The Most Abused & Misused Verses in The Bible (Pt. 2)

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Welcome to Trueology, where we study Christian theology, philosophy, and apologetics.

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We do critiques on scholars, politics. We look into events in both classical and modern -day issues.

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We do interviews, debates, and much more. Our goal is providing a Christian resource to edify the saints and to engage the community.

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But most of all, we want to glorify the Lord through our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.

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So, stay with us as we open up the Word of God and look into everything pertaining to life and godliness.

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My name is Belushi Prevalon, coming to you from the Boston area. And right now, you are listening to Trueology, the study of the truth, as it is in Jesus.

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Welcome back to Trueology. On this episode, we will be continuing with part two of the most abused and misused verses of the

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Bible. But before we get into that, I'd like to remind you that on YouTube, you can find me at DrBlueTheTruologist.

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On Instagram, I'm available through StudyOfTheTruth. And on Spotify, Trueology.

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The good thing about Spotify is I always put a poll there where you could vote for the next episode. And once this series is over, you'll be able again to participate.

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But right now, what I've actually done on Spotify is I've made a poll asking whether you agree or disagree with the interpretation that I have been given on the most abused and misused verses of the

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Bible. On X or Twitter, I am available at Bprevalon. And just like last episode,

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I want to start with the same quote that I opened with from N .T. Wright. And once again, I am not endorsing everything that N .T.

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Wright says. But I do think that this quote embodies and expresses exactly what we are dealing with in terms of hermeneutics and exegesis.

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So, well, I'm actually going to quote part of the quote here, where he says, And that's what

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I intend to do here on this episode. I want to compel you to believe what the text is actually saying in its context.

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Remember, once again, what I am not saying is that a verse cannot have multiple applications.

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What I am saying is that exegesis must proceed interpretation, knowing that there is a science to Bible interpretation and that this is not some esoteric thing that only trained professionals do, but something that I believe inherently that the middle schooler, the high schooler, the soccer mom, and as I said last time, even some of the

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Ph .D .s among us can do. So long that the only difference is the difference of degrees, how much tools you have, the resources available to you, and what general culture has basically encouraged you to do so.

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Now, remember, we are addressing each verse that we're going to deal with on even part two of this episode based on its common abuse or misuse.

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And before we actually start and get into some of the recap from last episode,

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I remember that I did define exegesis, but I didn't actually define hermeneutics.

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And I found a basic definition on the internet. I think that would be helpful for us.

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Hermeneutics being defined this way, hermeneutics and exegesis are sometimes used interchangeably, but hermeneutics is a wider discipline, which includes written, verbal, and nonverbal communication.

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Exegesis, on the other hand, focuses primarily upon the word and grammar of the text. So you can think of it this way, hermeneutics are the broader principles that encompass and cause us to use the primary discipline of exegesis to bring out the meaning of a particular text.

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On the last episode, we looked at Colossians 2 .8, and we concluded that the common meaning was usually stay away from philosophy.

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It's secular and pagan and dangerous for Christians to do. Don't bother. All you need is the

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Bible, not philosophy. And we contrasted that with what I believe is the biblical meaning, which was

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Christians are to beware of a certain kind of philosophy, one that is not grounded in Jesus Christ, but born through men and their traditions.

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In other words, one that is rooted in worldly understanding and the traditions of men and not after Christ.

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We need to do philosophy was basically my argument point, because philosophy encompasses putting together a worldview, and everyone has a worldview.

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As a matter of fact, the common meaning that says stay away from philosophy is itself a worldview and a philosophy.

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Philosophy is inescapable. You either do it well or you do it really badly.

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Philosophy is transient to apologetics. In the Bible, in 1

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Peter 3 .15, we are called to give an answer and be ready always for the hope that lies within us.

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We cannot give an apologetic without a proper theology that necessarily brings about a thorough philosophy.

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We also looked at Matthew 7 .13 through 14, and the common meaning that we went we viewed through that was most people are going to hell, but only a very small amount actually make it to heaven.

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And contrasting with that was the biblical view from my studies, which was if you follow the unrighteous teachings of the

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Pharisees, you will live contrary to God's precepts and purposes in the law. This, of course, will ultimately result in maybe a surprise at the judgment where Jesus will say,

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I never knew you. You've been living this whole time thinking you have been pleasing and living by God's ways, but in actuality, you have been your heart was far from him.

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Right. And for some proof to that, in terms of what the sermon of Jesus was about, we went all the way back to like Matthew chapter one, two, five, six and seven.

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And we looked a little deeper into what the purpose of the sermon was, which was that it was prophetic, where we see

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Jesus coming on the scene after the intertestamental period, after his forerunner, John the Baptist, preaching the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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We then see that the content of his sermon was around correcting falsehood, the hypocrisy of the

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Pharisees, which also had various elements of divine wisdom when he which he would preach to his audience, calling them to follow the true shepherd, which he was.

