If you are looking for how to survive a zombie apocalypse you might be in the wrong place. But during a recent discussion about the end times, as it relates to Jesus’ return, it became clear that the various terms and views can be very confusing.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is my attempt to lay out the various views of the end times. Given my background as a software engineer, you might see some resemblance to a flowchart.
As Screwtape passes on his wisdom in how to keep people out of the Enemy’s camp (and thus away from Christianity), we find that one of the main tactics of the demon is ignorance.
As always, the first step is to keep knowledge out of his mind.
For example, the Enemy (God) wants us to be concerned with eternity (thinking about Himself) and the Present, Wormwood is reminded that his chief task is keeping the patient distracted and focused elsewhere.
Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. … [The Past] is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past… It is far better to make them live in the Future. … [as] nearly all vices are rooted in the future.
In a letter to a pastor, John Wesley, cautions him about his lack of reading: (link)
What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear to this day, is want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. [Your preaching] is lively, but not deep; there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this …
In the introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation (amazon, online), C.S. Lewis talks about the importance of what we are reading (introduction). Particularly, he warns us against reading that is comprised of an “exclusive contemporary diet”, instead encouraging us to read books from the past (emphasis added).
There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. … this mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology.
Dead Heroes Don't Save 