Category: Updates

In Europe this past weekend the clocks were advanced an hour… personally I like the artificial time with lighter evenings ahead, and in Spain we are actually 2 hours ahead of solar time due to small aspect of Spain being aligned to a certain dictator in Germany’s past! Not a good reason but the outcome sits well with me!

For the past 2 years I have been seeking to understand the relationship of the clock that never lies, tick tock, what we can call chronological time, and the timings of heaven when there is an inbreaking – what we might term ‘kairotic’ time (made up word). Time and space are related both scientifically and also biblically, so I am aware that those two elements – boundaries and time – will always be under threat. And right now they are seriously being threatened at a global scale. Compounded by voices that call for a return to ‘Christian’ values, so often meaning back to christendom, rather than a return to Christ. We do not need nor desire a return to Christianity but a return to Jesus, with many of needing a new birth experience in order to perceive the kingdom.

We see issues of timing in the encounter at the wedding (John 2) with Jesus seemingly needing to adjust his view about it being his hour; we have the classic regarding the Isacchar clan who understood the times (kairos in the LXX) and what Israel should do; we read that Jesus came in the fullness of time…

Without some kind of shift and alignment of the clock / calendar to heaven’s agenda we are into a protracted season of conflict and darkness. We might be headed there anyway, but if there can be an alignment we will get through this time. All goes to say I plan to put out a video in the next days that might take this further – and with all the wisdom I have(!!!!) what more do we need? (Please no answers to that as I am only too aware that my middle name is not ‘wisdom’… but if we all have a little bit of sight we might just see a little more than we did yesterday – maybe).

There is an open zoom – all welcome. It is the second Zoom on eschatology, with a focus on Matthew 24 (Luke 21; Mark 13 parallels). It will be helpful if you plan on coming if you have either read a pdf that I wrote covering this chapter with also Paul’s cryptic comment on ‘the man of lawlessness’:

The pdf is here:

The Second Horizon

or watch a video (interview):

The Zoom link is:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5728039267?pwd=NEozVVM0Z1NJSDFKKzNwdG9KUDc5dz09

ID: 572 803 9267
Passcode: 5GkMTA

And the time is 7:30 UK time.

Of course you are interested in this ‘Off Grid Christianity’ Christmas podcast, Noel Richards and I (never know when it is a ‘me’ or an ‘I’) with Martin Purnell as host. A bit of fun but also a little bit in there about the Imperial world that Jesus entered… Here is the blurb from the site:

Another year over! Martin and Noel re-join me for this special festive podcast with yet another quiz before we tackle some questions that might tax your brain cells! So please sit back, enjoy and listen to some laughter along with some silly facts plus serious statements in which to ponder. If you’re feeling lonely over this Christmas period, you are not forgotten and we trust that this episode will make you feel part of the conversation.

Off Grid Christianity – Episode 67 – Christmas Special 2023 with Noel Richards and Martin Scott

https://www.accessradio.biz/podcast/off-grid-christianity-episode-67-christmas-special-2023-with-noel-richards-and-martin-scott/

A long term project!!! I am beginning a set of videos / articles that will be on eschatology.

I plan (and what can go wrong / get delayed / discovered I have bitten off more than I can chew??????) to put together material on Eschatology. The material will be two fold:

Short videos and a more detailed pdf. I have made four videos that serve as an introduction. Two are already uploaded… hopefully the second set of 2 will go up early next week. These are introductory as I am convinced that unless we have some basis on which to grapple with the ancient literature that we call the Bible (it was not written to us but for us) we might just make 2+2 = 666!!! Hence these 4 are basic but foundational – the final one will be to expand on how the ‘one horizon’ of Jewish future is split into ‘multiple horizons’. (I made a series of podcasts some 14 years ago – so I thought it was time to update.)

The videos and the pdf’s will be one element, then the second part will be a Zoom meeting. I think the Zoom evening will consist of 15 – 20 minutes input, then discussion, feedback. Before the evening either a viewing of the four videos should be done and / or reading the pdf.

The first two videos are here (the following 2 will be up by early next week):

And the pdf is here:

Eschatology: Introduction.pdf

I am setting two dates – they will be repeats so it is not necessary to attend both evenings:

Tuesday September 12th 19:30 UK time

Tuesday October 10th 19:30 UK time.

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And I will also be doing Zooms on Book 4 ‘The LifeLine’:

The first one will likely be Oct. 11th. Let me know if you wish to join – either you have done previous volumes with me; or if you want to join I can give you a summary of the first three. Please email me if you wish to join so as I can add you to that mailing list.

I am so far ahead of myself with this… but…

Over the past months there have a variety of ‘open zooms’ and the most recent ones have tried to explore what a ‘kingdom economics’ might look like. In September I plan to get a Zoom date where I will present some material that will act as introductory material on Eschatology (so a little bit of a shift… but ultimately eschatology is deeply practical with the biblical question always being a ‘so what?’ or ‘how then do we live in the light of that?’. I am currently recording /editing four short videos and will also make available a pdf (10,000 words) to go with this evening. If we find there is sufficient material we will make this into 2 evenings.

At the heart of this first set of videos (more videos to come) will be:

• Prophecy is not history written in advance – it is promise.
• We cannot draw a straight line from OT prophecies to current events.
• The NT must show us how to read OT texts.
• A move from a one horizon of ‘Messiah will come’ to three levels of horizon (debt to Andrew Perriman on this) – three horizons of ‘cross’, AD70 and the fall of Jerusalem, and the final parousia.
• That ‘end times’ is not about a set of events but the final transformation of this world constructs into the kingdom of our Lord and Christ, therefore it must include
• the transformation of creation not simply the ’saving of souls’ – indeed the paradigm of who is saved and who is not is to miss the thrust of creation to new creation.

I will post here when I have more firm details.