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And that in giving them this kind of wisdom that would allow them to be able to discern false teachers saying by their fruits, ye shall know them.

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Speaking of the Jewish leaders and their corruption, we ultimately concluded that the application of that verse in Matthew seven, 13 through 14 was that it was about true righteousness in the

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Christian life. In other words, it was more about sanctification rather than salvation. Right.

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The most people are going to hell interpretation is ultimately not supported unless you want to cut that Bible verse out and leave it hanging on its own.

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What what is supported in that text is that tradition kills. The very next verse that we are going to deal with is one that is even more controversial than the two prior.

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It's going to be Matthew 24, 34. Now, before I get into it exactly,

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I want to ask a question. What do you want? Do you want exegesis and hermeneutics to guide your interpretation or do you just want to believe what you're commonly taught or what the church atmosphere has always taken for granted?

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We must understand that most people do not do exegesis. As a matter of fact, I am clear proof of that.

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Three years into my salvation and walk with the Lord, I never even heard of the word exegesis.

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The very first time I heard it, I thought the guy was talking about breakfast or something. Eggs in Jesus. What does that have to do with doing devotions in the morning?

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You know, exegesis is a is a primary Christian teaching and method of interpreting what the word of God has said.

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And many, many, many people before us, Christians, believers have done this and apply these tools and methods to get to the conclusions they have defended and articulated over the generations.

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Most church culture today is really about, you know, inspiration and a sense of personal revival and not education.

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In other words, feeding the mind. There is a prominent Christian culture today that is still looming over us.

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And its perspective is more of a pessimistic kind that sees, you know, as we get closer to the end of history, that we will experience eventual defeat and a decline in Christian influence in society in total.

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We must also understand that before we get into this verse that, you know, there is this typical assumption and application and method of what is called newspaper exegesis.

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Newspaper exegesis defined by me would be the use of current events to interpret or dictate whether we're getting closer to Bible prophecies.

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I personally think this is very idolatrous and skews interpretation to a great degree.

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So I must ask again, what do you want? Do you want a grammatical historical context to guide us to the meaning of what

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Bible passages teach? Or are we going to apply newspaper exegesis? When Jesus is saying a specific thing, do we close our

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Bibles, go look outside to see if those things have yet come to pass in our day? Or are we going to allow the context and the writer to bring out to us what is being said there?

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Remember, my motto is whatever you believe, defend it. And when it is brought under scrutiny, defend it in light of scrutiny.

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And if it stands, believe it. But if it falls, keep studying. My invitation to you is to comment and to respond to this podcast maybe.

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If you find something interesting, if you've learned something, if this has helped you in any way, comment.

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Express yourself a little bit. But I am open to the discussion. I am not here saying that I am better than anyone or I know better.

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I don't want to be that arrogant. I don't want to seem as if I know it all. But I am committed to expounding the

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Bible as I have studied it. And my intent is to call you to be responsible with the word of God and what it says.

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So with that being said, let us start Matthew 24, 34.

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And it says, Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.

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The common meaning is usually Jesus prophesies that things will go from bad to worse as we get closer to the time of the rapture, the great tribulation, and the second coming, which are events still yet in our future.

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Opposed to that is what I believe to be the biblical meaning, which is that the destruction of the

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Jewish temple, the tribulation, and the coming of the Son of Man will take place during the lifetime of the present disciples.

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Now, before you throw rocks at me, let's just consider a few things. First, the literature.

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There's a difference between interpreting things literally and literarily. What do

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I mean by that? If we interpret things uncompromisingly in a literal fashion, then we must conclude that when

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Jesus says, I am the door, that he is really made out of wood. Now, that sounds ridiculous because it is.

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Instead, we should interpret things literarily, which means that we interpret things based on their respected genre.

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There's various kinds of genres in the Bible, and we must recognize them. The Bible consists of wisdom, literature, poetry, laws, prose, historical records, and prophecy, which brings me to my second point, an important note here, that Matthew 24 is primarily prophetic, which means that we are going to run into things like hyperbolic language and decreation language, and we are going to run into quotes from previous prophecies.

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For example, in verse 15 in the same chapter, Jesus mentions the abomination of desolation from Daniel.

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So, we must understand what Daniel was talking about and see the correlation and the relevancy to why

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Jesus is quoting it. Third, Jesus is answering the disciples' questions.

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Now, obviously, this isn't too profound, right? But what

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I want you to understand here is that each answer flows from the other.

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The apostles, well, the then -disciples, are asking

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Jesus about the destruction of the temple and the coming of the end of the world. And each of the answers that Jesus gives flows from the other, and it is very instructive to the disciples and their experience, which brings me to this next point.

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Matthew 24 is part of a greater chain of events, first in Matthew 21, beginning at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and ending, finally, at the crucifixion.

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You know, if you want to take a pair of scissors and cut out Matthew 24, I guess you can make it say whatever you want.

