culture, current events, religion

There Are No Secrets In the End Times

So, did you hear what NBA team owner Donald Sterling said to his mistress? Did you happen to see Prince Harry in his birthday suit a while back? Have you seen the video of family-values Congressman Vance McAllister kissing a staffer (who was not his wife)? Or maybe you gawked at pictures of the mansion and private zoo deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych bought for himself with bribes and money stolen from government coffers.

Within living memory, part of being rich and powerful meant having the freedom to behave abominably in private without having the public find out. At least not until you were dead. Today, all the money in the world won’t keep your secrets from being exposed.

And it’s not just the rich and powerful whose secrets are being dragged into the light. Divorce courts are filled with people whose marriages are ending because of deception revealed by cell phone records, text messages, emails, instant messaging and internet browsing histories. You can now discover which of your neighbors have arrest records with a quick internet search. If you exclude a friend from a get-together, you’ll get caught when one of the attendees puts pictures up on facebook. And all you have to do is watch a true crimes detective show on cable to see how hard it is to get away with murder once science gets involved.

This loss of secrecy and some would say privacy is so obvious and so commonplace now as to barely be worth mentioning. It’s just a reality of our age. What is shocking to me is how rarely it is mentioned that this is exactly what the bible said was going to happen:

^There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.” ~ Matthew 10:26

“For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.” ~ Mark 4:22

“But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.” ~ Luke 12:2

Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts ~ 1 Corinthians 4:5

There are many other verses which say that the time will come when what is done in secret will be known to all. It’s a concept which is found all throughout scriptures. And it’s a promise we are seeing fulfilled  in real time right before our eyes.

As I said, the fact that nothing is a secret anymore is so commonplace that it’s not in the least bit shocking anymore. But consider what a radical shift this is in human affairs. 300 years ago, the average person living in areas ruled by the British Empire wouldn’t know what a British prince’s face looked like. Today, people all over the world have seen pictures of Prince Harry (and other lesser nobles) in the nude. The idea would have been astonishing to an Indian peasant in 1700. There has never been a time like this in all of human history.

So, what should we Christians be doing in light of this fulfillment of scripture? Continue reading “There Are No Secrets In the End Times”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
culture, exegesis

My Talented Readers: XTSamurai

Here in America, the news we hear from Africa is pretty much always bad. Which tends to lead us to view the continent as hopelessly broken, impoverished and chaotic. The truth is far more complicated and hopeful. Even the recent news out of Nigeria of over 200 girls being kidnapped from a school by Islamist extremists reveals an unexpected dynamic. Just a decade ago, the … Continue reading My Talented Readers: XTSamurai

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
bible, religion

Let’s Talk Prophecy and End Times

The parts of the bible which deal with “end times” prophecies are something I’ve always shied away from dealing with directly. Studying and researching those parts of scripture can be very entertaining, but it’s a dangerous past time. Nearly everyone who gives it a go winds up lost and led astray. And sadly, some of these people have managed to warp many people’s entire understanding of Christianity.

Part of the problem is a pervasive, fundamental misunderstanding of what prophecy is and what it does. In the bible, a prophet doesn’t predict the far-off future. Instead, their gift is an ability to see and explain the reality of what they see happening all around them. These are the people who have heard the voices of those who are being silenced. They see through the agreed upon lies and narratives for why things are the way they are. They are able to look at their present with spiritual eyes and recognize what others are blind to. Further, they understand God and his ways well enough to easily see where it’s all heading.

Which is not to say that they have nothing at all to say about the future. The ancient Hebrews viewed time as circular. What has happened before, will happened again. When a prophet shares a vision, it is a symbolic description of what they see happening in the spiritual realm. It’s purpose is to illuminate of the archetypal patterns at work in their world. That way, when a time cycles back and a time such as the prophet’s comes around again, we might better understand the spiritual reality of what we are seeing.

This is why, bible prophecies which clearly refer to a specific person or set of events in the past continue to inform us about what we see going on around us today. For example, the whore of Babylon in Revelation obviously refers to the Roman Empire. And also bears a striking resemblance to the corrupt Roman Catholic Church of the late middle ages. And is arguably a good illustration of a certain super power at work in the world today. It’s an archetype of empire at work in the world. So long as empires which rely on violence, greed, fear, idolatry and control continue to arise, the whore of Babylon will also continue to arise. Continue reading “Let’s Talk Prophecy and End Times”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter5 Comments