Tag anti-Christ

Revelation 20:5 – A Maliciously Inserted Delay

Scriptures state that Christ's kingdom that is to come on the Earth has a specific purpose. Christ and his proven followers will reign over the rest of the resurrected mankind for those thousand years and teach them righteousness. But one verse in Revelation (20:5) seems to contradict all the other Scriptures in claiming that the rest of mankind does not wake up during that time. What's the story there?

The Calling of the Chosen

The New Testament warns that distortion can arise from within the community itself, and history shows how easily faith can be reshaped into a tool of human power, offering surface-level comfort while quietly training fear, rivalry, and distrust. Across the centuries, these patterns have appeared in different forms: in long institutional eras, in reform movements that corrected some abuses while repeating other control patterns, and in modern spiritual “technologies” that can still divide people while sounding deeply reassuring. That is why many churches today carry a mixture of teachings, some faithful, some distorted, that can pull people away from the relational heart of original Christianity. So what is a true biblical believer to do in such a time, not to become another faction, but to rebuild trust, heal relationships, and practice a love that is strong enough to make community possible again?

Daughters of Babylon

The Reformation is often remembered as a brave return to Scripture. But it also unfolded in a world where faith and government were tightly bound together. So what should we make of the churches that emerged during that era? What did they renew, and where did political pressures pull faith communities back into old patterns of power and rivalry? And when Revelation warns about religion becoming entangled with rulers, does it offer a lens for reading that period of history with both honesty and hope?

The Man of Lawlessness

2 Thessalonians warns that a “man of lawlessness” will arise as the day of the Lord approaches, exalting himself within God’s “temple.” Many today read that warning as a single future end-time ruler, while others locate its main horizon in the first-century Roman world. This article follows a historicist line of reading that treats the image as a recurring pattern: when political power and religious authority fuse, faith can be remade into court religion, and communities can be pressured to give ultimate loyalty where it belongs to Christ alone. Do these prophecies invite us less to guess a name, and more to test where our allegiance is being trained?

A History of What the Hell!

Pagan ideas of a fiery netherworld date back as far as Egypt's Nimrod. Way before Christ, in the 6th century BC, Zoroaster taught the Persians of a Lord of Lies who lived in the dark reaches under the earth recording the deeds of men as debits and credits. After death, souls went to be judged, and if found evil, would be doomed to torment. To easily win pagan converts, the church adopted these theories and began relating Zoroastic meanings to symbolic verses. Apostle Paul predicted such distortions (apostasy) would occur (Acts 20:29-30).

Scriptures, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Scriptures indicated NASB are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked HCSB are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Holman CSB®, and HCSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers. Wherever indicated NCV, scripture taken from the New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.