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But if you really want to commit to the greater context of Matthew 24, you're going to leave it in the Bible and realize that there is a succession of events that lead up to the

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Olivet Discourse, which is very relevant to the disciples' lives, which Jesus seems to disclose here.

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Fifth, this isn't the first time that Jesus said that the coming of the Son of Man will be seen by those who are present.

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Now, what do you mean by that? Well, let's consider what happened at the assembling of the disciples in Matthew 10, verse 23.

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Jesus assembles the disciples, and then he says this, but when they persecute you in this city, talking to the disciples, who he just called to go two by two, he says, flee ye into another, for verily

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I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the

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Son of Man be come. Well, it is very obvious from this text that Jesus is saying that the apostles or then disciples were not going to finish evangelizing or going throughout the cities of Israel until before the coming of the

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Son of Man. So this already puts some brackets around what the definition of the coming of the

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Son of Man must mean, because here is Jesus saying that in your present time, while you're still doing this evangelistic work that I've called you to do, before you finish it, the coming of the

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Son of Man will take place. That's very hard to deal with if we are going to project this and give it a different definition into the future.

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Secondly, to the Jewish prosecutors. In Matthew 26, when at Jesus' false trial, before he is sent to Pilate to be crucified, the high priest asks him about who he is, and Jesus says unto him,

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Thou hast said. Nevertheless, I say unto you, the high priest, or whoever is questioning him there,

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Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.

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So very obvious, once again, Jesus is saying to his present audience that very soon you are going to see the

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Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. That's very interesting, isn't it?

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Because we know that the high priest and those who had falsely tried

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Jesus have been dead for some 2 ,000 years now, and yet he is saying to them that they are going to see this event.

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And usually a common objection here is, Oh, of course they're going to see him. The book of Revelation says every eye shall see him at the very end.

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But you see, Jesus' own words here give us the correct time frame upon which these events in regards to the sitting on the right hand of power and the coming in the clouds are going to happen.

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He says, Hereafter shall ye see. So that's the time frame to which we need to put these statements in regards to what the audience would have understood by his exact words.

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And, of course, we know exactly what their reaction was. The high priest tears his garments and calls him a blasphemer because he is referencing what is said in Daniel that he is going to be the son of man who is anointed and worship is given to him.

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And with that being said, I just want to lead into the last thing we should consider before we dive into Matthew 24, and that's the reason why this is so controversial is really because of eschatological debates.

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And there have been three eschatological views that have contributed to that debate over Matthew 24.

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And the first one is premillennialism, which sees the things that are happening in Matthew 24 as having more of a future fulfillment to us today.

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And some proponents of this have been John Nelson Darby, who seems to have been the first systematizer of dispensational premillennialism.

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Other contributors to that same viewpoint have been D .L. Moody and Louis Barry Schaeffer. The second eschatological viewpoint that seems to contend for Matthew 24 here is amillennialism, which sees the things being described by Jesus in Matthew 24 are things that have already happened in regards to us today in 2024.

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So some proponents of this have been, you know, most particular Reformed Baptists like Adoniram Judson.

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One of the first articulators of this preterist approach has been St. Augustine in the Middle Ages.

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And therefore, when they see Jesus prophesying of the Great Tribulation and the coming of the

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Son of Man, they see that as something that had taken place in the first century leading up to the destruction of the

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Jewish temple. The third eschatological viewpoint that has contributed and contended for the interpretation of Matthew 24 is the one advocated for in this podcast, and that's postmillennialism, which also takes a preterist approach to the book of Matthew and the whole

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Bible, may I say, specifically the book of Revelation. And some proponents of this have been Charles Hodge and Jonathan Edwards.

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Now, you might have some questions. You might be asking, how can the Great Tribulation have taken place in the disciples' time period?

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The coming of the Son of Man is the final coming of Christ. Are you saying that that happened already?

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And what I would like to say is, we have no authority to project what

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Jesus has said to other than what he has already stated. Jesus has already defined and given us a time bracket for the

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Great Tribulation and the coming of the Son of Man. And by definition, if Jesus has said it, that's what we should attain to.

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What about the days of Noah and the rumors of war statements? Are you suggesting that that already took place?

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Well, you know, in 2024, if you say there's going to be wars and rumors of wars, people are literally going to roll their eyes at you because there's literally two of them going on right now.

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As a matter of fact, in the last two generations, three generations, we have known nothing but war.

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But, you know, in the first century during the Pax Romana, the Roman peace where the

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Roman Empire is enforcing peace throughout its regions and constituents, to say there's going to be wars and rumors of wars was quite weighty and significant.

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You might also be asking, oh, how could this possibly not be speaking of the rapture when it says two will be grinding at the mill and one will be taken and the other left?

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Didn't Jesus say that the gospel will reach the world before the end come? All these questions,

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I believe, are specifically addressed in Matthew 24 and by going through the contextual proof and doing exegesis and applying a hermeneutic,

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I believe that we can come to the proper interpretation opposed to the common meaning that has been abused and misused.

