Category Archives: Worldview

A Conversation on Biblical Eschatology with J. Richard Middleton (Interview with Seminary Now)

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Seminary Now recently released my Biblical Eschatology course, where I look at how the Bible’s vision for the end connects with the entire biblical story.

In connection with the course, Seminary Now posted this blog interview in which they asked me various questions about my journey to eschatology, my understanding of creation to the end times, and the role of the pastor as it relates to teaching churches about eschatology.

How did you become interested in eschatology?

I was a 20-year old undergraduate theology student trying to understand God’s purposes for the world beyond the church. Since I wasn’t planning on going into pastoral or church “ministry,” I wondered about how—and to what extent—God cared about life in the ordinary, so-called “secular” world. I guess I was wondering if I could serve God if I wasn’t doing something intrinsically “spiritual” like pastoring.

This led me to study the theme of the kingdom of God throughout the Bible, both where it was explicit—as in the teaching of Jesus—and where it was implicit. I traced the kingdom theme from God as ruler of creation to the consummation of God’s purposes in the new heaven and new earth, when the kingdom fully comes and God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. 

So, I found biblical eschatology to be very helpful for understanding where history is going and how much God values (and wants to save) this created world. Ultimately, I came to understand that earth is meant to be the sacred realm in which we serve God and that all sorts of ordinary human activities are equally “spiritual.”

What does preaching on eschatology look like from the pulpit? How and why is introducing the church to the concept important for redeeming each day and God’s work in it?

Preaching on eschatology rarely has to be explicit. Mostly it is about communicating a strong sense that God cares about earthly life and wants to redeem us in the fullness of our humanity. 

The point is that eschatology (like every other theme and topic in the Bible) isn’t there for our intellectual curiosity. Rather, the entire Bible is meant to empower us to live more faithfully as disciples of Jesus. 

But this requires that we frame our lives by the wonderful biblical story of God’s desire to redeem the world he made, centered in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Given that our lives are typically framed by the idolatrous narratives of our culture (which we are socialized into and come to believe at an implicit level), good preaching is meant to ground us in the alternative narrative the Bible tells, while challenging us to let go of those attitudes and practices that are not congruent with this narrative. 

So the primary duty of preaching is to reshape the imaginations of God’s people to take this story and its goal (the new creation) so seriously that it transforms how we live in the present. As I write in my book, “Ethics is lived eschatology.”

Many of us find it hard to understand the connection between heaven and earth. What is that connection and why does it matter?

The place to start is Genesis 1:1, which says that in the beginning God created heaven and earth. Heaven and earth in the Bible are the two primary aspects of the created order. 

According to Psalm 115:16, “The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, / but the earth he has given to human beings.” Earth is our realm; heaven is not. Heaven is the realm beyond the earth; it is thus “transcendent,” which simply means “beyond.” The Bible claims that heaven is where God has set up his throne (Pss. 2:4; 11:4; 103:19; Isa. 66:1; Amos 9:6; Matt. 5:34; 23:22). Yet heaven is also the realm of the sun, moon, and stars—along with the angelic host (Ps. 148:2–3). 

This doesn’t mean that God literally lives “up there” among the stars or out beyond Saturn or Alpha Centauri. Instead, God’s throne in heaven, from which he rules the earth, is a way of speaking of God’s transcendence. Yet, paradoxically, because heaven is part of the created order (in the Bible), God’s throne in heaven also speaks of God’s immanence. Having created the world, God took up residence in part of it. But the earth currently lacks the fullness of God’s presence. The Bible anticipates that God will bring history to its goal at Christ’s return, when God will make all things new. 

At that time, God’s throne will shift from heaven to earth (Rev. 21:3, 5; 22:1, 3) and God’s glory will so fill the earth that the earth will finally be conformed to heaven. 

How has your own view of God and creation been changed as a result of your study of eschatology?

My study of eschatology was the beginning of a trajectory that led to me becoming a biblical scholar and teacher of the Bible. Biblical eschatology was the starting point for me coming to a more holistic vision of God’s purposes for this world. This vision has inspired and energized me to live towards the vision of God’s kingdom in my personal life and to communicate this amazing vision of God’s unfailing love for his creation (both human and nonhuman) to others. 

My study of eschatology led to a more profound understanding of—and love for—God. And it generated in me a passionate desire to share what I have learned with Christ’s church. 

So many of us have been confused about eschatology, and I don’t mean just about the crazy predictions of the future that Christians have tried to get from the Bible. More importantly, we’re confused about God’s purposes for earthly life. But it’s really pretty simple. It’s summed up in Micah 6:8: “What does the Lord require of you? / To act justly and to love mercy / and to walk humbly with your God.” Biblical eschatology is focused on helping us to live according to God’s righteous intentions for human, earthly life.

