The End of the World As We Know It...

Well, not exactly. But I did finish reading a book called "Till Jesus Comes," by Charles Holman. It's about the origins of the Christian apocalyptic expectation. It's about as deep as you would expect a book written by a Professor of the New Testament (he taught at Regent University until he passed away recently). You know it's going to be deep when you realize that it's an expansion of his doctoral thesis! Anyway, although it was written in a fairly complex way, the concepts were pretty straight-forward: The Israelites had an expectation of the coming reign of God that grew out of the reign of David and Solomon and took shape in the following thousand years. The Early Christians writings, including the Gospels were written during this time of expectation of God's Kingdom and they appear to expect an imminent return of Christ and for His Kingdom to come in its fullness during the lifetimes of the authors. The book concludes with different approaches we can take given the delay of the return of Christ...that's about it.
Since I last posted about books I've also finished reading "Jim and Casper go to Church," by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper. This was a good book that helps you realize what goes through the mind of a guest as they enter your church...very insightful. I would strongly recommend it if you are working in a church or ministry as we have a tendency of getting sheltered from reality whether we like it or not. I also read "God's Blogs," by Lanny Donoho and interesting look at what God would write if He had a blog.
I think that being a life-long learner is HUGE because the world is constantly changing and we have to be prepared for the challenges of life in this ever changing environment...if you don't believe me, think about how different life with cell phones is now from 10 years ago...or how within the last 5 years social networking sites have changed the way teenagers and young adults live their lives.