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So let's get into Matthew 24. All right, so Jesus goes to the

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Mount of Olives and his disciples come to him privately and they ask him this question. Tell us, when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?

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Now, why are they asking this? Well, in Matthew 23, Jesus had just finished casting out woes and judgment towards the

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Jewish leaders because of their hypocrisy. And as they're leaving the scene, the disciples notice the beauty of the temple and they decide to ask what

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Jesus thinks of it. And Jesus responds by saying not a single stone of this temple is going to be left upon the other.

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And you could probably imagine the draw -drop moment there. I can imagine

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Peter going, wait, what? You mean this temple, which has stood for our culture and our religion and God's covenant to us, is no longer going to exist?

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And I can imagine Jesus probably going, yes, it's not going to exist. And then, you know, kind of leading the way in a certain direction, which we are told that he went to the

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Mount of Olives. And, you know, in my head, this is just imagination here. I can imagine the disciples probably holding back a little bit, talking amongst themselves.

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And then they finally go to Jesus, as it says here. They come unto him privately and they ask him these questions after kind of discussing it amongst themselves, kind of confused as they typically are.

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And they ask him, you know, when shall these things be? What things? The destruction of the temple. And what shall be the sign of thy coming?

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And the reason why, you know, they might be asking the sign of thy coming is because, you know,

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Jesus had just basically pronounced judgment upon the Jewish leaders inside the temple moments prior.

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So they clearly heard what he said and they seem to have correlated that with the destruction of the temple, which merits this question.

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And attached to that, the end of that question about his coming is also this question, and of the end of the world.

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Now, many people would probably go, ah, see, here in the very opening of Matthew 24, we are being told that what the disciples are asking for in the questions and the answers that Jesus is going to give have to do with the end of the world.

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Well, it's very interesting because the word for world in this particular sentence is not the word cosmos in the

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Greek. It's the word aeon, from which we get our English word aeon, which is talking about a time period.

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So, in other words, when the disciples ask about the end of the world, they're not talking about the literal, physical cosmos or cosmos, the creation order.

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They're asking about the end of this time period, which is oriented around the significance of the

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Jewish temple and the Old Testament orders that are involved in it.

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And Jesus' answers are then very relevant to the lives of the disciples in that same period.

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In verse 4, Jesus says, take heed that no man deceive you. And then in verse 9, he says,

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Furthermore, in verse 15, he says,

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Whoa, when who? Christians 2 ,000 years later in 2024?

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When Christians who are present at the moment of the abomination of desolation?

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No, Jesus is talking to his audience right now, which is Peter, John, James, and the rest of the disciples, most likely.

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And he's saying, when ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation.

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And I'm gonna stop here and ask one more time. What do you want? Do you want exegesis? Or do you want your traditions?

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Because very clearly from the flow of this text, the answers that Jesus is giving is very relevant to the lives of his current disciples.

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And he here clearly states that they are going to be the ones that are gonna be in the presence or they're gonna be the ones that are gonna witness and see the abomination of desolation.

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At this point, if you are applying a preterist hermeneutic, you're probably going, uh -huh, okay, all right, go on.

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But if you're seeing in Matthew 24 in more of a futurist lens, then this is a little bit problematic because usually we're thinking that, you know, those who are gonna be in the presence of the abomination of desolation are typically those that are going to be the generation that is present during the great tribulational period while maybe the church is absent from the world at this time.

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And once again, I wanna, you know, restate, you know, what do you want? Do you want to let the text tell you what it's talking about?

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And is it important enough for us to understand that Jesus is saying this to his disciples in front of him?

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Or are we supposed to ignore that and actually project it past the very brackets that have already been established?

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As we go on here in verse 16, Jesus says, Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.

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Now notice, it doesn't say let them that be in the Boston area flee to Worcester County.

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No, it says them that which be in Judea flee into the mountains. So this is very relevant to the region and location from which the disciples would clearly recognize.

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And it makes sense because they're asking about what's going to happen in their very lifetime.

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In verse 20, Jesus goes on and says, But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the

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Sabbath day. Now, another reference to something that they would have clearly understood and been very significant to their particular experiences.

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The Sabbath day. In verse 25, Jesus says, Behold, I have told you before.

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So, you know, this is a true test of a prophet. You know, the book of Deuteronomy tells us that if a prophet has a failed prophecy, then if a prophet comes along and makes prophecies and they do not come to pass, that's a false prophet.

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And Jesus here is basically putting himself in that same is not allowing himself to be below that standard which was already established by Moses who spake the word of God to the people.

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And he says, Look, I'm telling you right now. Pay attention. Realize and acknowledge that I'm telling you about this before it comes to pass so that when it does, you will ascribe to me the testimony of a true prophet.

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So, whatever interpretation we want to give to this text, whatever hermeneutic principle that we want to apply, it must help us conclude that Jesus indeed was a true prophet.

