What will the future bring?

In a recent Bible study at church, our Pastor challenged three of us to prepare a ten minute presentation on one of three views of the millenium. The view that I was assigned was post-millenialism, a topic that, in spite of three years of theological education, I knew very little about. I grew up in churches that have a pre-millenial theology that believe that Christ will return to earth "imminently" to usher in his 1000 year (millenium) reign.

Post-millenialism on the other hand teaches that most of the book of Revelation was fulfilled in A.D. 70 with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. We are now in the Millenium where Christ is building his kingdom one soul at a time. Like pre-millenialists, post-millenialists still believe in the future return of Jesus Christ where he will come to judge the world.

I must admit I have not spent a whole lot of time studying this topic, and that is intentional because I think that we have more important things to worry about. So when it comes to end-times discussion, I would rather take a pan-millenial view. That, is, it will all "pan" out it the end.

However, if you are interested in finding out more about post-millenialism, Kenneth Gentry has some interesting free papers on the subject. I found the ones titled Apocalypse Then and Back to the Future - The Preterist Perspective expecially helpful. Another article that is a little more difficult to read, but details the biblical basis quite well is Blaising Rattles.