and control us like puppets.