In the New Testament in Mark chapter twelve (paralleled in Matthew chapter twenty-two), we read about an encounter between Jesus and some Sadducees. Sadducees, as you may know, were a group of Jews who denied the resurrection of the dead, as well as the existence of spirits (in the sense of departed spirits), angels and demons. This life is all there is, they believed, and when you die, that is the end of you forever.

In this passage the Sadducees were trying to reduce the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead to absurdity by showing that it led to bizarre consequences. What if a woman’s husband died, so she remarried a number of times, with each subsequent husband dying (!!!). At the resurrection of the dead, who would she be married to? Their implied answer was: “Surely not all of them. So the resurrection leads to unacceptable consequences, and you should really just give it up.”

Jesus gave two answers, and I’m going to focus on the second. His first answer was to say that actually at the resurrection of the dead there won’t be any marriage, so the issue won’t even arise. His second answer, however, is an unexpected foray into the Hebrew Scripture in verses twenty-six and twenty-seven:

And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.

What is particularly significant about this quote from Scripture is that Jesus is referring to an account in the book of Exodus. The Sadducees only accepted the authority of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible (often called the five books of Moses). They didn’t accept the other books of the Hebrew Scripture and they didn’t accept the oral traditions and other writings. As far as they could see, the Torah contained no references to the resurrection of the dead (unlike, for example, the book of Daniel), so they didn’t accept it. For Jesus to draw support for the resurrection from the book of Exodus, then, shows an approach that is happy to meet with opponents on common ground where possible.

While the question of the Sadducees, along with Jesus’ answer (“And as for the dead being raised…”) make it clear that the intention of the author was to capture a dispute concerning the resurrection, some have sought to find more here, arguing that actually this passage shows that Jesus believed in a conscious intermediate state of the spirits of the departed. Since God is said to be the God “of the living,” and since Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were physically dead when those words were spoken, Jesus must surely have meant that the dead are really alive, conscious in the intermediate state.
Interested? Read the rest.

Often it’s not until you’ve held a view that has been misrepresented or unfairly slurred do you really become sensitive to being careful not to engage in that kind of tactic with others, or appreciate the wrong that is done when other people are attacked in this way.

I can still remember when the internet was fairly new to me, browsing various Christian websites that purportedly fill the role of “warning” Christians about dangerous theological points of view that they need to stay away from. Looking back, it’s fairly obvious that all these sites really ended up doing was enshrining the viewpoint of the author as the only one that any serious thinking Christian can possibly hold, and labelling anything outside of this perspective as a dangerous aberration from the pit of hell (yes I exaggerate, but not much). I wish I could say that this was largely a phenomenon of the past when the internet was still fairly young, but that just isn’t so.

One of the targets of that sort of website is the term “kingdom theology,” and as someone who a) actually thinks that the ideas represented by that term are biblical and b) has a background in theology and feels a certain responsibility to promote good theological education among those who want to learn about it, I’ve decided to say a few things on behalf of kingdom theology.

Interested? Read the rest.

This episode is a sermon/talk that I delivered on Sunday the 27th of July at our church, Grace Bible Church, here in Dunedin, New Zealand.

I was asked to preach on Mark 13, the Olivet Discourse. Yes, the whole thing. In one sermon. That meant I had to be pretty simplistic about it, and I couldn’t go into a huge amount of depth. It was an introductory talk to an audience that had never really looked at the issue before (at least, it had never been spoken about in church). So basically, it’s an introduction to Mark 13, and therefore an introduction to preterism.

Episode 14: Preterism from the pulpit [ 52:06 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

According to Chuck Missler, the Olivet Discourse in the Gospels is a problem. It’s not that he rejects it altogether, but it’s still a problem that he thinks needs to be resolved.

A major part of the reason that he thinks it’s a problem is here:

1) Jesus said in the Olivet discourse that the events he was describing would take place within “this generation.” No problem so far.

2) Chuck Missler doesn’t believe that the events that Jesus was speaking about did take place within that generation. There’s the problem.

If Chuck simply took 1) seriously, there would be no problem. He only thinks there’s a problem to resolve because of 2). Missler is a futurist, that is, he thinks that the events described in Matthew 24 are all in the future. Preterism is the view that the events that Jesus spoke about took place within that generation, that is, within the first century. They were in the future when Jesus predicted them, but then they happened, and they are now in the past. Preterists take the biblical references to timing quite literally. But look how Missler characterises the difference between futurists and preterists (“dispensationalism” is a type of futurism):

For many students of eschatology – the study of last things – the so-called Olivet Discourse has proven to be a troublesome passage; a hermeneutical battleground between the dispensationalists and the preterists, etc. The preterists insist that this passage – and the Book of Revelation – has been already fulfilled, and much of it is dismissed by them as simply allegorical. Yet even those who embrace a dispensational view have difficulty reconciling many of the Olivet Discourse passages.

Dismissed? What? The tactic is pretty weak: If someone takes a passage very seriously, but does not reach the same conclusion that you reach, simply allege that they dismiss the passage altogether.

The claim is pretty ironic, given that it is the preterists who are merely asking that we take Jesus’ claim about “this generation” seriously, while it is the futurists (like Missler) who are – for want a gentler term – dismissing such texts and labeling them as “problems” that we need to resolve so they will go away.

Dr Missler, here’s a great way to resolve the problem: Believe what Jesus said! Don’t be scared of the p word. Come on in Chuck, the water is lovely.

My good friend Dee Dee Warren has a new podcast, which you should definitely check out.

It’s called The Preterist Podcast, and it’s, well, a podcast about preterism. Preterism is a view within Christian eschatology, teaching that a number of events in biblical prophecy are now in the past. Preterism contrasts strongly with futurism, the view popularized in such sensational works as The Late Great Planet Earth, or more recently, the Left Behind series of books and movies.

Dee Dee does a much better job than I could summarizing the position, and for Christians who have not encountered the view before, do check out her podcast. It may well revolutionize the way you read many parts of the Bible. What’s particularly helpful about Dee Dee’s podcast is – apart from the fact that she’s awesome at making podcasts and stuff – is the fact that a lot of the material carrying the label “preterist” out there on the internet is not really historic preterism at all, but a more recently aberration that teaches that there is literally nothing left to occur by way of biblical prophecy. No future return of Christ, no future bodily resurrection of the dead, for example. It’s a small but very vocal movement confined almost exclusively to the internet. If you’re not a Christian and you’re reading this, those issues might seem like a bit of a storm in a teacup, but if you’re someone concerned about Christians orthodoxy, you’ll see why that’s not a serious option for Christians. The Preterist Podcast then is a welcome alternative.

The presentation is fantastic, everything is laid out clearly and persuasively, and yours truly is responsible for a few of the sounds you’ll hear. What are you waiting for?