A pre-tribulation conversation.

I’m going to get some pushback for this one. I know that already. I am not a pre-tribulation believer. I once was, but only because that is what I was told I had to believe. It never made much sense to me, given everything else I knew. I have since learned to read for myself and take the church out of the Bible.

A Simple Question That Got Complicated

A young Christian woman came to me recently with questions about death, specifically, when we die, do we go to heaven right away, or do we wait for judgment? (souls still in the ground)

I pointed her to three verses.

Revelations 20:4–5 “ […]They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection.”

John 3:13 “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven — the Son of Man.”

Matthew 24: 9–14 “[…]At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

That led naturally into pre-tribulation questions. Then I realized the answer wasn’t as simple as it should be.

Rapture Rabbit Hole

I had to warn her that if she goes online and looks up that dreaded word rapture, she is going to get overwhelmed by all the different theories and doctrines out there. (She is a new Christian)

So I gave her my honest opinion based on Scripture.

People have simply become lazy over time and afraid of what it actually means to be a Christian during the end times. And there is a big thread of entitlement mixed in, a belief that because they are Christians, they are somehow above what everyone else will have to endure.

Those are the real reasons this pre-tribulation theory gets such traction and keeps growing as a popular belief, despite never being part of any Christian teaching before the 1800s. That and the fact that movies have popularized it for cinematic effect.

Fear and entitlement. That is what it comes down to. Nothing more and nothing less.

What the Bible Actually Says

Nowhere in the Bible does it teach pre-tribulation rapture. You have to perform a lot of mental and linguistic gymnastics to get there.

Matthew 24, straight from Jesus’s own mouth, makes it abundantly clear that some of us are going to go through some really, really bad stuff. And by some of us, I mean those of us who are still alive when it happens, not those already gone.

Why are people taking Jesus’ words out of the Bible?

What an Untainted Mind Sees Clearly

What follows is the result of someone who reads her Bible and does not worry about what men say. She has not been tainted by the politics, drama, and doctrines of the institutional church yet. She tests everything, including what I had to say on the matter, which is exactly what I wanted her to do without me telling her to do that. She did it brilliantly in questioning me quite thoroughly.

Here is a part of what she said to me: “I mean it just logically doesn’t make sense to have all the Christians disappear, because during the end times I’m pretty sure it says that evil will be ruling over the earth during that time and its like how would people be able to come and know Jesus if none of His disciples live on the earth to share His word.”

Right there is common sense speaking, not doctrine, wishes, or wants. The rest is all acrobatics on paper.

Christians will go through the tribulation or at least a big part of it. I personally do not hold any hard time frame stance on this because it really could be anywhere in that time frame when it all starts.

Also, I’m more concerned with spreading the Gospel, not an end date that I will never know until it happens. Whether you want to acknowledge any of this is up to you, but we will not miss when it hits.

© Jane Isley

First published in Never Stop Writing on Medium.

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