The Blessed Hope Podcast -- with Dr. Kim Riddlebarger

Episode Synopsis:Since the Lord will return suddenly and unexpectedly, what are the Thessalonians to do until Jesus’s return?  Paul has already encouraged them earlier in his letter, telling them that they are doing well despite the persecution and on-going threats they were receiving from Jews and Greco-Roman pagans in Thessalonica.  But Paul knows there is always the possibility that things might go south.  Therefore, he uses his closing remarks to urge the Thessalonians to be at peace among themselves and respect those who labor among them.  Paul also takes the opportunity to urge them to encourage any strugglers and malingerers in their midst, to do good, to pray without ceasing, and to avoid evil.  He reminds them that the Lord will deliver them from their enemies and right all wrongs on the day of judgment.  Paul urges the Thessalonians not to quench the Spirit, nor despise prophecy.  He prays that God will sanctify them so that they might be blameless on the day of the Lord’s return.  He then instructs the brothers to make sure his letter is read aloud in the churches, so any questions the congregation had about the Lord’s return might be answered.As we have come to see from Paul, there is much practical wisdom here, which is as much a benefit to Christians now as it was to Thessalonicans who first heard this letter read in their churches.For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/

Date-setting has been a problem for God’s people since the days of the apostles.  Church history is full of the accounts of those who, for whatever reason, attempted to figure out when Jesus will return, set dates, and then miserably failed to predict the unpredictable.  Two recent examples should suffice.  Edgar C. Whisenant predicted the Lord’s return in 1988 in his booklet, “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.”  When that failed, he went for 1989.  When that failed he picked 1993.  And when that failed, he went for 1994.  He died in 2001, preventing any future date-setting.  The first book created quite a stir, and sold lots of copies (4.5 million of them).  Although the later volumes (each with a revised date of Christ’s return) drew less of an audience, Whisenant’s reach was still far larger than anything than any sound theologian has written on the end times before or after.And there was Harold Camping–a CRC elder–who, in 2005, predicted that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011.  According to Camping, those who were saved would be taken to heaven while five months of fire, brimstone, and plagues will strike the earth, with millions dying under the divine onslaught.  Following his own time-line Camping concluded that on October 21, 2011 (five months after the rapture), final destruction would come upon the world.  When none of this materialized, Camping was completely discredited, his radio empire nearly collapsed, and in response, he called upon Christians to leave their churches because they had all become apostate! By that I take Camping to mean that Christians stopped listening to him and churches were calling him out for his date setting.  So, they were at fault not Camping.When we turn to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11 of Paul’s Thessalonian letter, and carefully consider what Paul teaches about the Lord’s parousia, (coming) it does not take long to realize that according to Paul, Christ’s return will be like “a thief in the night.”  The Lord’s return will be sudden and unexpected, and will bring about sudden destruction (i.e., final judgment) upon those who do not expect it because they are blissfully indifferent to the awful fate which awaits all those apart from faith in Jesus Christ. For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/

Episode Synopsis:As a baby boomer, I grew up during the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear war was real and constant.  In 1948, Israel became a nation and many Jews began returning to their ancient homeland.  The “Six Day War” of 1967, fought between Israel and a confederation of Arab states, sure made it seem as though the dispensational expectation of the rapture of the Gentile church, followed by a seven-year tribulation period in which antichrist would make a peace treaty with Israel, only to turn upon the nation leading to the Battle of Armageddon, was at hand.  Fear and uncertainty among God’s people during this time created a huge and eager audience as well as  perfect timing for Hal Lindsey to release his blockbuster book, the Late Great Planet Earth which was the best-selling book in the United States during the 1970's, selling some 28 million copies by 1990.  Lindsey put into popular terms how current events were unfolding as the fulfillment of God’s plan to redeem his people, save Israel, and usher in the millennial age.  But what was to come next on this time line?  The “rapture.”  The rapture became the main hope of vast numbers of Bible-believing Christians.  Jesus will return to rapture believers before any nuclear holocaust thereby sparing believers from such horrors, and the removal of the Gentile church will allow God to return to dealing with Israel, the apple of his eye.  Everything centered upon the “rapture.”But when Paul discusses the meaning of Jesus Christ’s parousia (or his coming) in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, does the apostle actually teach anything like the end-times scenario as taught by dispensationalists and popularized by the likes of Hal Lindsey?  In this ninth episode of season two of the Blessed Hope Podcast in which are working our way through Paul’s two Thessalonian letters, we will consider Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s return.  While Paul is certain of the Lord’s return to raise the dead, judge the world and make all things new, he knows nothing of the “rapture” in the form embraced by so many.  What does Paul teach about the Lord’s return?  Stay tuned.For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/

Episode Synopsis:The greatest event in all of human history was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The most hoped for event in humanity’s future is Jesus Christ’s return when he will raise the dead, judge the world, and bring about the new creation.  Since the moment Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and the attending angels told his disciples that he would return in the same manner in which he departed, his people have longed for Jesus to return.  Our greatest hope is to be that generation still living when the Lord returns so that we need never taste death.  Along with the first Christians we cry out, “Maranatha!  The Lord come!”  Like many of us, the Thessalonians had questions about details of the Lord’s return–what it means and when it will happen.  When they first heard Paul’s teaching and preaching they gladly accepted this wonderful truth that Jesus’s resurrection and ascension guaranteed our Lord’s bodily return at the end of the age.  But some of them wondered, “what happens to those who die before our Lord comes back?”  Do they miss out on the benefits of the resurrection?  Others were asking “how soon will the Lord return?”  They took Paul to be saying the Lord would return very soon.    Do the signs of Jesus’ return of which Paul had spoken, give Christians the tantalizing clues from which we can figure out when the Lord will return?Paul addresses these questions in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11.  We’ll talk about all of this in the next three episodes of the Blessed Hope Podcast as we consider Paul’s answers to the questions about Christ’s second advent put to him by the Thessalonians.For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/

