​The last great narrative in Acts is an epic sea adventure. Paul’s journey by sea to Rome entailed grave difficulty, but God preserved him through every dangerous twist and turn. The detailed account of storms and wreckage, islands and divine insight, faith and fear, all serve a purpose. Luke tells the story with numerous allusions to Homer’s epic Greek novel, The Odyssey, so readers could understand the significance of Paul’s sailing adventures and the superiority of the God who guided him.

​Human philosophy is addicted to false dichotomies. We often make sense of the world by making dangerous distinctions. We reduce the inherent complexity of life to create simple either/or realities. 
 
Maybe you have heard, “Either support this new law or you’re advocating for chaos.” “Either you believe in science or reject the facts for your personal opinion.” “Either you support handouts to the poor or leave them to starve.” Each of these statements ignores more nuanced approaches. They try to create two exclusive categories with no other available options for how you conceptualize or engage in the world.
 
Simple dichotomies can help us see distinct variables to consider and assimilate, but they can also be used to control us. Perpetrators of either/or propositions are often trying to push an agenda. They want to force you into supporting their party or preference. Or set you up to be an easy enemy to take down and demean. Jesus’ opponents employed this strategy repeatedly.

​I will never forget the first and only chapel message I ever heard on Jesus being the “Life of the Party.” I was a Bible teacher at a Christian academy where a chapel speaker showed up to prove how “cool” Jesus was. 
 
The chapel message began with a photo of a stuffy, serious, boring old teacher. And the speaker’s concern was: “Many of you think Jesus is like this guy.” The speaker meant well. He wanted to challenge young people who thought Jesus wanted them to sit down, shut up, and wipe the smile off their faces. He wanted kids to realize Jesus had a bigger vision than just taking off your hat during prayer time and memorizing the King James Bible. 
 
So he told the story of Jesus turning water into wine and asked: “Is the Jesus in this story boring and strict?” It was a rhetorical question. The obvious answer was no. Jesus had created huge bottles of fine wine to keep a crowd of people celebrating at a 7-day wedding party! That is not the action of a killjoy. He didn’t come to rain on our parade but to throw us a parade.
 
Unfortunately, his point seemed to imply that Jesus likes to get people a little tipsy and have a good time—at least that is how all of my high schoolers understood it. Needless to say I was not pumped to have a spiritual authority insinuate that Jesus would bring 3 kegs to a party if he were here. That’s not the message a bunch of underage kids needed. But who could blame him? How else could you understand the character of a man who miraculously produced vats of alcohol for a party?

​Jesus’ definition of leadership is not what the political revolutionaries of his day wanted. They wanted to subjugate their enemies. They wanted to turn people into an army that followed their commands. They ironically used the same strategies of the system that oppressed them to fight for change. But Jesus had a different idea.
 
To understand how Jesus leads, we must understand what kind of leaders were rallying people to their cause in first-century Israel. He wasn’t the only one claiming to be the Messiah. Many self-proclaimed kings were carving out what they thought would create God’s kingdom on earth. So he had to boldly demonstrate what leaders in God’s economy really did.

​Did you know that belief in a sudden rapture of the church at the end of time is a recent invention? John Nelson Darby (1800–1882) created the idea to fit his belief that all Old Testament prophecies about Israel’s glory days were going to come true for a future Jewish nation on earth. The popularity of his rapture doctrine grew at the end of the 1800s and into the mid-1900s because of DL Moody, Billy Sunday, and the Scofield Reference Bible. In less than 100 years, the idea went from unknown to a virtual litmus test for whether you believed what the Bible really says.
 
How could people so quickly adopt this new idea into their doctrinal statements? Because Jesus and Paul talk plainly about being “taken” during a future judgment. Jesus says in Luke 17:34-35, “I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left.” It certainly sounds like some people will be whisked away during whatever judgment Jesus is talking about in Luke 17:22-37. If you trust the Bible’s every word, how else could you read it?
 
Before we adopt this recent idea about the end times, we should investigate what being “taken” and “left” behind means when the Bible describes a coming judgment. The New Testament isn’t the first time these expressions were used. Mr. Darby might have misunderstood the meaning of “taken” and “left” behind by failing to read the language in the context of Old Testament prophecy.

​Jesus was not always the most succinct teacher. And he taught that way on purpose.

Among first century Jews, Rabbis generally had one of two teaching styles: Halakha or Hagadda. Halakha focused on concrete rules to follow. Hagadda focused on provocative story-telling that explored what God was all about in more powerful ways than abstract statements could deliver. Jesus preferred one of these methods to the other.

Jesus makes a string of three confident claims here. He had struggled for years to build the faith of his followers, but not anymore. Now that his disciples know he really is the Messiah, he doesn’t believe anything can stop his new movement. Not even the Gates of Hades.

But what are the “Gates of Hades”? Is it Hell or an evil city or a band of demons roaming the earth? And what rock is Jesus building on? To answer those questions, we must look around the region where Jesus said these words. There is a long history of divine assemblies on tall mountains and kings who return from the dead.