Planet X Is Coming?

Some weeks ago a friend of mine began telling me about certain things he had been hearing concerning end times from different teachers. One of the things he mentioned was something about a planet that was going to pass through our solar system, possibly causing many of the prophecies in the book of Revelation to come to pass. This planet was referred to as Planet X.

Now I have been getting an email that is being circulated by a friend which mentions this Planet X and also the Mayan calendar ending in 2012. This certainly cannot be a mere coincidence. Every few years, Christians get worked up about end times due to certain political and/or other cultural factors.

This circulated email is a Blog post written by Jack Kelley (read here) forwarded by John Terry, Director of the Revelation Files. On the RevelationFiles website, the author states one of its purposes,

The events foretold in the Bible are coming to pass before our very eyes, and it is an exciting time to be alive. Reading the newspaper or watching global events on the news time and again reveals another piece of the prophecy "puzzle" being put into place. But so much is happening, how do you keep track of it all?

At The Revelation Files, we gather news from around the globe that seems to be of prophetic significance, as well as articles of interest to those of the Christian faith. We also share teachings and insights from many Bible prophecy teachers and scholars. Most people see prophecy only in the context of predicting the future, but prophecy can also serve to speak as a "thus saith the Lord" to an individual or the Body of Christ. To prophecy literally means "to speak a truth".

Over the next few posts, I would like to interact with my Dispensational friends from an Amillenial perspective. When Christians are able to cite from sources that are questionable at best, and then think that these sources somehow buttress Christ's teaching, I think it is a little time for discernment.

For instance, after spending several paragraphs explaining Planet X and the Mayan Calendar issues, Kelley concludes as to the importance of this information to date setting.

What’s The Point?

The short answer to the title question is, “No. 2012 will not bring the end of the world.” But without attempting to tie these predicted events to specific prophecies, I think it’s interesting to see how similar the Biblical descriptions of end times judgments are to the scientific view of possible coming events.

This is the problem when "we gather news from around the globe that seems to be of prophetic significance". We end up interpreting the Bible through what has been called "newpaper theology".

Although, as a Dispensationalist, Kelley claims to "subscribe to a literal, historical, grammatical interpretation of scripture", there is nothing in his interpretation throughout the Blog post that even follows that methodology at all. And since in the end, Kelley concludes there really is no point in linking these things together, why go to all of the trouble? The truth is, end times speculation always abounds, especially among folks whose eschatology is linked to newspaper theology/eschatology.

So yes, as an Amillenailist I agree with my Dispensational brothers that we must watch and pray for Christ's return. On the other hand, over-emphasizng end times speculations with our newspapers combined with pagan sources of myths will easily cause us to become imbalanced. Remember Y2K anyone?