Triumph over CHRIST'S enemies.
Conquer the world with MIRTH.
Be enchanted by...
In the last few weeks we have been looking at what is called “the Olivet Discourse,” where Jesus explains to the apostles about how the destruction of the Old Covenant was going to take place. There is probably today no section of the Bible where both the historical context and the literary context (the context within the story Matthew is telling) is so totally neglected. From the start of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has been re-living the history of Israel. The genealogy at the start shows that He is Israel’s true king, he descends down to Egypt like the patriarchs in Genesis, he comes up from Egypt, He crosses into the land at the Jordan, He spends 40 days in the wilderness like Israel’s 40 years, He gives them law in the Sermon on the Mount like Moses at Sinai, he tells proverbs and riddles like Solomon in His parables, He finally preaches like the prophets announcing the doom of an unbelieving Israel that has rejected her God and perverted His worship. Everything in the gospel is about Jesus coming to Israel and in Himself being the Israel that Israel was incapable of being. He came to them as a faithful Israel where they and their fathers were unfaithful. Everything was about ministering to these particular people. So much so that when Gentiles wanted Jesus to do something for them, He refused, and they had to beg Him to change His mind. So Jesus all of a sudden doesn’t go from ministering to and preaching to and prophetically condemning Israel, to randomly jump ahead thousands of years, and then jump right back into ministering to and preaching to and prophetically condemning Israel. Jesus is talking about the Israel he came to minister to. He is not talking about us or people 500 or 1000 years from now; what He says can be applied to us and those Christians 25 or 50 generations from now. But for now we have to look at it as best we can through the eyes of those who lived 2000 years ago in Judea.
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Wow. How about reading the whole bible? Prayerfully. Agree that this is obvious Preterism, but have to wonder how someone can reconcile the obvious problems with this point of view. I'm sorry to say it but this sounds like it is wholly 'flesh' (leaning to your own understanding, rather than "lean not..."). There are so many problems here it's just not possible to respond fairly with a few words. To the reader/listener, please lay your questions upon the Lord for understanding... before believing this teaching.