More on Eschatology

In addition to Dever’s and Schreiner’s recent comments, Craig Blomberg also has some good comments on the non-essential nature of eschatological beliefs such as the millennium and the timing of the rapture.  In A Case for Historic Premillennialism Blomberg says:

“In my ideal world, there would be no church or parachurch organization, including seminaries, that would make a certain belief about the millennium or the tribulation a requirement of anything, such as membership, employment, or the like.  If we believe in the literal, visible, public return of Christ to usher in the judgment of the living and the dead, if we believe in the bodily resurrection of all people, some to eternal life and others to eternal destruction, surely we can agree to disagree in love over the particulars on which intelligent, godly, Bible-believing Christians have never achieved consensus and yet fellowship and work together at every level of Christian service and activity.  The classic orthodox creeds of the patristic period, like the major confessions of faith from the Protestant Reformation, never required more than this.”