It is always amazing to me to look back at the end of a year at all the things that happened in my life, in my circle of relationships with family and friends, and in the world.
It seems to me that most people are pretty lousy when it comes to predicting the future. Whether it involves something relatively insignificant like the outcome of a sporting event, or something with more of an impact like economics or predicting the stock market, the so-called experts are rarely consistently correct.
Do you know what an economist is? An economist is a trained professional paid to guess wrong about the economy. Economists have forecasted 9 out of the last 5 recessions. One more: three economists go hunting and see a large deer. The first one shoots and misses a yard to the left. We got him! Not that we are much better at predicting the future than most economists. On January 1, how many of us could have imagined or accurately predicted the major events that took place in our lives or in the world in the year that just ended?
The likelihood of our prediction skills being much better this year are not very good. There is so much uncertainty about the future. When the future is unclear and uncertain, and it always is, how can we know what kind of year it will be? How shall we enter the year and live in it as followers of Jesus? Christians in the first century found themselves in a somewhat similar position as we do pondering these questions.
As the years went by first century Christians were no longer convinced that the world would soon change with the glorious return of Christ. The spiritual vigor that characterized the mission and church planting efforts of Paul and his co-workers like Titus had to be entrusted to successors who, by virtue of their personal example, authority, and leadership would be able to defend the faith entrusted to them, and be ready like Paul to take their share of suffering for the gospel.
