“Eschatology does not weaken but strengthen the call to present sanctification. Life is to be lived here and now by those who will have to give an account of it. But the temptation to shirk the ordinary tasks of the present age is sharply rebuked. Christians are to be better citizens, better workmen, better servants because they have already tasted the powers of the age to come, and look for its consummation…
To be wholly absorbed in this world is to miss its true meaning. A right otherworldliness is the condition of the truest success and the wisest use of this world. Thus a Christian Apocalyptic promotes that sound and healthy otherworldliness which is the truest wisdom.”
–E.J. Bicknell, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, Westminster Commentaries (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1932), p. 51.