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Because here he is telling his disciples this is how they will know. Because he says, Behold I have told you before.

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Now, let's go on. Verse 33 Jesus says, So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near even at the door.

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So, likewise ye, the disciples, when ye shall see all these things, what things?

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The collapse of the physical cosmos or the end of the time period relevant to the temple and the destruction that Jesus has already annunciated towards the

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Pharisees. I think the latter for sure because remember, this is part of a whole discourse being given to those disciples at this moment.

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And verse 34 which is the text that we wanted to look at in the first place and to make some sense out of it.

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Jesus says, Verily I say unto who? The disciples. You, this generation shall not pass away until all these things be fulfilled.

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So, we have gone from verse 4 to verse 34 now and we have seen that whatever

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Jesus has said in this text has to do with a specific audience. We've now seen that this audience is not an audience that is disconnected by thousands of years later into our timeline in 2024, but it is rather the disciples standing before Jesus, hearing him disclose the events that will soon happen within a time frame relevant to their life span.

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Now, at the end of all this Jesus says this. He says, Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your

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Lord doth come. Very interesting. So, he gives them the general context of the events and what's going to happen to them leading up to those events, but he doesn't say precisely the day and the hour.

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As a matter of fact, he calls them to pay attention and stay awake. Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your

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Lord doth come. And what does the coming of the Lord actually mean? Well, first of all, it doesn't mean coming back to take me with you.

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It means more of being near in terms of Advent. It implies this consequential presence.

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For example, ancient kings like Caesar would go into a certain region and he would be bearing a consequential presence upon that region.

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It's kind of like when you're at work and you're not really doing anything and then your manager comes in and all of a sudden you get fearful and you start looking busy.

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There's a consequential presence there that invokes you to make it look like you're doing something because you know that there are consequences because the one that is above you has come to bear witness to your actual actions.

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Likewise, when Jesus says when Jesus is talking about his coming here, he's talking about not just of a coming to take you and go home with him, but rather a coming to stay and bring upon a certain judgment.

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It makes sense because in the prior chapter, Jesus did disclose those exact judgments.

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Those judgments came upon the covenant -breaking Jews which were primarily represented through the

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Jewish leaders, the scribes and Pharisees. In Matthew 23 verse 2, Jesus addresses their sins and he says, the scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.

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In other words, they've become proud and they've exalted themselves to a stature that is actually not

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God -given. Furthermore, Jesus condemns them publicly. He says,

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Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for ye neither go in yourselves.

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For ye come past sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

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Now remember, folks, this is not the happy -go -lucky Jesus that is seen on television and on paintings.

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This is the real Jesus, which was full of grace and truth, and he denounced unrighteousness to its face.

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Kind of like what we are called to do, but we are supposed to do it in the spirit of meekness, but sometimes when breathing fire is necessary, we should feel morally indignant and unrighteous in bold sense so that we can decry those things that are in error, like Jesus did here.

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He condemned the Pharisees publicly. Jesus then says that it will be them that will be guilty of judgment for his prophets.

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In Matthew 23, verse 34 and 35, we see this. He says, Wherefore, behold,

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I sent unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify.

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So here is Jesus saying that the scribes and Pharisees, also represented through the covenant -breaking

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Jews throughout the land at this time, they're going to persecute those that Jesus is going to send.

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I think the book of Acts clearly attests to the fulfillment of this. He continues to go on.

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He says that upon you, scribes and Pharisees, may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth.

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Talking about all the prophets from old time up until this point are going to culminate in this final generation of scribes and Pharisees who are going to likewise do what their earlier fathers did in killing the prophets.

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They are going to now kill Jesus' prophets and scribes and wise men, which are going to be the disciples who will later be the apostles persecuted by this same group.

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Jesus then concludes the coming judgment that he is talking about in regards to his coming here.

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He says, Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. Whose house? The scribes and Pharisees.

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The covenant -breaking Jews. Their house is left to them desolate. Their house would most likely at this time be in reference to the old covenant orders also represented through the temple.

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It's going to be desolate, which is an important note because in Matthew 24, that's exactly what

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Jesus describes. That's what the apostles or back then disciples asked about.

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When's the brick upon brick of the destruction of this temple going to actually happen?

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And Jesus here is saying that the scribes and Pharisees, their judgment, the judgment that is coming upon them is going to leave their house desolate, which means devastated, empty, with nothing standing.

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It's going to be completely taken away from them. Absolute and utter destruction. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, this is

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Jesus talking, till ye shall say blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. And I believe we talked about that one earlier.

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And furthermore, this leads us into now Matthew 24. We were just going through Matthew 23 in trying to define what

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Jesus is talking about when he's talking about his coming here. And his coming is the coming judgment upon the scribes and Pharisees, which now leads us into the

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Olivet Discourse disclosed in Matthew 24. And it's important also to note that sometimes we think that anything that Jesus did was kind of a brand new kind of thing.

