Pastor Taylor Shippy - 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
In my experience… for a lot of good and faithful Christians that I know… they’ve been conditioned to read the Bible believing there's something scary at the end of the book… And because of that… any texts or passages about how the Bible all ends… wind up being texts that always frighten us! And either they don't read them… Completely forfeiting the comfort and joy and hope which those passages were originally intended to provide… or they read these texts through the wrong lens, and these texts become what they were never meant to be: ‘fuel to the fire’ of centuries of unhealthy, idle speculation or biblical sources of anxiety, fear, and dread… This morning… I believe I have a Word of the LORD for you from one of those texts… One of those ‘texts of terror’ about how the Bible is supposed to end… And contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think there is a monster at the end of the Bible… Actually… Spoiler alert… I think there’s some really good news waiting for us…
