Weeping and gnashing of teeth

[robbyyoung]

Hi Jaydam,

Again, I like your thought process for two reasons:

1. You are in the process of a paradigm shift which is apologetic to the original audience.

2. Apologetic to the original audience connotes timing, and promises to the 1st Century; leaving only "The Nature" of events to discuss.

Therefore, "The outer darkness" can and should only be studied as consummated. Preterism makes us free to exchange ideas on "The Nature" of end time events. Once we come to faith that these events indeed took place, we are in agreement with the expectations taught, promised, and written about, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to the "age ending" 1st Century Believers. Therefore, we are in good company. Speculating on how these "Events" happened is fun and exciting. Getting "The Nature" right or wrong is not the same as denying fulfillment, hence the paradigm shift.

I like your outer darkness summary

God Bless!

[steve7150]

I find myself aligning more deeply with preterism as I see more and more evidence that language obviously related to 70 AD from the gospels (ie. birth pangs - Mt 24) are picked up later in the NT (ie. labor pains - 1Th 5). Another example being - "he is at the door" (Mt 24) and "the judge is standing right at the door" (Ja 5).











I'm not a Preterist , but you don't have to be one to conclude that these references do relate to 70AD. You simply connect certain events to 70AD where the evidence suggests this, but allow for the possibility that God didn't use the entire NT including Revelation for one singular event.

[robbyyoung]

I'm not a Preterist , but you don't have to be one to conclude that these references do relate to 70AD. You simply connect certain events to 70AD where the evidence suggests this, but allow for the possibility that God didn't use the entire NT including Revelation for one singular event.

Hi Steve7150,

Preterists DO NOT focus on "One Singular Event". In your above quote, you've partially stated the position correctly the 1st time, "You simply connect certain events to 70AD where the evidence suggests this". It's not just 70 A.D., it's the signs Yeshua told His Disciples to look for during the transition period, approximately 40 years, leading to the Parousia and consummation which all insist on a 1st Century fulfillment.

Nevertheless, I just wanted to make the correction. I know many disagree, so there is no need, probably, to go any further and detract from the original post. Anyways, it's good to hear from you all, I've been away for a awhile, but it's a blessing to be back.

God Bless Bro!

[TheEditor]

Hi Robby,

Good to see you.

You wrote:

it's the signs Yeshua told His Disciples to look for during the transition period, approximately 40 years

What signs might these be? I now personally see Jesus' words in verses 4 through 8 to be the "non-signs" that Jesus warned them not to be misled by.

Regards, Brenden.

[steve7150]

Preterists DO NOT focus on "One Singular Event". In your above quote, you've partially stated the position correctly the 1st time, "You simply connect certain events to 70AD where the evidence suggests this". It's not just 70 A.D., it's the signs Yeshua told His Disciples to look for during the transition period, approximately 40 years, leading to the Parousia and consummation which all insist on a 1st Century fulfillment.









On the one hand you said Preterists do not focus on one singular event, yet you went on to say "which all insist on a 1st Century fulfillment." That first century fulfillment is 70AD. Preterism even believes the milleneum must be 40 years because it must end in 70AD.
That's fine if you believe that to be true, but my observation from Preterists comments over a few years here is that 70AD seems to be the most important issue for them.

[jaydam]

What signs might these be? I now personally see Jesus' words in verses 4 through 8 to be the "non-signs" that Jesus warned them not to be misled by.

Regards, Brenden.[/size]

How can you not take them as signs when v8 explicitly calls them birth pangs?

In my opinion, only as a man, birth pains are a sign - at least the sign that you are pregnant, if not the sign of imminent birth. The things that could mislead them, were still signs.

I have found it interesting that the disciples asked for a singular sign, and the time Christ uses the word for what they asked for (sign) is the (singular) sign, which is of the Son of Man. The asked for the sign of his coming, and if seems Christ give them a list of happenings, but the sign directly related to their question is v30 where Christ calls it "the sign of the Son of Man" which will be seen in the sky.

[robbyyoung]

Hi Robby,

Good to see you.

You wrote:

it's the signs Yeshua told His Disciples to look for during the transition period, approximately 40 years

What signs might these be? I now personally see Jesus' words in verses 4 through 8 to be the "non-signs" that Jesus warned them not to be misled by.

Regards, Brenden.

Hi Brenden, it's good to hear from you. Well my dear Brother, I see Yeshua giving The Disciples all kinds of bench-marks and waypoints to look for, from Matt 24:3 to the end of chapter 25, in answering their 3 pointed question:

1. When will the Temple be destroyed (When will these things happen, in reference to Yeshua’s comment in verse 2)?
2. What will be the sign of your Parousia?
3. What will be the sign of the end of the age?

Yeshua's personal pronoun usage, "YOU", is irrefutably connected to the lifetime of The Disciples. How we ever started reading this literature divorced from the rules of reading ANY OTHER PIECE OF LITERATURE is beyond me. YAHWEH wasn't playing semantic tricks on the readers or original audience (1st Century). There were promised time statements to real people denoting "The End and other events leading to consummation".

We say NO, because we stack our presuppositional understanding to some, not all, of "The Nature of events" against unambiguous prophetic "Time Statements". Well, The Time Statements trumps our lack of understanding concerning fulfillment in my view.

For example, Paul wrote a letter to the Thessalonians telling THEM, THEY will be living at the time of "The Rapture". Now either Paul and The Holy Spirit was wrong or THEY got it right! Our lack of understanding of the "HOW" doesn't make YAHWEH, YESHUA, THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE APOSTLES AND PROPHETS out to be false!

To be clear, I'm not saying honest folks trying to figure out the details concerning eschatology is guilty of accusing YAHWEH and His message as false. My point is, I'm NOT going there.

As always, God Bless Brother and we'll chat again

[TheEditor]

Hi Jaydam and Robby,

I was raised as a JW, and my whole life I read Matt. 24 as a prophecy concerning the "last days" that we were supposedly currently living in. In that view, all of the things mentioned; wars, famine, pestilence, etc. were considered part of a "composite sign"; that no single one of these meant anything, but taken as a whole, combined, in one generation of time, was the "sign". Interestingly, as you pointed out Jaydam, Jesus only uses the word "sign" when referring to the "sign of the Son of Man".

Oddly, my first exposure to the "non-sign" concept of wars, famine, etc. came from CT Russell who was the founder of the Watchtower magazine! His view was that Jesus was merely giving an advanced peek at history; that from the first century on, man's history has been nothing but wars, famines, etc. and that it's significance was nothing. Jewish Apocolyptic literature as I understand it, put forth that such occurences were portents. Jesus warned them to not be "misled".

My main issue with Preterism is the "fully realized" way of thinking. I don't care if someone holds to that idea, I just have too many unanswered questions regarding that particular position.

Regards, Brenden.