Matthew 24a

 When we begin a chapter, we always ask ourselves: Where are we in the story? What is the setting of this new story? 

 Matthew 19-20. Journey to Jerusalem: Teachings and healings along the way. 

 Matthew 21-23. In Jerusalem: Temple, questions of authority, critique, lament.  

 Matthew 24-25. On the Mount of Olives: Teachings about being faithful and being prepared. 

 24: 1-2.  As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. Then he asked them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

 This is a transitional passage, a segue from the events in the temple to camping for the night on the Mount of Olives. I am not sure why the conversation took this turn as they walked out of the temple. Perhaps the disciples were trying to find something positive after the severe smackdown Jesus gave to the temple leadership about their hypocrisy and religious posturing. Whatever their intent, the disciples’ musings are quickly countered by Jesus.

 The temple in question was a project of Herod the Great (died 4 BC) that was substantially complete by 20 AD, but some parts were still under construction. Was the structure impressive? Yes, some of the largest stones were over ten feet long and weighed over 20 tons. Surely this temple was solid and lasting. 

 Not so, says Jesus. This temple will be destroyed, and the center of Jewish worship will no longer be available to Jews. This links to the last thing Jesus said in his lament over Jerusalem (23: 37-39). God was willing to protect, but the Jewish leaders were unwilling to trust themselves to God; and so he told them, “your house is left to you, desolate” (Matthew 23: 38).   

 I do not know if the phrase ‘left desolate’ draws on Ezekiel Chapter 10, but the prophetic vision is certainly there. Ezekiel was in exile near Babylon when he saw a vision of “the glory of God” which rose up from the temple, paused at the doorway, paused again at the East Gate, and then rose up to heaven leaving the temple ‘desolate’. That temple, Solomon’s, was destroyed by the Babylonians. 

 In Jesus, God has visited the rebuilt temple, but Jesus is now leaving the temple never to return; that house is left desolate. Herod’s temple was completely destroyed in 70 AD by General Titus who later became Emperor of the Roman Empire. The only thing left was a retaining wall, now called ‘the Wailing Wall’. 

24: 3.  When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” 

 The rest of the chapter gives Jesus’ response to this question. Wait a minute! Is this one question? Should we, like Allstate, bundle these together as if all of these events would happen at the same time? No. We should not make that assumption, though many have and their ‘End Times’ preaching has been at best wrong, at worst misleading.

 Question # 1: When will this be? 'This' refers to Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple, the only claim Jesus made before the disciples came in private with their questions. Jesus did not bundle the destruction of the temple with the end of the age. 

 Question # 2. What will be the sign of your coming? Perhaps this question goes back to the lament in Matthew 23: 37-39 which ends with: “I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed be the one who comes in the name of the Lord’.” The ‘you’ here is addressed to the people of Jerusalem, not the disciples who, in any case, are not from Jerusalem. And, it is unlikely that Jesus is talking about his post-resurrection appearances because these were primarily to his followers, not the people of Jerusalem. No one is recorded to have said, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” 

 Question # 3. What will be the sign of the end of the age? Again, the disciples have bundled three different ideas into one event. They are not, as we will see. These are three separate events. This realization is fundamental to making any interpretation of the rest of what Jesus says. 

 The second key to interpretation is that Jesus does not seem to address them one at a time and, in fact, does not so much answer the questions as he warns the disciples not to jump the gun. Jesus is at great pains to keep his followers from making rash judgments.  

24: 4-8.  Jesus answered them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

 Jesus gives a response to the questions, not an answer in the sense that he tells the disciples ‘when’. This is a warning not to believe everything you hear and see, and not to panic. Many will take the bait, but Jesus wants his followers to be smarter than that! None of these events are infallible signs that the end is any nearer than it was before. 

24: 9-14.  Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

 The ‘then’ is ambiguous. The previous paragraph ended by saying that troublesome events were just the beginning of the end. So, ‘then’ probably means ‘during these times before the end’. 

 Persecution follows evangelization efforts, but this also does not signal the end of time. Instead, this is something more personal that Jesus’ disciples can expect. It is not clear who the ‘they’ is, but they must have earthly authority to arrest, torture, and put to death disciples of Christ. It is not a question of whether Christianity’s enemies will do this; they will. The question is whether Jesus’ disciples can remain faithful and endure to the end. So, even an apparent answer turns out to be a warning not to get discouraged or fall for false prophets. Such endurance is what it will take to spread the Gospel. 

 It seems the only sure sign is that the gospel will be preached to all nations. However, it is unclear what that means. North African countries used to be quite Christian, until the spread of Islam in the 700s. Now it is not. As time goes by, the nations with and without the gospel shift.

 Many mission agencies, beginning in the early 1900s and spurred by the spread of European colonial control over most of the world, began taking on slogans like: 

 “The evangelization of the world in this generation” proclaimed in 1910 at the Edinburgh Missionary Conference. Yet, just a few years later, European Christians on both sides fought World War I with military and civilian casualties of about 40 million people.

 “Evangelize to a finish to ‘bring back the King’.” This unfortunate slogan from 1934 imagines a causal link, implying that, if we hurry and evangelize, Christ will have to come again. Not likely. No one forces God’s hand.

 “Global Conquest.” Just as decolonization began (Ghana became independent in 1957), some mission groups took up this slogan which grates the sensibilities of thinking people, including indigenous peoples of the world’s countries. With this slogan, people asked, ‘Are you here to conquer us or to help us?’

 “World Evangelization by the Year 2000.” This was the slogan of the Lausanne Movement during the 1980s. They have since had to put this one aside. 

 So far, in Jesus’ discourse, the main point has been caution. The three events that the disciples ask about are not going to happen all at the same time. If Matthew is writing in the 80s, then the temple has already been destroyed. 

 By the 80s, the gospel had spread to most of the Roman Empire, but that certainly was not to all the nations of the world. The Romans knew about the nations on their borders, the Celts, the Persians, the Ethiopians, but they also had heard stories of India and China. Beyond that, there were many nations yet to be discovered. 

 Finally, persecution of those spreading the gospel had already begun. Deacon Stephen had been stoned to death (Acts 7) and the Apostle James, John’ brother, had already been killed with the sword (Acts 12). That was just the beginning. Do not panic. Focus on the task at hand: Evangelization and the Good Works that follow.