End Times Matters

 I'm currently on a journey to more clearly decide on a view for the end times passages of the Bible, as currently I'm between a couple views and would like more certainty and evidence for either view.

Your view of the end times matters because to some extent it determines how you live now. If you have a pessimistic view of the end times you might be discouraged about culture being able to improve; but there are some views that are more optimistic of the future. If you're looking forward to the rapture, your focus could tend toward converting as many people as possible but ignoring discipleship. But if the rapture is coming, then you should really try to convert as many as possible before it's too late and abandon projects that appear to be going nowhere in the short term.

Also if you have a problematic interpretation of the end times, your interpretive method could be negatively impacting how you interpret other parts of Scripture.

The different views of end times get split up based on how you view the millennium as well as when you view the fulfillment of the end times passages.

Millennium Views

The millennium is referred to in Revelation 20 as a one thousand year reign of Jesus over the whole earth and Satan is bound during this time. The different views refer to when Jesus' second coming occurs in relation to the millennium (e.g. pre = Jesus comes before it, post = Jesus comes after it)

Premillennialism - Premillennialism sees the millennium as a one thousand year period sometime in the future after the 7 year tribulation (a period when the antichrist is ruling over the whole earth with a one world government and religion and God pours out His wrath on all the earth during this time for disobedience to God). The most popular form of premillennialism today sees the rapture as happening first, where Jesus brings all the Christians into Heaven before the 7 year tribulation to spare them from God's wrath during that time (this is usually coming from dispensational premillennialism, there are other views where the rapture happens either during or after the tribulation or certain other differences).

Amillennialism - Amillennialism sees the millennium as symbolic (not a literal one thousand years), referring to Jesus' current reign in Heaven as a spiritual kingdom rather than a physical one. This view still sees Jesus as returning in the future for the final judgement and to establish the new heavens and earth.

Postmillennialism - Postmillennialism sees the millennium as referring to a period on earth where Christianity/Christian culture becomes the norm of worldwide society and the Great Commission is fulfilled to make disciples of all the nations, before Jesus comes back for the final judgement and to establish the new heavens and earth. This view sees Jesus as currently king of earth rather than just king reigning from Heaven. Sometimes postmillennial views see the one thousand years as a symbolic number without seeing the millennium itself as symbolic.

When the Fulfillment Is

There are several views on when the prophecies about the end times are fulfilled. Sometimes these views are called hermeneutical views (hermeneutical is a fancy word referring to how we interpret Bible passages).

Preterism - Preterism sees all (full preterism) or most (partial preterism) of the end times passages in the Bible as being fulfilled already. Such views see the tribulation as referring to the Jewish-Roman war in the 1st century with God pouring His wrath out on the Jews for breaking the covenant, culminating in the destruction of the 2nd Temple by the Romans in 70 AD. Partial preterism sees Jesus as still coming back in the future and the final judgement and new heavens and earth as still future. Full preterism sees Jesus' second coming as referring to Him pouring out wrath on the Jews in the tribulation and the new heavens and earth as referring to us being a new creation when we're born again when we put our faith in Jesus. Full preterism is usually seen as heresy since it denies there's a bodily second coming of Jesus.

Partial Preterism and Postmillennialism usually go together, seeing Revelation as mainly in the past. This view also tends to be more optimistic about the future in comparison to other views.

Futurism - Futurism sees the end times passages as being future to us still. In this view, the tribulation is about God pouring out His wrath on all the world for disobedience and the millennium as future for Jesus to end the tribulation and defeat the antichrist before setting up his one thousand year reign.

Futurism and Premillennialism usually go together, seeing Revelation and the millennium as future from now. This view seems to be pessimistic of the future.

Historicism - Historicism sees the end times passages as spanning all of church history from the early church until the future when Jesus returns. Different versions of this view apply different parts of Revelation to different periods of time and usually see the final period as the period they're living in.

Historicism seems to not be very common today.

Idealism - Idealism sees the end times passages as not referring to specific events in history, but as symbolic to refer to mainly spiritual warfare. They see it as generally applicable to refer to Christian victory over Satan's forces in the spiritual realm.

Idealism and Amillennialism usually go together, since they both see Revelation as mostly symbolic and not referring to physical history.

There are also views that combine these in different ways. At some point I was thinking maybe I would come to the conclusion that all 4 fulfillment views are right in some ways - preterism is right as an "initial fulfillment", futurism is right as a "full fulfillment" (in an already-not yet way with those two), idealism is right in an application sense for spiritual warfare, and historicism is right in another application sense (e.g. identifying other antichrists during history may be helpful in application) - but I don't think that combination of them would work out well anymore.

In the churches I've been to, a futurist, premillennial view with the rapture is what has been taught. Dispensational premillennialism seems to be the most popular view at the moment. But the partial preterist view seems to make more sense at least in certain ways compared to the futurist view (e.g. the passages about the events happening "soon" is easier to see in partial preterism). I think Jeff Durbin from Apologia Studios on YouTube is the main place I originally heard of postmillennial views. He is among several Christian teachers online that appear to teach sound doctrine so it always felt like his end times views were worth taking serious at some point but I've put off looking into other views for a while. I decided recently I didn't want to wait longer to start diving deeper into the different views to make a better decision and be like the Bereans, who searched the Scriptures to verify what Paul said was true rather than simply trusting him. (Acts 17:11)