Leonard Sweet

New Release

The End (Hardback)

The Present Age and the Age to Come

ARE WE GETTING THE END OF THE WORLD ALL WRONG?

Every day it seems we experience a new doomsday drama. From national tragedies to climate crisis to social inequality and political unrest, today we face six distinct earth-shattering forces of decivilization.

Like a Spielberg drama that stretches the tension to unimaginable lengths, each seems to be rising together into one giant superstorm. Any one of the six has the power to disrupt the fragile frames of society. But together they may be unprecedented in their strength, the winds of change a rare F5 with power to raze and uproot entire civilizations.

In the midst of our collective angst, we want to know: what happens in the end?

By the end, we mean of everything - the world, the end of time, the end of the story. It is a question for all people, and a question of how God’s kingdom comes.

Getting the end wrong leads to poor decisions with dead-end consequences. But when we understand the end right, it changes everything. the end is God's kingdom, and here is the kingdom: it is under Jesus’ authority, it is timeless, timely, and the fullness of time, it is kingdom is material and real, it gives us hope, it gives us joy and it gives us peace. The kingdom gives us Jubilee.

Jesus’ first disciples even asked about the end.

The end has indeed begun. But it is not a special effects explosion. This prophetic new work by two theologians and cultural critics asks three core questions:

1. What happens at the end of the age?
2. What exactly is the kingdom of God?
3. What are the signs?

Along the way, we also answer the question, what happens when we die? 

What makes this book different is that most books on the kingdom of God ignore Jesus’ most important word in describing the kingdom: telos.

Telos is Greek for “the end”. It has many meanings.

Telos is the melody, harmony, and rhythm of human history. Telos is the presence of God, transcendence in immanence. Telos is the plot, purpose, and completion of the story. The End is the kingdom of God, and the kingdom is here and now.

In the middle of the turmoil of our age, the authors hope to prophetically call church and culture forth to a new age of telos and a new way of living. A lot has been written about the kingdom of God, but nothing like this. If you want to know what happens in The End, and how to live in the present, read what may be one of the important books of our time.

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CONTENTS

Prologue  |  Long Time Coming: The Story

What happens in the end?

• When is the End of the Age?
• The End is Our Story
• The End is Completion
• The End is Our Beginning
• The Story of this Book

Act One  |  The End of the Beginning: The Present Age

1 |  Out of Time: The False Ending of Apocalypticism

Is the world going to be destroyed?

• The Great Mortality
• American Carnage
• A Brief History of Christian Apocalypticism
• The Kingdom of God is Not Birthed Through Destruction

2  |  Double Time: The False Ending of Utopianism

Are we capable of perfecting the world?

• Bloodsucking Leeches
• The Doctrine of Progress
• Sin Devices
• The Kingdom of God is Not A Location We Build or Discover

3  |  Back in Time: The False Ending of Traditionalism

Does the answer to the future lay in the past?

• Anna and Caiaphas
• Heritage and Heresy
• The Past Versus the Future
• The Kingdom of God is Not Remembrance

4  |  Marking Time: The False Ending of Millennialism

Can Jesus just come again and fix this mess?

• Patriot Food
• Slipping the Chains of Time
• Standing Under the Arch
• The Kingdom of God Is Not an Escape Hatch

5  |  No Time: The False Ending of Ahistoricism

Is there even a purpose to history?

• Cancellations and Cancel Culture
• The Past is Another Country
• The Shapes of History
• The Kingdom of God is Not Solely Material

6  |  Big Time: The False Ending of Messianism

Is there anyone with the power and authority to rescue us?

• Make Us a King
• I Fight Authority…
• …But Authority Always Wins
• The Kingdom of God is Not Hierarchical

Interlude

7  |  Half Time: Truth is a Person, not a Proposition 

• • • What is Truth?
    • Searching for Truth
    • Truth from varying perspectives
    • Truth is a Person

Act Two  |  The Beginning of the End: The Age to Come 

8  |  Real Time: Authority

In the end, Jesus has all authority on heaven and earth.

• A Crisis of Authority
• The question of authority is inescapable
• In the kingdom, all authority has been given to Jesus

9  |  End Time: Telos

The end is the completion of the story.

• The end means telos
• The end is the purpose of history
• The end is the completion of history
• The end is a command
• The end is God’s presence

10  |  Full Time: Kingdom

The end is the kingdom of God.

• The kingdom of God is Maranatha
• The kingdom of God is real, not metaphor
• The kingdom of God is shared purpose
• The kingdom of God is now but different

11  |  Time Out: Presence

The end is the presence of God.

• Telos gives us power
• Telos empowers us to love
• Telos is a consuming fire
• Telos is an active state relationship

12  |  Time Consuming: Jubilee

The end is good and joyous.

• The end is jubilee
• The end is rapturous joy
• The end is our beginning

13  |  In the Time Being: Authorship

• Release and Renewal
• Letting Jesus author our lives

Epilogue  |  Overtime

In the end, we learn to see the signs.