
There is a strain of apocalyptic doom in all of Christianity. Both Old and New Testaments encourage readers to pay attention to the world around them and to be alert for signs of divine activity, especially for the time of God’s coming judgment. The Apostle Paul warned that “the Lord will come like a thief in the night” and that Christians must be “alert and sober.” While expressly forbidding his disciples to wait on the end times, Jesus, in his great eschatological discourse in the Gospel of Mark, told his disciples: “Be on guard. Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.”