Bible Gateway Blog

Even though it’s likely one of the earliest Christian documents, 1 Thessalonians makes it clear that Paul considers the suddenness of Christ’s return to be apparent to believers. “…for you know very well,” he writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, “that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

But he goes on, in verse 4, to describe a major aspect of what it means to be a follower of Christ: “But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.”

In a recent sermon, my pastor paused mid-message and asked, “What if he comes right now?” He waited for laughter. Or, since no one was likely to be brash enough to laugh during a sermon, he watched us a moment for more subtle signs of incredulity… What if he comes right now? He wanted to know if we took that question as seriously as Paul did.

To the secular world, this is probably at the core of what makes Christians seem absurd. After all, it has been about 2,000 years. What are we expecting at this point? Where is your God? Paul consigns these people to the night—to a time for sleeping and drunkenness (5:7), a time when thieves break in and steal.

But to the followers of Christ, he writes, “…since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet” (5:8). And let us do these things now, not concerning ourselves with “times and seasons,” as he says in 5:1. God is outside of time. What is 2,000 years? What is 2 seconds? What if he comes right now?

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