Most people get a bit freaked out when you start talking about eschatology, with visions of Left Behind and Kirk Cameron riding unicorns dance through there heads. (You’ll never get that image out of your head now, will you?)

While many of us neglect studying this subject (primarily because of people talking about locusts being black hawk helicopters and such things), we all need to work out our understanding of the things yet to come.

Why? Because how we understand the world as it is—and how we relate to it—is as equally tied to our understanding of the last things as to our views on the first things. In light of that, I’ve compiled a list based in part on feedback provided by a few followers on Twitter to see what a few helpful resources to assist us in working toward a greater understanding of a difficult topic.

A Basic Guide to Eschatology: Making Sense of the Millennium by Millard J. Erickson

In this fair, careful, and accessible study, leading evangelical theologian Millard Erickson provides an overview of various end-times perspectives. Pastors, students, and all those interested in end-times thought will find A Basic Guide to Eschatology an understandable, well-organized examination of the various viewpoints.

Each position Erickson examines includes (1) a brief overview, (2) its history, (3) a more thorough examination of its major concepts and of the arguments offered in support of them, and (4) an evaluation of both its positive and negative aspects. Previously published as Contemporary Options in Eschatology, this book contains an updated chapter that discusses new developments in dispensationalism.

Buy it at: Amazon

A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times by Kim Riddlebarger

Amillennialism, dispensational premillennialism, historic premillennialism, postmillennialism, preterism. These are difficult words to pronounce and even harder concepts to understand. A Case for Amillennialism presents an accessible look at the crucial theological question of the millennium in the context of contemporary evangelicalism.

This study defends amillennialism as the historic Protestant understanding of the millennial age. Amillennarians believe that the millennium of Christ’s heavenly reign is a present reality, not a future hope to come after his return.

Recognizing that eschatology, the study of future things, is a complicated and controversial subject, Riddlebarger provides definitions of key terms and a helpful overview of various viewpoints. He examines related biblical topics as a backdrop to understanding the subject and discusses important passages of Scripture that bear upon the millennial age, including Daniel 9, Matthew 24, Romans 11, and Revelation 20.

Regardless of their stance, readers will find helpful insight as Riddlebarger evaluates the main problems facing each of the major millennial positions and cautions readers to be aware of the spiraling consequences of each view.

Buy it at: Amazon | Westminster Books

The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views edited by Robert G. Clouse

Since the first century, Christians have agreed that Christ will return. But since that time there have also been many disagreements. How will Christ return? When will he return? What sort of kingdom will he establish? What is the meaning of the millennium? These questions persist today.

Four major views on the millennium have had both a long history and a host of Christian adherents. In this book Robert G. Clouse brings together proponents of each view: George Eldon Ladd on historic premillenniallism, Herman A. Hoyt on dispensational premillennialism, Loraine Boettner on post-millennialism and Anthony A. Hoekema on amillennialism.

After each view is presented, proponents of the three competing views respond from their own perspectives. Here you’ll encounter a lively and productive debate among respected Christian scholars that will help you gain clearer and deeper understanding of the different ways the church approaches the meaning of the millennium.

Buy it at: Amazon | Westminster Books

Promise of the Future by Cornelius P. Venema

Though we can never, in our time-bound state, know the future in detail, God in his mercy has not left us in complete ignorance of what is to come. His revelation in Holy Scripture has cast a flood of light on what would otherwise remain an impenetrable mystery.

Even among those who accept the Bible’s authority, however, there has never been complete agreement on what Scripture teaches in this area.

This major new examination of biblical teaching on the future of the individual, of the church and of the universe as a whole will be useful both to theological students and to informed non-specialists. Ranging over the whole field, it interacts extensively with recent literature on disputed issues, such as the nature of the intermediate state, the millennium of Revelation 20 and the doctrine of eternal punishment, always seeking to answer the fundamental question: “What do the Scriptures clearly teach?” The Christ centered nature of biblical teaching on the future is emphasized, as is the importance of the church’s historic confessions for an understanding of eschatology. The chief note sounded is one of hope: “God’s people eagerly await Christ’s return because it promises the completion of God’s work of redemption… The future is bright because it is full of promise, the promise of God’s Word.”

Buy it at: Amazon | Westminster Books (A study guide for this book is also available)

The Bible and the Future by Anthony A. Hoekema

Writing from the perspective that the coming of God’s kingdom is both present and future, Hoekema covers the full range of eschatological topics in this comprehensive biblical exposition. The two major sections of the book deal with inaugurated eschatology (the “already”) and future eschatology (the “not yet”).

Buy it at: Amazon | Westminster Books

What are some other books you’d recommend on this subject? Leave your recommendation in the comments.

When we talk about salvation biblically, we have to be careful to state that from which we ultimately are saved. The apostle Paul does just that for us in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, where he says Jesus “delivers us from the wrath to come.” Ultimately, Jesus died to save us from the wrath of God. We simply cannot understand the teaching and the preaching of Jesus of Nazareth apart from this, for He constantly warned people that the whole world someday would come under divine judgment.

Here are a few of His warnings concerning the judgment: “‘I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment’” (Matt:522); “‘I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment’” (Matt. 12:36); and “‘The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here’” (Matt. 12:41).

Jesus’ theology was a crisis theology. The Greek word crisis means “judgment.” And the crisis of which Jesus preached was the crisis of an impending judgment of the world, at which point God is going to pour out His wrath against the unredeemed, the ungodly, and the impenitent. The only hope of escape from that outpouring of wrath is to be covered by the atonement of Christ.

R.C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross, pp. 78-79
(available from: Westminster Books | Amazon | Ligonier Ministries)

[John's] prologue contains an awful word of judgment: He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him (vv 10-11). Jesus Himself spoke of this rejection He experienced, saying, “This is the condemnation, that the light has cone into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (3:19). Many years ago, I was interviewed by Dr. James Montgomery Boice for his radio program, and I had occasion to quote this verse. I attempted to quote the King James Version, which says, “Their deeds were evil,” but instead I said, “Their eeds were deevil.” That was the end of that interview, and as a result of it, even though it was long ago, I can hardly read that text without flinching. But we ought to flinch even when we read the words properly, for this verse tells us the world is exposed to the condemnation of God because people prefer the darkness to the light. They do not want to cone to the light, Jesus Christ, because their evil deeds will be exposed.

But John’s prologue also gives very good news: But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name (v. 12). This is the good news of the gospel, the great hope that John wants his readers to know John longs for them to believe in Jesus as the Christ.

R.C. Sproul, John: St Andrew’s Expositional Commentary (Kindle edition)

“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” 1 John 4:8

We assume not that God is love but that love is God. In other words, we don’t go before the real creator of the universe and say to him, “Please tell us what you are like and therefore how you define love.” Rather, we begin with our own self-defined concept of love and allow this self-defined concept to play god. When I say it “plays god,” I mean that we let it define right and wrong, good and bad, glory-worthy and glory-less, even though such valuations belong to God alone. Love becomes the ultimate idol.

The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline by Jonathan Leeman (Kindle Edition)