Speaking from experience, it's uniquely hard to become cognizant of one's own bad eschatology and then shift toward a more biblical and historic view. Light rant to follow. Feels like a safe space here so feel free to ignore: :)
I grew up in the flagship Calvary Chapel church in Costa Mesa CA, where my parents were Chuck Smith's worship leaders through the 80s and 90s. In many ways, our church was a major convergence point for several pseudo-evangelical waves: the moral majority of Regan/Dobson, the megachurch boom of Smith/Laurie fueled by it's dispensational Left Behind urgency, the hard-complementarian sexual purity culture of Josh Harris, and the young earth gospel of Ham. Each individual wave had an uncanny knack for bolstering all the others. The more you preached the rapture, the more you preached young earth, the more you preached don't-kiss-until-the-altar, the more Right wing voters guides you distributed after services, the faster your church would grow, etc and so on.
It was a long, painful, and extremely relationally taxing journey for me to get far enough outside the bubble to wisely discern the good parts from the bad, the biblical and historic from the pseudo-evangelical. It's so hard (and it HURTS!) to become cognizant of the wonky parts of such a powerful system, when you're benefitting from the system relationally, pastorally, socially, emotionally, financially, etc. I wonder if this is partly why the most brilliant minds in the world (such as WLC) are content to keep misunderstanding what guys like NTW and you, Bird, are saying? It also makes me wonder where I'm doing this! Lord have mercy.
The problem I see here is that there is no effective treatment of the Antichrist figure/false messiah in this interpretation. Would this presume the Antichrist figure was Nero?
I tend to take the preterist view for the most part as to me it makes most sense of the text. As you say, the context is important. I wonder if people have got so used to thinking in single-verse chunks that they find it hard to take in what the context is. I will confess that this has been me at times and I appreciate the reminder.
When I first became a Christian knew little about anything on to interpret/theology (I’m self taught and read a lot, but no training etc) I was in a Pentecostal setting and they only taught a premillennial dispensational view ( they were promoting all the Left Behind movies/books mythical newspaper eschatology baloney nonsense) and it never settled well with me the more I read the NT etc. I’m pretty much settled on the amill position. Also it’s not something to obsess and speculate about the end. As a confessional Lutheran we are okay with saying it’s okay to settle in mystery just like the Lord’s Supper( or the Sacrament of the Alter). Now with the insane war in Israel and Gaza many Christians I know who are not biblically literate are thinking it near the end etc. I try to comfort them and say it’s just another war of many wars “wars and rumors of wars to occur until the end-Matthew 24:6 (the rapture or whatever you want to call is one simultaneous event(2nd coming etc). I could be wrong still thinking it through. I have read NT Wright’s books yet but would like to indie time. We pray in faith Come Lord Jesus!
I appreciate NT's take on the exaltation of Jesus, but I think to ascribe the 3 NT chapters in view here to "exclusively" the A.D. 70 destruction of the temple in Jerusalem completely misses the dual prophetic teaching of Jesus related to the destruction of the temple and His return in the future. To me, NT's interpretation over compresses these passages and really distorts them.
Regardless of one's interpretation, it's interesting to notice Jesus' multiple exhortations to having a heart after God and to not be missing the mark, certainly applicable even now.
I believe that most of Mark 13 is referring to the destruction of the temple, but verses 24-27 refer to the future Second Coming of Christ. The first parable that follows looks to the temple destruction and the second parable to the Second Coming. This is generally the position of David Garland and also the New Bible Commentary
Speaking from experience, it's uniquely hard to become cognizant of one's own bad eschatology and then shift toward a more biblical and historic view. Light rant to follow. Feels like a safe space here so feel free to ignore: :)
I grew up in the flagship Calvary Chapel church in Costa Mesa CA, where my parents were Chuck Smith's worship leaders through the 80s and 90s. In many ways, our church was a major convergence point for several pseudo-evangelical waves: the moral majority of Regan/Dobson, the megachurch boom of Smith/Laurie fueled by it's dispensational Left Behind urgency, the hard-complementarian sexual purity culture of Josh Harris, and the young earth gospel of Ham. Each individual wave had an uncanny knack for bolstering all the others. The more you preached the rapture, the more you preached young earth, the more you preached don't-kiss-until-the-altar, the more Right wing voters guides you distributed after services, the faster your church would grow, etc and so on.
It was a long, painful, and extremely relationally taxing journey for me to get far enough outside the bubble to wisely discern the good parts from the bad, the biblical and historic from the pseudo-evangelical. It's so hard (and it HURTS!) to become cognizant of the wonky parts of such a powerful system, when you're benefitting from the system relationally, pastorally, socially, emotionally, financially, etc. I wonder if this is partly why the most brilliant minds in the world (such as WLC) are content to keep misunderstanding what guys like NTW and you, Bird, are saying? It also makes me wonder where I'm doing this! Lord have mercy.
Wow, I’m in the minority. While I deeply appreciate them both, I am also persuaded by the NTW side here. Occam’s Razor.
The problem I see here is that there is no effective treatment of the Antichrist figure/false messiah in this interpretation. Would this presume the Antichrist figure was Nero?
I tend to take the preterist view for the most part as to me it makes most sense of the text. As you say, the context is important. I wonder if people have got so used to thinking in single-verse chunks that they find it hard to take in what the context is. I will confess that this has been me at times and I appreciate the reminder.
When I first became a Christian knew little about anything on to interpret/theology (I’m self taught and read a lot, but no training etc) I was in a Pentecostal setting and they only taught a premillennial dispensational view ( they were promoting all the Left Behind movies/books mythical newspaper eschatology baloney nonsense) and it never settled well with me the more I read the NT etc. I’m pretty much settled on the amill position. Also it’s not something to obsess and speculate about the end. As a confessional Lutheran we are okay with saying it’s okay to settle in mystery just like the Lord’s Supper( or the Sacrament of the Alter). Now with the insane war in Israel and Gaza many Christians I know who are not biblically literate are thinking it near the end etc. I try to comfort them and say it’s just another war of many wars “wars and rumors of wars to occur until the end-Matthew 24:6 (the rapture or whatever you want to call is one simultaneous event(2nd coming etc). I could be wrong still thinking it through. I have read NT Wright’s books yet but would like to indie time. We pray in faith Come Lord Jesus!
I appreciate NT's take on the exaltation of Jesus, but I think to ascribe the 3 NT chapters in view here to "exclusively" the A.D. 70 destruction of the temple in Jerusalem completely misses the dual prophetic teaching of Jesus related to the destruction of the temple and His return in the future. To me, NT's interpretation over compresses these passages and really distorts them.
Regardless of one's interpretation, it's interesting to notice Jesus' multiple exhortations to having a heart after God and to not be missing the mark, certainly applicable even now.
I believe that most of Mark 13 is referring to the destruction of the temple, but verses 24-27 refer to the future Second Coming of Christ. The first parable that follows looks to the temple destruction and the second parable to the Second Coming. This is generally the position of David Garland and also the New Bible Commentary
I’m uncertain. But, our eschatological views are driven by our interpretation of these certain texts, i.e. Mark 13, Rev. 20, etc.
“All 3 majority views of the end times cannot be correct. But, they could all be wrong”- Kim Riddlebarger.
Americans tend to default to a Premillenial Dispensational interpretation as ‘The de facto correct view’. NTW has a valid opposing view.
I think I stuffed up the poll and could not easily correct it Sorry! I intended to say NO.
Thanks
Peter Keith