Why does God keep playing all of these games instead of just being specific?
not Christian, but you made me wonder about this subject
the Bible says that it's not specific on purpose (tho they do give some general guidelines), it's not just some omission or something
>But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (Mark 13:32)
my initial instinct would be to say… that it's just not important, that it's purposefully vague to calm down the whole "end times" hysteria (which wasn't invented by Christians, it was all the rage in Judea of that time) cos it's easy to see how it's annoying and it's an occasion to do the "holier than thou" spiel of "the end is near, be holy like me or you'll burn!" which would be in line with some Jesus's teachings about not boasting about your faith and all -- that answer would satisfy me
but… that's completely wrong, Christianity is very big on apocalyptism and it's not a modern invention: gospels talk about it, there's an entire book to hype up the "end of the world" event
an outsider's perspective is that it's used to instill fear and control, and the "there are people predicting apocalypse every year" thing is not a bug, but rather a feature -- Jesus does use fear to promote his faith, so maybe that's unironically the answer (well, you're meant to fear Old Testament God; it's toned down in NT but it's still a thing, I guess)
obviously, a Christian won't see it as bad and manipulative, just how the things are, can't argue against straight facts
also, obviously a Christian is satisfied with the answer "God made it so", he's supposed to be infinitely smarter than us, so we don't need to understand the logic behind warning against the apocalypse without making it clear when it'll happen
I'm still not very satisfied, I wonder if there's a better explanation -- in some weird way instilling fear of the unpredictable end doesn't feel much Jesus-style, I feel he wouldn't like the people who scream about the apocalypse coming soon, but he also kinda did that and if we weren't supposed to think much about it, why have an entire book about it in the NT (I know the Revelations was quite controversial in the beginning)