Everybody, what is going on? You know what time it is. You're listening to join the Journey podcast with your host, Emma, daughter.

Thanks for joining. Today's passage gives us a lot to talk about. Last days, people to avoid weak women. Is that offensive? We've got a lot to cover.

So let's start with verse one because that sets the scene. Paul writes,

In the last days, what are the last days or when are the last days? Honestly, commentators have

different approaches. Some believe it's the days that immediately precede the days leading up to Jesus's

return or said differently the days leading up to Jesus' return, or, said differently, the days

leading up to the rapture. But is it the last seven days before he comes back, or seven years,

or many years leading up to it? Scholars, they have different views, and each of us needs to

wrestle with this ourselves. But here's the most leading viewpoint of the last days.

Think about it like grade school math. Maybe when you were learning to count or when you were

first introduced to negative numbers or the concept of infinity, you've got a horizontal line.

It's drawn across a sheet of paper like a number line. But instead, it's a timeline with arrows

on both ends as time is extending

indefinitely as God, he operates outside of time. And at some point near the left side arrow,

you make a tick and mark creation on your timeline. And then as you read through the Bible,

you add some key moments. Maybe the flood, Abraham, David and Goliath, the exile, the Israelites

return. And then you bracket 400 years of silence that end with a tick mark marking John

the Baptist and a big old tick for the birth of Jesus, the first Christmas. And pretty close to that,

you've got another tick for his death on the cross and another for

his resurrection and then his ascension. And we could keep going throughout the whole Bible.

But eventually, somewhere on the right side of the line, we're marking Jesus's return. And we don't

know where that tick technically belongs, but we know that one day, his second coming, his return,

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