Episode Synopsis:In chapter four of his first Thessalonian letter, Paul addresses the issues surrounding what it means to turn from idols to serve the true and living God.  Paul is concerned with how these new Christians in Thessalonica “walk in the Lord” – that is, how they ought to live the Christian life in contrast to the way they lived before when they served idols.  In verses 3-8 of chapter four, Paul takes up the matter of Christian sexual ethics.  Those to whom Paul is writing knew nothing of the sexual purity God expects from his people before Paul arrived and preached the gospel to them.  All they have known is a pagan sexuality which is often libertine (anything goes since the pagans understood sexual relations apart from personal morality).  Greco-Roman men commonly had wives who raised the children and kept the home, but saw nothing wrong with premarital or extra-marital sexual relationships.  In this episode of The Blessed Hope, we will consider Paul’s exhortation to avoid sexual immorality, and to live quiet lives, minding our own business, and not being dependent upon others.For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/

Episode Synopsis:Paul was forced out of Thessalonica after three short weeks among them.  Paul truly desires to return (he’s writing to the Thessalonians from Corinth) but so far has been prevented from doing so.  Paul attributes this unfortunate circumstance to the activity of Satan and so explains why he sent Timothy instead of coming in person.  Paul boasts in the fact that despite all that has happened, the Thessalonians are standing firm.  Paul reminds them that Christian hope is grounded in the certainly of Christ’s parousia (his second coming), a term which the apostle introduces for the first time in this letter.  Paul then discusses the inevitability that those who follow Jesus will be persecuted and that Jesus himself will ensure that his people persevere to the end.  All of these topics are important and thinking about them properly goes a long way to living a healthy Christian life.  So, there is important content here for us as we work our way through the balance of chapter two and the whole of chapter three in Paul’s first Thessalonian letter.For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/

Episode Synopsis:In chapter two of Paul’s first Thessalonian letter, Paul defends himself against accusations raised by those who had driven him from the city.  Paul is not just another itinerant philosopher who wanders throughout the land seeking to tickle ears and gain a following.  Paul’s conduct in Thessalonica was blameless and it should be clear to all that Paul not only labored among them but took nothing from them.  The gospel Paul preached was revealed to him by Jesus Christ and through that gospel, God’s calls his people to faith in the Son of God and includes them into his kingdom and glory.  But Paul then says a number of harsh things about those who sought to hinder him from preaching the gospel–the Jews.  These are some of the most controversial words in all of Paul’s letters.  In this jam-packed episode, we’ll discuss Paul’s example in Thessalonica, his doctrine of “calling” and its connection to the “kingdom of God,” and then we will address the charge that Paul was an anti-Semite, because of his harsh words about those who sought to prevent him from preaching the gospel.  For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/

Episode Synopsis:There is one thing a congregation dislikes even more than stewardship Sunday–a sermon on the wrath of God.  To proclaim that the wrath of God is coming upon the whole world (and it is) is be thought of as some sort of fundamentalist with the misguided faith of a snake-handler, or the mind-set of a Jihadi terrorist.  Any one who believes such a thing is considered a kooky zealot who probably carries around a sandwich-board sign which reads, “Repent, for the end is near!”Since Paul ties Christ’s second advent to the coming day of wrath, he creates very difficult problems for all forms of premillennialism–those who insist that Jesus’s Christ return will usher in a thousand year reign of Jesus upon the earth with the final judgment not occurring until the millennium comes to an end.  How does this fit with Paul’s declaration in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 that deliverance from the coming wrath of God occurs when Jesus returns?  (Hint, it doesn’t).  What does what does this say to those engaged in the “pre” and “post” trib debate, and to the dispensationalist expectation of a future seven-year tribulation period?We’ll tackle these issues and more in this edition of the Blessed Hope PodcastFor show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/

Synopsis of Episode Three:In the opening verses of his first Thessalonian letter, Paul sends warm greetings to those from whom he has recently departed.  This departure was not of his own doing.  After spending three Sabbaths in Thessalonica with this newly organized church, Paul was driven from the city by a “rentamob” organized by Jews in the city who saw the Christian missionaries, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, as a threat to the religion of Israel.  But Paul does something unexpected in the opening verses, speaking of the new and largely Gentile church as the “assembly of the Lord”–which is another way of speaking of this congregation as a fulfillment of God’s promise to redeem Israel in the messianic restoration foretold by Israel’s prophets.  Perhaps even more unexpected, Paul speaks of those who have turned from idol worship as “chosen by God,” another image drawn from the Old Testament.  A Gentile church in Thessalonica is depicted by Paul as the “assembly of the Lord,” composed of those “chosen by God,” included in true Israel.For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/

Synopsis of Episode Two:  “Paul’s Theological Categories”Paul was converted about 33 AD when Jesus appeared to him on the Damascus Road, revealing to Paul the content of the gospel he was to preach.  Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians was written around 50 AD, just short of twenty years after his conversion.  By this time, Paul has a settled theology–his basic theological categories are in place.  He applied these categories in Galatia in opposition to the Judaizers, and he now applies them in an entirely different set of circumstances in Thessalonica.  Paul is not making his doctrine up on the fly.  So, what was this “settled theology” and how does Paul apply these basic theological categories in his letters to the Thessalonians?For show notes and other recommended materials located at the Riddleblog as mentioned during the Blessed Hope Podcast, click here: https://www.kimriddlebarger.com/