December 23 - The Thousand Years

This chapter has quite a reputation for being distorted and interpreted different ways. My Concordia self-study notes are pretty extensive on this topic as is The People's Bible. The devotion touches upon it a bit but sometimes it's better to begin with properly understanding the text before getting into any misguided theories.  However, I do appreciate learning about what others believe and why because it gives me another chance to go back and be reminded about what I believe and why.  Because we're sort of "whipping" through this book through Advent, you will probably not have a lot of time to do that now but I would encourage you to revisit it at some point.

The Thousand Years refers to the time from Pentecost up to Judgement Day. It seems that while God remains completely in control, Satan continues to be kept on a tight leash that loosens up as we get closer to the Final Judgement. When read in the context of everything we've read so far, this fits with our understanding of what all of Scripture says about the final days.

There does seem to be some translation issues in this chapter in particular - another good reason to have our pastors trained in the original languages! Near the end of verse 4 and in verse 5, the phrase "came (come) to life" is better translated "lived".  In verse 7, you can replace the word "When" with "as" and the phrase "are over" to "draws to a close".

In the description of the paragraph "The Dead are Judged", I find it interesting to note the books mentioned. First, we know already about the "book of life" (singular) with our names in it by grace through faith in Christ. Then there is mention made of books (plural) with the names of those who have rejected Christ and his gift of saving grace, and instead are going with their own deeds. TPB writes, "The fact that there is more than one book for them may reflect that there are many more unbelievers than believers. Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and man enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13)"