two men standing in a field, then there was one (on being a left behind)

MANY PEOPLE with a pro­nounced right-leaning po­lit­ical per­sua­sion have had the ex­pe­ri­ence of meeting me and, perish forbid, en­gaging me in an­i­mated dis­course. Many come away thinking me a li­brull ar­se­hole. So, does that make me a left be­hind?

I found the lovely photo of the teddy bear in the woods at the top of this page on the Reigning Life site ac­com­pa­nying the ar­ticle “Who Gets Left Be­hind” by Jordan Hard­grave. As its cap­tion, there is a line from the Bible:

Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. (Matthew 24:40-41

Mr Hard­grave has a very dif­ferent take on Matthew’s words, which form the basis for the con­tem­po­rary be­lief among cer­tain (very con­ser­v­a­tive, very Protes­tant) Chris­tians in the rap­ture:

“We have been taught for so long that being left [be­hind] is a neg­a­tive thing, and the des­tiny of the un­right­eous, that we miss the clear Scrip­ture that shows without ques­tion the right­eous get left [be­hind], and the wicked  aken [during the rap­ture].”

Need­less to say, you will have to read Jor­dan’s essay to see how he ar­rived at that in­ter­pre­ta­tion …