When I was a kid I was terrified by “end of the world” scenarios. I once woke up from an afternoon nap and the absence of my father and mother in the house immediately drew me into the rapture fever. I can recount 100 such examples in my early years. The evangelists who would come to my town in Northeastern, Brazil would opine intelligently about Middle Eastern wars and then speculate how much longer we have before Jesus ushers his church into the skies in the twinkling of an eye.
In my early teenage years, those thoughts were not as prevalent, but it still occupied a few of my dreams (nightmares!). Then, one day, I said “enough!” I was tired of prophecy experts failing too many times to count. It was a late evening that I had an experience that changed my entire outlook. A friend had given me a series of cassette tapes. During a graveyard shift, I decided to invest some of my time with them. I heard Ken Gentry deliver a lecture on Matthew 24 at the 1999 Ligonier Conferencea. It was like an eschatological atomic bomb! I have not looked back since.
Gentry’s position is called preterism. Preterism comes from the Latin which means past. The argument is quite simple: Jesus’ prophecies of coming destruction in “this generation” was not intended to speak of future events (2,000+ years later), but of current events in the first century. Anyone can see how such a framework can have drastic repercussions for how we think of modern and even global events like the Coronavirus.
100 years ago when a national tragedy took place people read about it 2-3 days later. Today any news, at its most minuscule and remote level, can be accessed, commented on, assessed with lightning speed. The ubiquitous nature of world events is updated within seconds. The Drudge Report can say one thing in its headlines and upon automatic refresh, it can change entirely their design and the news cycle. Further, twitter provides the unending supply of news with its #hashtags and even starts a myriad of movements through them.
Since this is the case, it is natural that conversations about the end of the world happen more frequently. When you look at the world scene a simple drone strike can ignite fierce debate over whether we should invade a nation or place sanctions on them. The shifting nature of political situations becomes a Disney-ride experience to those who bask in such speculation theology.
The Coronavirus has stirred the world into a frenzy at the economic, sociological and psychological levels. It is certainly a tender moment in history. Prophecy “experts”b vigorously wait for signs to make predictions. And the signs are everywhere these days. Followers of such prophecy teachers have an enduring ability to overlook errors. They are loyal, even if that loyalty needs to be re-adjusted from crisis to crisis.
Even as the world is more and more Christianized; as the nations come to Jesus in unprecedented numbers, doomsday prophets overlook these facts and come out boldly from their computer chairs to point to the newest catastrophe to make their point. But there is no evidence in the Bible that pestilences or plagues or petulant viruses will trigger the beginning of the end. National catastrophes and world-wide events that bring fear and death to our immediate attention will always be with us on this side of history. But the question we need to consider is: Do we believe that any major current event like the Coronavirus is directly linked with Jesus’ prophecies in the Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24? Or is the Bible, as I propose, directing us to that particular generation in history where those things took place? It is my contention in the upcoming two articles that the latter is undeniable.
…to be continued.
- Ligonier is streaming all their lectures for free (back)
- by experts, they refer mainly to the fact that they have dedicated a lot of time–normally not academic–to exploring key eschatology texts (back)