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Like when people like one great example of this is what

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I think we talked about in the last episode in regards to the Sermon on the

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Mount. Some people think just because Jesus says oh you have heard it say, but now I say unto you,

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Christians have defended the fact that the Old Testament was just about rules and external things, but Jesus came preaching spiritual love.

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That's not really in continuity with what the Old Testament laws actually meant, because we disclosed last time in last episode that in the

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Shema it's already stated the fact that God wants his words his laws to be in the people's hearts.

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If there was ever a source of spirituality it definitely is the heart or mind of man.

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I say all that to basically say this, that all that Jesus did from Matthew 21 to 24 was essentially a rehearsal of the

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Old Testament. Many things in the Old Testament were essentially pictures of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

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For example, Leviticus 14 verses 33 to 45. You can go read it some other time, but in that passage we find the high priest having to go into a house to examine it for the disease of leprosy ridding all the walls and causing disease inside the home for the people there in and causing death.

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What the high priest was supposed to do was he was supposed to go into the house examine the disease have it evacuated and cleansed and had it left for a while and then after some time had passed, he was supposed to come back to see if the disease had fled and been exterminated and then if it was, the people could now take up residence again.

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But if it was not, that house was supposed to be destroyed because the disease had not left.

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And that's very interesting because if everything in scripture is written for a reason and it's supposed to teach us something what does the high priest examining a house of disease have to do with Jesus?

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Well, we just read it in Matthew 23 and now we are seeing it in Matthew 24.

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Jesus is that high priest who has come into the house and has found that there is sin and disease in it and he has pronounced his judgment upon it and that this house needs to be destroyed because the disease had ridden throughout the entire walls and has infected many people.

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This is very significant because when we think about the things that Jesus does in his life and ministry, we are not to think that they are just kind of loose and kind of out of nowhere but rather we are supposed to be familiar enough with the

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Old Testament to be able to have a spark of recognition when we see

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Jesus doing something. But of course that takes time and study and being in a culture that encourages in -depth looks and concentration in the life and ministry of Jesus and how it correlates to all those things that had been written years before.

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So my point is, all that Jesus did from Matthew 21 to 24 was a rehearsal of things from the

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Old Testament and this high priest examining the house is just an example of one because here is

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Jesus coming into the house of God and finding sin everywhere and he denounces judgment upon it.

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Next let's consider the fact that the first advent of Jesus was actually a two -fold coming meaning that in the first advent, the eternal son of God came into creation, took upon flesh, and dwelt among us and he brought salvation and we know this very well because that Jesus came to be an atonement for God's people but the second part of that first advent actually took place and Jesus attested to it in Matthew 24.

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The second part of that advent is what was brought about in the

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Olivet Discourse in full detail. So the first advent is kind of like two sides of the same coin.

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First Jesus brought salvation and then he brought judgment. That's the first advent. The very next time that the church and the believers are expected to see

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Jesus is when everyone else sees Jesus which is at the Great White Throne Judgment where there will be everyone smiling great.

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So let's give a little more clarity as to how this could be. Well, in Isaiah 61, we read the

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Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.

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He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.

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So, where have we heard this before? Well, we've also heard this in Luke chapter 4 where Jesus is in the synagogue and he literally reads from the

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Isaiah scroll where this is found and he quotes the part where he attests to the fact that he is the one through whom the

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Spirit of God is bringing salvation. And it has often been commented there that Jesus stops short of the part where he announces the fact that God's vengeance is going to be carried out.

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And the reason for this is because, yes, Jesus did come to bring salvation in the first part of the first advent.

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He even says that to the Gentile woman, I am not sent but only to the lost sheep of Israel.

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He came to fulfill those messianic prophecies to the people of God on the earth at that time.

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But the second part of his first advent was the fact that he was going to be rejected. And because the people of God were ultimately going to break their covenant with God and rejecting his son, they were going to bear the consequence of that judgment which

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Jesus attests to in Matthew 24. So, in the first advent, it's basically two sides of the same coin.

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Jesus brought salvation and he also brought upon the people of God, those that were covenant breakers, at least, judgment.

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And that's what is being clearly disclosed here in Matthew 24. He had come to them, given, preached, and legislated exactly what

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God's true righteousness was. He had revealed the Father and ultimately those who were proud, the leading

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Pharisees and those who are represented through them, the covenant breakers, are going to come upon the judgment of God, the day of the

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Lord. Now, if you're still not basically tracking with me and you can't understand why the day of the

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Lord is something that may have happened in the first century, opposed to the 21st century, the confusion may be coming from what is commonly abused and misused.

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And it is the phrase, this generation. Now, if you look at Matthew 24, 34 again, Jesus says, this generation.

