1. Travis Perry says:

    I haven’t listened to the podcast, but the Old Testament prophecies you reference in your summary that include activities like farming, i.e. ordinary life, are seen by many Evangelical scholars as applying to the Millennium of God’s direct rule on the Earth that exists now and not as applying to the eternal state of a “new heaven and a new earth” of Revelation 21-22.

    I would say that only a little bit of Scripture addresses what will happen after the new heaven and new earth are created. And mostly, we just don’t know what the far future will be like, when New Jerusalem is established. We don’t even have any clear reasons to think life will be ordinary–though it may be in many ways.

    • There is no biblical case that these “ordinary” human activities (any literal Millennium notwithstanding) should be presumed aborted or superseded by some other form of existence. The onus is on these scholars, or anyone else, to show from Scripture that there is some direct or indirect divine purpose to truncating these human activities—instead of presuming the onus of proof is on the person who supposes that these non-sinful, deeply human, Genesis 1:28–directed activities will continue forever (and, even better, will be redeemed from sin’s corruption). Why would we presume that a Millennium period would be materially unlike the New Heavens and New Earth? From where does this assumption arise?

What do you think?