The Return<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Anthony Thiselton: "In spite of those who underestimate the central importance of the Return of Christ in the New Testament, the concept remains central\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Return\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anthony Thiselton: "In spite of those who underestimate the central importance of the Return of Christ in the New Testament, the concept remains central\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-02-20T06:04:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-02-18T13:57:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/files\/2012\/02\/Screen-shot-2012-02-14-at-8.53.41-PM-300x222.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/\",\"name\":\"The Return\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-02-20T06:04:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-02-18T13:57:27+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Anthony Thiselton: \\\"In spite of those who underestimate the central importance of the Return of Christ in the New Testament, the concept remains central\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Return\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Return","description":"Anthony Thiselton: \"In spite of those who underestimate the central importance of the Return of Christ in the New Testament, the concept remains central","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Return","og_description":"Anthony Thiselton: \"In spite of those who underestimate the central importance of the Return of Christ in the New Testament, the concept remains central","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2012-02-20T06:04:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-02-18T13:57:27+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/files\/2012\/02\/Screen-shot-2012-02-14-at-8.53.41-PM-300x222.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Scot McKnight","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/","name":"The Return","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-02-20T06:04:56+00:00","dateModified":"2012-02-18T13:57:27+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252"},"description":"Anthony Thiselton: \"In spite of those who underestimate the central importance of the Return of Christ in the New Testament, the concept remains central","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Return"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252","name":"Scot McKnight","description":"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":25419,"date":"2012-02-20T00:04:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-20T06:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=25419"},"modified":"2012-02-18T07:57:27","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T13:57:27","slug":"the-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/02\/20\/the-return\/","title":{"rendered":"The Return"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>Anthony Thiselton: \u201cIn spite of those who underestimate the central importance of the Return of Christ in the New Testament, the concept remains central from the earliest New Testament writings to the latest\u201d (89). There is an issue here: moderns and postmoderns find this element of NT and early Christian belief a bit embarrassing, if not mythical, perhaps even imaginary or delusional.<\/p>\n

Do you think God, someday, will make all things right? Or is a hope for the Return of Christ a symbol for hope that things will get better? or can get better? or that we can make things better? Do you think Christ will return \u2014 in recognizably physical ways \u2014 to this earth to rule as king? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I grew up in a movement that valued this stuff, to the point of the absurd. We were pre-tribulation rapturists, we loved writers like Hal Lindsay and Salem Kirban, and the Secret Rapture and Second Coming came to us naturally. And much of what we believed, so I think now, was not founded in solid study of the New Testament but was instead one idea building on another and the next thing we were seeing things in ways that diverged far too radically from the great Christian interpretive tradition.<\/p>\n

Many who grew up as I did want to put this all behind us, like putting behind a childhood theology, but Thiselton\u2019s book (Life after Death<\/em><\/a>) offers cogent summaries (some of them clearly not up to date in scholarship) of biblical texts affirming a real (he isn\u2019t quite clear here) Return of Christ.<\/p>\n

There are a few terms here: Parousia<\/em>, referring to a royal, sovereign, and vindicatory \u201cComing\u201d or \u201cPresence\u201d; epiphaneia<\/em>, a public appearance; apokalypsis<\/em>, revelation and full disclosure. He also argues that apocalyptic eschatology in the NT, formerly dismissed by such scholars as RH Charles and CH Dodd, has come back into its own through K\u00e4semann, Koch, Chris Beker, JL Martyn, and Alexandra Brown.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t think it is clear that Paul thought Christ would return in his own lifetime but that he thought Christ might or<\/em> might not; in other words, Paul can\u2019t be read as one who clearly thought like that.<\/p>\n

On a secret rapture of being caught up into the sky, Thiselton again is not entirely clear but it appears to me he is saying it refers to a \u201cmeeting together as one at the Parousia\u201d<\/em> (99) and therefore is close to Tom Wright and GB Caird on this one.<\/p>\n

The rest of Thiselton\u2019s chp sketches the rest of the NT after Paul. Jesus\/Gospels clearly have a future act of God where all things are made right \u2026 and all the way through to Revelation (with no major proposals) to the view that the Return of Christ\/Second Coming is the public and absolute vindication of the sovereignty of God.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"