A GUIDE TO THE END OF THE WORLD:
Rapture? Millennium? Heaven?
By Pete Lowman
First Apostle. 220 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 909 728 851
Pete Lowman thinks British Christians aren’t excited enough about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
In other countries, especially the USA, he says this isn’t the case. He is concerned that the lack of focus in our churches on the end times has impeded our holiness, blunted our witness and reduced our drive to make Jesus known globally. To this point, I would heartily agree with him.
Parting company
Where we would part company is over his solution to this problem. Pete says that our lack of passion is largely due to an amillennial approach (which he labels the ‘non-literal’ interpretation) taken by many preachers in the UK, making the apocalyptic parts of Scripture sound more difficult than they actually are. What he says is needed is a straightforward ‘literal’ interpretation. What follows is a premillennial blast through key passages in Revelation, Matthew 24 and elsewhere, looking briefly at a range of complex topics like the rapture, ethnic Israel, and what will happen when Christ reigns on the earth. Along the way there are regular jumping-off points to look for any clues that we might be living in the last times before the end.
Pete’s ‘Guide’ certainly isn’t dull or uninformed, but is it the most helpful thing to read on this vital subject? For my money, at the popular level, written in the UK not the USA, and still from a premillennial perspective, Steve Wilmshurst’s commentary The Final Word is better and gives much more weight to the first century context. And if premillennialism gives you the theological heebie-jeebies, then why not save your pennies until Tim Chester’s commentary on Revelation comes out?
