By Elizabeth Prata
It’s time for an annual wrap-up of the blog doings! I like the end-of-year wrap-ups. It’s good to take stock, review what I’ve done, and decide what my next year’s goals may be.
I think it’s especially important for people who have a ministry in Jesus’ name. I am always concerned that I write about things of Jesus that are accurate, well-interpreted, and edifying the reader or listener. I am concerned that I don’t drift, nor neglect my salvation. Publishing in the name of Jesus for all the world to see carries with it a heavy responsibility. If Jesus even considers me a teacher, then the burden to rightly divide the word is even more paramount. (James 3:1). As a Titus 2 older woman, I also feel a responsibility to minister correctly to the younger. I take these verses seriously:
3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. (Titus 2:3-5).
Dishonoring the word of God is the worst.
So how was 2021? Well, let’s begin at the beginning, 2009. I started the blog The End Time in January 2009 on Blogspot. Thirteen years!!! I named it The End Time, Because we are IN the end time, even though I knew I might be lumped in with the many crackpots and fringe theologians milling about in the prophetic waters. So many of them do newspaper eisegeses, that is, looking at the news headlines and back-matching verses to them and pronouncing the end is near. I was that way too, in the early years of salvation and the early blog. I know why, too. I was SO thrilled with finally having a framework and understanding why the world was the way it was. Why Israel is hated and there never seems to be a peace treaty that lasts. Why people are so awful. How the world got here, because it sure was obvious it didn’t appear from nothing and banged open for no reason of a sudden. My eyes had been opened and I was relieved and entranced.
But the Lord in His graciousness soon grew me out of that, and I went on to just plain theology and discernment. As for the discernment, I’ve noted concerns in the past with David Platt early on, Rachel Held Evans, Jen Hatmaker, the IF:Gathering bunch (especially Jennie Allen), Ravi Zacharias early on, Ann Voskamp, Joyce Meyer, Jen Wilkin. I’ve called out films from the Kendrick Brothers like Fireproof and The War Room, also The Shack – both the book and the movie…and more. I’ve reviewed books with discernment in mind, like The Circle Maker. I’ve warned about movements like Lectio Divina and Spiritual Formation and Romancing Jesus as a boyfriend, and so on.
My highest views for any given month are always related to a post about Beth Moore, and that has held true from 2011 when I first started writing about her, to this month. But I persist in discernment, speaking up when I see something off, or “almost right” as Spurgeon famously said.
“Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.”—C.H. Spurgeon
One person – even one – who sees a false teacher for who she or he is, and repents, is worth it. It’s why discernment people do what we do. It’s why I do what I do.
An example: I received a comment in real life from a woman friend who said ‘the best thing I ever did for her was point her to John MacArthur.’ Not only she enjoys his content, but her son and the whole family does too.
Another comment on my Twitter thread about Beth Moore’s Anglicanism this month was from a gentleman who said his eyes have been opened, and he repented of steering his wife to Beth Moore material which he had done even recently.
If anything I print or say in the discernment realms steers someone TO a great ministry or AWAY from a false one, I am thrilled. It is a great credit to The Holy Spirit who opens eyes, raises up good ministries, and a gives illumination to minds. Who wouldn’t be thrilled to be even a tiny part of that?!
2021 has been interesting on the blog. Each year the views increase, and for that I am grateful. As my visibility increases, a few more people ask me to be a guest on their podcasts. I was interviewed on Confidently Called Homemakers, The Bud Zone, and Striving for Eternity, with an upcoming interview on A Word Fitly Spoken.
I started my own podcast, imaginatively called The End Time Blog podcast. It’s just me reading what I wrote that day. I did it so my friends who have recently had children can listen because they no longer have time to read. In 2021 my commitment to getting solid content out there remains steadfast. I thank the Holy Spirit for that.
I received an email from the producers at the Dr. Phil television program to appear on their show about The Great Resignation, because I’d written about The movement called The Great Resignation, Or, The Great Laziness. The premise as stated to me was that there would be a debate for and against people quitting their jobs, a movement that has swept America since the pandemic. I declined, but then they asked to use my essay and the blog name etc in the show and in print materials. I don’t know how that went because I don’t have a TV and the show is not streamed online for free. But I didn’t get any bumps in views on my blog that week over the normal, so they probably abandoned it and focused on the angry guy who quit with profanity over the intercom. TV, you know.
On the individual blog essay front, my essay Bullet points on why Joyce Meyer is a false teacher received a lot of views, which I am grateful for, as perhaps someone will come out of Meyer’s false teaching. I posted several creation essays extolling Jesus as Creator, an aspect of His work which I love to study.
I re-posted an old series I’d written called Back to Basics, just cutting through the culture and clutter to re-focus on the most important things, like the Holy Spirit, Prayer, being Born Again, and the like.