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And commonly misused and misunderstood, the interpretation of that is usually, oh, this generation is talking about the generation that will be present when the day of the

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Lord actually takes place. But, you see, the phrase this generation cannot mean what is commonly misunderstood today because we've already laid out the fact that the answers that Jesus is giving to his disciples is clearly relevant to the lives of the disciples and what they're going to go through when these eschatological events actually take place.

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It is commonly understood that an average of 40 years defines a generation. The very

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Greek word for generation here is the word genea and it always refers to the present people in reference.

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Commentator D .A. Carson says this in regards to this exact passage that we're looking at. Even if generation by itself can have a slightly larger semantic range to make this generation refer to all believers in every age or the generation of believers alive when eschatological events start to happen is highly artificial.

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Yet, it does not follow that Jesus mistakenly thought the paraseia or his coming would occur when his hearers, within his hearer's lifetime.

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And that's the end of the quote. So what D .A. Carson is basically saying here is that Jesus did not make a mistake.

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He didn't say this generation when he really meant, you know, another generation. In fact, what he was saying is

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Peter, John, James, all the rest of the disciples, what I'm telling you right now is going to happen in your generation.

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The words that I'm prophesying about will come about within the scope of your lives.

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And we need to take Jesus' words for what they are because he is the truth of God. Now, to further ramify what

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Jesus is saying here, it is important that we consider the following verse. So right now we're in Matthew 24 34.

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And in verse 35, Jesus says this with emphasis. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.

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In other words, what he has just prophesied, what has just encapsulated all the things that he has disclosed in this chapter, will be sure.

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They are certain. They are not false. He knows what he is saying and he knows whom he is saying it to.

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And they are to take safety in his actual declaration of these statements.

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So, if the days of Noah and things like the rapture and the sun being darkened and the moon turning to blood and things like that were events that took place in the first century and are not to be considered things that will happen in our modern future in the 21st century, what do the days of Noah and passages that seem to indicate that a rapture has taken place and the reference to the sun being darkened and the blood moon actually really mean?

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Well, first let's consider what one commentator says and I'll bring him back here. This is

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D. A. Carson again in the same passage we're dealing with. Quote saying, Despite the distress, persecution and upheavals, life goes on.

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People eat, drink, and marry. There is no over -typological usage of the flood as judgment here, nor any mention of the sin of that generation.

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In other words, people will be surprised by the judgment. It will be sudden. It will be unexpected.

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2 Peter 3 talks about the scoffers who are to be judged by God and the day of the

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Lord is coming upon them unexpectedly while they rebel and resist what is being proclaimed by the people of God at this time.

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The days of Noah is not necessarily talking about the sin that will be rampant before the rapture takes place but rather it's talking about the fact that people will go on doing whatever they have always done and then suddenly judgment will take place.

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And it's important here for us to consider what happened during the days of Noah when we think about the event that took place in Genesis in regards to the flood.

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So I'm going to ask you, what happened during the days of the flood? Who was taken?

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And if you say Noah, that's wrong because Noah and his family were the only people left upon the earth.

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Who was taken? The judgment came upon the wicked which was everybody besides Noah and his family.

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It took them. In other words, the judgment of God came to take the wicked from the earth and it left the righteous on the earth.

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How about the sun being darkened and the blood moon thing? Well, first of all, we need to rely upon Scripture and we need to let

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Scripture interpret Scripture. To rely upon a sharp and unbiblical literalism would mean that whenever Jesus does say,

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I am the door, we are to expect Him to really be made out of wood and like I pointed out earlier, of course that's ridiculous.

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It is not compromising if you interpret Scripture according to its respective literature.

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In Matthew 24, we are dealing with prophecy, so we should not be surprised when

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Jesus uses hyperbolic language, figurative speech, and basically quotes from other

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Old Testament passages to make his point. Using newspaper exegesis is being unfaithful to the text, but actually respecting a certain passage of Scripture according to its genre is actually what we are called to do.

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For example, in Joel 2, we see the prophet Joel depicting political and social collapse brought upon the

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Israelites because of disobedience. And the means of this destruction was

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God bringing a pagan nation to wipe them out. And we see in that same passage in Joel 2, the various descriptions of what the army would be doing and how that it was going to be described as the day of the

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Lord coming and the social and economic collapse of the people of Israel were going to be utterly eradicated from the earth because they had broken

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God's laws and they had broken their covenant with God to the degree that God had brought upon them the stipulations and the penalty of breaking that judgment, which was the day of the

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Lord, recognized in Joel 2. In history, actually, there have been many days of the

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Lord. There's not just one day of the Lord. There have been many days of the Lord. And there has been many descriptions of the creation language used to describe national destruction.

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In other words, there's been many places in Scripture where the sun being darkened and the stars falling and the moon being turned to blood is in reference to an army destroying another nation in Scripture.

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So, where can we find this? Well, one place you can find this is in Isaiah 13, where we are told about the burden of Babylon, where God uses another nation to destroy

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Babylon. And this is described as the day of the Lord coming upon the

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Babylonians. And this destruction includes that the creation language that we hear in Matthew 24, where the sun will be darkened and the stars are going to fall and all these things.

