New Release
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:
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What happens at the end of the age?
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What exactly is the kingdom of God?
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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.
CONTENTS
Prologue | Long Time Coming: The Story
What happens in the end?
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When is the End of the Age?
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The End is Our Story
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The End is Completion
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The End is Our Beginning
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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?
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The Great Mortality
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American Carnage
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A Brief History of Christian Apocalypticism
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The Kingdom of God is Not Birthed Through Destruction
2 | Double Time: The False Ending of Utopianism
Are we capable of perfecting the world?
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Bloodsucking Leeches
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The Doctrine of Progress
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Sin Devices
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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?
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Anna and Caiaphas
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Heritage and Heresy
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The Past Versus the Future
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The Kingdom of God is Not Remembrance
4 | Marking Time: The False Ending of Millennialism
Can Jesus just come again and fix this mess?
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Patriot Food
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Slipping the Chains of Time
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Standing Under the Arch
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The Kingdom of God Is Not an Escape Hatch
5 | No Time: The False Ending of Ahistoricism
Is there even a purpose to history?
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Cancellations and Cancel Culture
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The Past is Another Country
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The Shapes of History
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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?
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Make Us a King
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I Fight Authority…
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…But Authority Always Wins
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The Kingdom of God is Not Hierarchical
Interlude
7 | Half Time: Truth is a Person, not a Proposition
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What is Truth?
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Searching for Truth
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Truth from varying perspectives
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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.
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A Crisis of Authority
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The question of authority is inescapable
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In the kingdom, all authority has been given to Jesus
9 | End Time: Telos
The end is the completion of the story.
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The end means telos
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The end is the purpose of history
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The end is the completion of history
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The end is a command
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The end is God’s presence
10 | Full Time: Kingdom
The end is the kingdom of God.
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The kingdom of God is Maranatha
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The kingdom of God is real, not metaphor
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The kingdom of God is shared purpose
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The kingdom of God is now but different
11 | Time Out: Presence
The end is the presence of God.
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Telos gives us power
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Telos empowers us to love
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Telos is a consuming fire
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Telos is an active state relationship
12 | Time Consuming: Jubilee
The end is good and joyous.
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The end is jubilee
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The end is rapturous joy
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The end is our beginning
13 | In the Time Being: Authorship
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Release and Renewal
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Letting Jesus author our lives
Epilogue | Overtime
In the end, we learn to see the signs.