In February it came to our attention that Canadian officials were persecuting the church in the Great White North, and I along with many other bloggers and journalists focused on Pastor James Coates’ efforts to resist that tyranny. I posted some articles about that situation here, here, here.
In June, the talk was of Southern Baptist Convention presidential candidate Pastor Ed Litton’s plagiarism. I wrote about it here, here, and here.
In August, I posted a week of Discernment essays in a series I felt was needed. Essay #1 is here. Then I did a week on Heaven, needing to cleanse my theological palate after all the putridness of the plagiarism scandal and the Ravi Zacharias scandal. This is Heaven Week essay #1.
In October I was blessed to attend the national G3 Conference, which I adored. Here is an essay of photos and blurbs about that three-day trip to Atlanta.
The battle of women in church leadership heated up during the year. Of course, I pushed back against that, since the Bible says “no,” at least, leadership positions that put women in authority over men. Here, here.
November was not so busy. In fact, the third week of October I got a stomach flu then pneumonia. I spent two weeks battling a 102 fever and was out of work. I returned in November but staggered around trying to regain my strength. Then I got Flu A. I spent 4 more days at home. In December I got a sinus infection which I’m still battling. Oy.
I’d posted an essay in December reporting where Beth Moore landed, after her noisy March declaration announcing her departure from the Southern Baptist Convention. She’d been vaguely tweeting about a new “liturgical church” she and her religiously apathetic husband Keith had been attending. She gushed and gushed about it.
I researched where, found it, and I’d reported, “Beth Moore is Anglican Now“. it isn’t a secret, Moore was asked by Bishop Clark of the Anglican Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast, Woodlands, TX, to speak a devotional to his people, which she did on November 10, 2021, and at that time identified her church.
My post generated a lot of interest. But we are a visual people nowadays, and when someone posted a satirical tweet saying it wouldn’t be long before Beth Moore would look like Moira Rose in the ending to the TV show Schitt’s Creek, I knew it to be a truism. I also knew it would not be long before Beth was at the pulpit serving or speaking in some way. After all, it was mere weeks after becoming a member that she was asked to MC an event and also to teach a class to an audience that included ordained leaders, presumably men. And sure enough, it happened. I posted the look-alike photos and showed screen shots of her in church doing just that.
It caused a Twitter meltdown. It also caused Moore to be nationally trending. Several journalism outlets picked up the story and reported the news as a ‘social media uproar.‘ Glad to help.
The top search query for all the year that landed people on my blog is “Melissa Moore”. The top essay is still, since 2016, an essay about Melissa Moore’s unbiblical divorce. Top Ten search queries for the year are listed below. That the query ‘Beth Moore Anglican’ is in the list is amazing, because that issue only came up two weeks ago.
- Melissa Moore
- Ravi Zacharias Last Words
- Types Of Glory
- One World Religion 2022
- One World Religion Center
- Beth Moore Anglican
- Beth Moore Salary
- Beth Moore Net Worth
- Jennie Allen Theology
- Joyce Meyer False Teacher
A topic that caught the people’s attention is the reporting I did on the One World Religion center opening in 2022. A LOT. I mean, hundreds of thousands. I thought it was significant enough to report on, and it seems lots of other people thought it was significant enough to search for and read about. THIS is why I do what I do. I hate to think of hundreds of thousands of people searching for information on the One World Religion center and what it means, and landing on a crackpot’s page.
On the top ten there was one query about a theological issue, the different types of glory. That’s good. Sure, I wish people would search for more theological topics, but I have no angst about the discernment questions. John MacArthur has stated many times over his 50 years of ministry that “The greatest threat to the church is lack of discernment,” as he said again in his December newsletter. So if I can serve through my discernment gifting in a way that edifies, helps, or even provokes, I am content.
I enjoyed some good movies this year, including the Mully Movie, a true story. “MULLY the true story of Charles Mully, whose unlikely stratospheric rise to wealth and power leaves him questioning his own existence, searching for meaning in life. Against the better judgment of family and community, MULLY sets out to enrich the fate of orphaned children across Kenya. Jeopardizing his own life and the security of his family, Charles Mully risks everything and sets in motion a series of events that is nothing short of astonishing… as he created the World’s Largest Family.” Really good! Free on Youtube.
I wrote about my personal life in reviewing 2021 at my other blog, The Quiet Life My Year in Review.
My goals for next year on this blog are the same as they have always been. As long as the Spirit sustains me, I will continue to write about theological topics, including prophecy, discernment, and encouragement. We are 365 days closer to heaven than we were at this time last year. What a day that will be when we are finally home!
To all my readers, donors, pray-ers, Thank you! To my critics, trolls, harassers, Bless you all. I mean it. I love the Lord and that means I care for the souls of those who are angry, in anguish, or just plain ignorant. It means I love His people and long for the day when faith becomes sight. Meanwhile, I write.
the-end-time.org 