- Proverbs 29-31; 1 Thess 4
- Song of Sol 1-3; 1 Thess 5; Ps 72
- Song of Sol 4-6; 2 Thess 1
- Song of Sol 7-8; 2 Thess 2; Psalm 127
- 1 Kings 5; 2 Chr 2; 2 Thess 3
So, when I first thought about calling this blog post Parousiapalooza, which is a reference to the theological term for the rapture of the church, I did a little googling and found out that there's a movie just coming out called Rapture Palooza (a strange coincidence). After watching the trailers, I decided not to even post a movie clip here--and to highly suggest that you not go see this movie. It looks horribly offensive to the faithful, and blatantly blasphemous.
Parousia is a Greek word that simply means "physical presence" or "arrival." As a theological term, it means the appearing of Jesus at the end of days. There's a long debate over whether the term ought to refer to the rapture of the church, or to the second coming of Christ (or whether those two are the same or different appearings). I'm not going to get into that debate in this article. I'm not going to talk about the pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib rapture theories. I'm also not going to linger on premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism...you can look those up on your own. Sufffice it to say that Jesus is coming back, and we can have hope. This is what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4 (ESV):
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
One day, Jesus will return and take His people home to be with Him. In a moment, the living and the dead in Christ will be reunited with their Father, and all will be made right. We will be reunited with loved ones who have gone on before us, who made Jesus their Savior.
Here's a bit of info on the word "palooza," gleaned from Wikipedia:
The word—sometimes alternatively spelled and pronounced as lollapalootza or lalapaloosa[5]— or "lallapaloosa" (P.G. Wodehouse - "Heart of a Goof") dates from a late 19th/early 20th century American idiomatic phrase meaning "an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance."[6][7] In time the term also came to refer to a large lollipop.[8] Farrell, searching for a name for his festival, liked the euphonious quality of the now antiquated term upon hearing it in a Three Stooges short film.[9] Paying homage to the term's double meaning, a character in the festival's original logo holds one of the lollipops.[8]The word has also caused a slang suffix to appear in event-planning circles as well as in news and opinion shows that is used synonymously with other suffixes like "a-go-go", "o-rama", etc. The suffix "(a)palooza" is often used to imply (often in hyperbolic language) that an entire event or crowd was made over that term, e.g.: "Parks"-apalooza, "Gaff"-apalooza, etc.
So, I wanted to coin a new term, Parousiapalooza, meaning the great family reunion festival in the heavenly realms that will take place when the living and dead are reunited by the second coming of Christ. Parousiapalooza is that day when you will meet your great-great-great granny and laugh through those old family stories, and worship Jesus together. I look forward to that day. What a glorious day that will be!
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