UK - Fears of the end of the world are growing as apocalyptic imagery from the Bible has come to life in recent months, as diseases, fires and floods have ravaged the planet. The Bible's Book of Revelation sees the Earth suffer from "intense heat" and drought, a shower of deadly hailstones and disease. The extreme weather is then followed by the Apocalypse - the final judgment of man and destruction of the world by fire. Fires have been seen across Europe in recent days, as extreme temperatures scorched the continent.
The extreme weather episodes come against a backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than 6.3 million people globally. Some have expressed concern that the latest extreme weather and disease is an act of God. [In the US], Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller told ABC News: "We're just kind of at God's mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start."
Stephen B Chapman, associate professor of the Old Testament at Duke University Divinity School, claims the Bible has a close relationship with the environment. He said: "In the Bible, there is an essential relationship between social justice and right worship and ecology. "The Bible has an intense interest in ecology."
However, other theologians have dismissed the idea that the latest apocalyptic episodes have "theological significance". John P Meier, a New Testament scholar and professor at Notre Dame in Indiana, told ABC News: "Only wild-eyed fundamentalists would think that recent weather phenomena have any theological significance. The Earth has seen and will see much worse in recorded history." Either way, the end of the world – as told in the Bible – is likely not near.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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