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And following that is given the meaning in verse 15, 17, and 19. So, if you want to look at that again,

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Isaiah 13, verse 15 through 19, basically will show you that in terms of Babylon's destruction, it is called the day of the

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Lord coming upon them, the burden of Babylon, where another army is taking them out.

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In other words, what God is trying to say to the Babylonians in prophecy here is, I'm going to take your lights out.

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You have been a wicked people. Here comes the end for you. Another place where we can find this decreation language and another reference to the day of the

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Lord is in Isaiah 19, in reference to Egypt, where in verse 1, we see the coming judgment of Egypt, described as God riding upon a swift cloud to bring that judgment, where it will terrify the people of Egypt and their hearts are going to melt.

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In verses 3 -4, we are told about the national takeover. In verses 5 -10, we are told about the economic collapse.

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In verses 11 -15, we are told about the political collapse. So, the day of the

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Lord and decreation language is not something new that Jesus invented and is prophesying about is going to happen in the 21st century, in our future, but rather is something that has been repetitively disclosed as one nation being used by God to destroy another nation.

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In other words, as I said earlier, God is essentially saying, I'm going to take your lights out. The sun will be darkened, the stars are going to fall, the moon will turn to blood, it will be absolute horror and eradication of those disobedient and pagan nations and also

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Israel who, in time past, were also judged by God. And Jesus knew that, and that's why in Matthew 24,

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He declares that it is going to happen again. The day of the Lord is coming.

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And to His disciples, who would be familiar with the Old Testament, which was going to carry a great piece of their preaching and weight, they would have recognized that when

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He said that the day of the Lord is coming and that the sun is going to be darkened, Peter, John, and James weren't going, oh, that's something that's going to happen far into the future, probably some 2 ,000 years later, long after we're dead.

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But rather, they would have reckoned that what Jesus is saying, that the temple that they know to be a centerpiece of their civilization is going to utterly be destroyed and God's covenant and those who have broken it are going to be taken by that very judgment which is being declared by the

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Son of God. So then, in conclusion, Jesus had come into Jerusalem where He declared the coming judgment of the covenant breaking

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Jews. He then prophesied to His disciples about what would be coming in their lifetime.

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They were instructed of the tough times and persecutions but were also ensured that if they were vigilant, watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your

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Lord doth come, they would be preserved. Blessed is the servant whom his

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Lord, when He cometh, shall find him doing so. Jesus told His disciples to be vigilant and He would preserve them.

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He would show them what was going to happen and what was going to lead up to that destruction so they could avoid it.

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No matter what hermeneutical approach one is convinced is right here, our task should be to apply a consistent exegesis which will allow the scriptures to define themselves so that we can all be accountable to the scriptures and not rather import our traditions and the things that we are commonly comfortable with and would rather prefer because they're the things that have just been in our general atmosphere and have ultimately taken for granted.

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We must not be uncomfortable to do the hard task of being Bereans to search the scriptures to see if these things indeed are true.

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Now remember, my model is whatever you believe, just defend it and so on and so forth. Now I want to end the episode here.

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This has been part two of the most abused and misused verses of the Bible. Clearly we took this entire episode to go through a very long passage which was, which actually took off with Matthew 24 34 and it required a greater contextual proof and support than the ones that I had done before but if you have made it this long with me,

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I greatly thank you and I hope that you will tune in for the very next episode of Truology where we will continue to discuss the most abused and misused verses in the

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Bible. In our next episode I want to look at some other verses that have commonly just been skewed a little bit in terms of their interpretation and some of those verses will include 1st

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Timothy 3, we will also be looking at 2nd Peter and eventually we'll go into Romans 5.

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So, until next time please like, subscribe, comment, and like I said, if you agree or disagree please feel free to reach out to me and show me the case that you have in terms of the interpretation for these texts that we have already discussed.

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Once again, my YouTube is DrBlueTheTruologist on Instagram you can find me at StudyOfTheTruth, on Spotify we are at Truology where you can vote for the next episode once this series is over but for now what you can do is either vote whether you agree or disagree with the interpretation that has been given.

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On X or Twitter you can also find me at Bprevalon. Now, until next time, this has been the most abused and misused verses in the

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Bible, part 2 and we will continue again with part 3 on our very next episode.

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God bless. Truology is a podcast that seeks to equip, effect, and engage the world through Christ and his wonderful gospel of the kingdom, against which he has promised that the gates of hell shall never prevail but increased by his government, his law, and grace till it be presented a glorious church without spot or wrinkle if there is any fear, threat, or worry, remember that the one that has called you according to his purpose and grace has also promised that all enemies will soon be placed under his feet.

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Now, I want you to believe that not because I said it or because it sounds really nice and spiritual but primarily and wholeheartedly and only and biblically because it's the truth.