Biblical Eschatology—My New Course from Seminary Now

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Back in April of last year I recorded a video course on Biblical Eschatology with Seminary Now. The course will be available soon. I’m excited for you to see it. You can access 3 free sessions by signing up here!

Here is an outline of the video course:

1. What Is Biblical Eschatology?

2. The Renewal of All Things

3. Creation is Our Home

4. The Cosmic Temple

5. Humanity as the Image of God

6. Massive Fail—And Restart with Israel

7. Exile and the Hope of God’s Return

8. Jesus and the Coming of the Spirit

9. The Church in the Power of the Spirit

10. God’s Presence on the New Earth

11. What About the Rapture?

12. Epilogue

On Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Christian Faith

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There has been a lot of talk over the past twenty years or so about “deconstructing” the Christian faith (especially its evangelical versions). The problem, however, is that sometimes there is no substantial reconstruction that aims to recover the authentic, classical faith tradition—beyond its distortions.

I Began Deconstruction as an Undergraduate Theology Student

Although I would not have described it that way at the time, I was engaged in deconstruction (and reconstruction) of my faith from the very start of my undergraduate theological studies in Jamaica. I was blessed with a pastor at Grace Missionary Church and with professors at Jamaica Theological Seminary who welcomed healthy questioning and modeled an open and generous—fully orthodox—Christianity.

I have come to realize that this openness to questioning inherited traditions was also a function of doing theology in the Majority World, since both professors and students were vividly aware of the need for contextualization of the faith for the sake of the Caribbean church. We were thus prepared to challenge received versions of our church traditions, especially when they were shaped by Eurocentric or American biases. Professors and (especially) students in my Jamaican context were unafraid to dismantle what we thought was unhelpful, while seeking to be grounded in a better version of the core tradition of our faith.

As a result of my formative theological education in Jamaica, the deconstruction-reconstruction dialectic has been central to all my teaching and writing over the years.

Deconstruction and Reconstruction in My Writing

As a biblical scholar, committed to the renewal of the church, I have typically challenged received interpretations of Scripture in my books and articles. My approach has been to try and show that these interpretations are not rooted in a best reading of Scripture nor are they helpful for faithful living in our complex world.

To that end I have written books on a holistic Christian worldview (The Transforming Vision), the relevance of the Bible in our postmodern context (Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be), humanity created in God’s image (The Liberating Image), new creation eschatology (A New Heaven and a New Earth), and Abraham’s silent attempt to sacrifice Isaac in the context of the Bible’s prayers of vocal protest (Abraham’s Silence).

In each case, I have attempted to propose better interpretations of these topics than what I found in the received tradition—better in that they arise from more careful reading of Scripture and that they have transformative implications for human life in the real world.

Deconstruction and Reconstruction in My Teaching—Toward a Christian Worldview

This dialectic of deconstruction and reconstruction is at the core of a signature course on a Christian worldview that I have been teaching (and constantly developing) for many decades, focusing on biblical theology in dialogue with the contemporary world.

The early versions of this course (which I taught when I was a campus minister in Southern Ontario, Canada) led to a co-authored book with Brian Walsh, called The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (IVP, 1984).

Next year I will begin working on a new version of that book, based on the way the course has evolved over the years. My tentative title for the new book is Shaped by God’s Story: Christian Worldview in a Global Key (also with IVP, set to be released on the fortieth anniversary of The Transforming Vision).

The course challenges students to rethink their orientation to life by re-reading Scripture as a grounding story that takes seriously our pain and our hopes. The course combines engaged biblical interpretation with historical analysis of the church’s sacred/secular dualism, the western myth of conquest and progress, and the postmodern condition, while encouraging students to explore their calling in God’s world.

I’ve been teaching this course since 2002 for undergraduates at Roberts Wesleyan University under the title “Exploring the Christian Worldview.” I’ve also taught a version of the course since 2011 for graduate students at Northeastern Seminary, where it is called “Being in the Story.”

More than any other course, this one often leads to student disorientation. As the course progresses, it is common for students to exclaim with dismay, “Oh no, I need to unlearn everything I have been taught!” I usually point out that they may need to unlearn some things, but that they typically have a pretty solid and stable core of faith to build on.

Starting with Trust, before Deconstruction

I have learned not to begin with deconstruction. A hermeneutic of suspicion is an important second step in the learning process; but we need to start with a hermeneutic of trust (and trust is where we end too). First, I offer students a more excellent way; then comes the critique of unhelpful tradition.

The metaphor that I use to explain my pedagogy is as follows: I begin by offering students the rich, plush carpet of biblical faith, then I gently begin to pull the threadbare rug of bad theology and inadequate biblical interpretation out from under them. They usually step quite eagerly onto the plush carpet.

At the end of one memorable course in Old Testament theology, which I taught at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Jamaica while on sabbatical, a student stood up on the last day of class and said (with a huge smile on his face): “Professor, you destroyed my theology!”

Of course, he had found something better. That’s the way deconstruction ought to work.