Every generation since the apostles has believed Jesus was returning in their lifetime. At what point does 'soon' stop meaning anything?

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  Kofi2w ago

  You know what I find telling? Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour. Every person who ever set a specific date was, by that verse alone, proving they didn't understand Jesus. And we keep being shocked when they're wrong. The real scandal isn't that the predictions fail. It's that Christians keep following people who were already disqualified by Scripture before they even opened their mouths.

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  Diego2w ago

  The fact that every single generation got it wrong should be the single most humbling fact in all of Christian history. It isn't. That alone tells you something.

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• L2

  Leo 212w ago

  Come Lord Jesus. That's all I've got. Come.

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  Drew2w ago

  If 'soon' doesn't mean soon, and 'this generation' doesn't mean this generation, and 'some standing here will not taste death' doesn't mean what it says, then at some point you're not interpreting the Bible anymore. You're replacing it with what you wish it said. Be honest about that at least.

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• Z

  Zara2w ago

  Hot take: the obsession with predicting the end times has caused more damage to Christian credibility than almost anything else. Every time someone sets a date and it passes, a generation of people walks away from the faith. Harold Camping in 2011 alone probably cost us thousands of believers. The theology isn't just wrong, it's pastorally catastrophic.

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• T

  Theo2w ago

  Matthew 16:28. Jesus said some standing there would not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. Those people are all dead. Either Jesus was wrong or we have to do some serious interpretive gymnastics to make that verse not say what it says. I'll wait.

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• D

  Diego2w ago

  If Jesus was wrong about the timing of His own return, can we trust Him about anything else? That's the question people dance around but never actually answer. I'm not trying to be inflammatory. I genuinely want someone to sit with that question instead of pivoting immediately to a deflection.

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• A

  Avery2w ago

  That 'it refers to the transfiguration' answer is honestly one of the weakest get-out-of-jail-free cards in evangelical exegesis. Jesus said 'the Son of Man coming in his KINGDOM' with glory and angels. The transfiguration was three guys on a mountain seeing Jesus glow. These are not the same thing.

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• RM

  Ravi M.2w ago

  This whole conversation is exactly why I left my end-times obsessed church. We spent more time speculating about who the Antichrist was (I heard it was the EU, Bill Gates, the Pope, and Obama depending on what year it was) than actually loving our neighbors. Eschatology became an idol. A weird, frightening idol.

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• ZK

  Zara K.2w ago

  Peter literally addresses this in 2 Peter 3. 'Scoffers will come saying, where is the promise of His coming?' He anticipated exactly this argument and answered it: a thousand years is like a day to God. You're not asking a new question. You're fulfilling a prophecy.

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  Omar2w ago

  I'm a pastor and I'll be honest: I stopped doing prophecy sermon series years ago. Not because I stopped believing in the Second Coming. But because I couldn't in good conscience keep generating excitement and urgency around timelines I had no business speculating about. My congregation is better for it. We talk about hope. We don't talk about charts.

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• A

  Avery2w ago

  If you disagree that this pattern of failed predictions should at least give us serious pause about our interpretive confidence in end-times prophecy, I genuinely want to know how you're okay with just... doing it all over again with the next guy who has a new chart and a new date. At what point does the track record matter?

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• IT

  Iris T.2w ago

  The difference is Jesus himself said 'this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.' That's not some random commentator making a prediction. That's the founder of the faith staking a claim. If he meant a future generation, why say THIS one?

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• LT

  Leo T.2w ago

  The 'Israel in 1948 = prophecy fulfilled' framework is a 20th century interpretive invention that would have been completely foreign to every Christian for 1,800 years before Darby. It's not ancient. It's not settled. It's a theological lens that got popular and got mistaken for obvious truth.

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• M

  Maya2w ago

  My grandmother believed with her whole heart that she would see the Second Coming in her lifetime. She died at 93. I don't say that to mock her — I say it because she lived her whole life genuinely expecting it, and I think that expectation made her MORE generous, more patient, more ready to give things away because she wasn't hoarding for a future that wasn't coming anyway. Maybe that's the point and I've been overthinking this.

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  Leo2w ago

  there's a huge difference between preaching Biblical hope and selling prophecy calendars. one is faith, the other is a grift.

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• K

  Kofi2w ago

  Preterism. Look it up. Most of Matthew 24 was fulfilled in 70 AD when Rome destroyed Jerusalem. The disciples asked about the end of the temple and the age, not necessarily the end of the space-time universe. Once you understand that, the 'failed prediction' argument almost entirely collapses.

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  Feli2w ago

  Whether the end is tomorrow or in a millennium, the ethical demands of the Sermon on the Mount don't change. Feed the hungry. Love the enemy. Visit the prisoner. Maybe the question 'when is He coming' is the wrong question and always has been.

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• Z

  Zara2w ago

  ok but 'a day is like a thousand years' was not Peter saying 'relax, it might be 2,000+ years.' that was a poetic verse about God's timelessness. using it as a math formula to explain why every deadline missed is actually fine is... a stretch.

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• KB

  Kofi B.2w ago

  All I know is I want to be ready whether He comes in my lifetime or in a thousand years. That's the actual takeaway from every single 'be ready, stay awake' passage. The specific debate over when is kind of beside the point of what Jesus actually asked of us.

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• AM

  Avery M.2w ago

  agree with this 100%. i grew up in a church that was CONVINCED 2000 was the year. y2k was basically religious for them. when nothing happened my whole youth group basically spiritually checked out. we never recovered.

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  Jordan2w ago

  Mark 13:32. Jesus himself said he didn't know the day or the hour. Only the Father does. So either Jesus was claiming ignorance about the timing as part of the incarnation — which is a theologically coherent position — or the Son of God was just guessing and got it wrong. I choose the former. The Kenosis of Christ matters here.

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• M

  Marco2w ago

  Y'all arguing about Greek while your neighbor doesn't know Jesus. That's the real eschatology problem.

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  Quinn _x2w ago

  Not all eschatology is Left Behind fan fiction though. N.T. Wright's work on resurrection and new creation is serious scholarship and it's beautiful. The problem isn't caring about the end. The problem is turning it into a thriller novel instead of a hope.

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• OK

  Omar K.2w ago

  I went full preterist for about two years. Intellectually it solved a lot of problems. Then I had to reckon with the fact that preterism basically makes Revelation almost completely historical rather than future, and the 'resurrection of the dead' and 'new heaven and new earth' already happened invisibly somehow. That's where it started losing me. The cure felt worse than the disease.

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• T

  Taylor2w ago

  the kenosis argument is interesting until you realize it means Jesus was operating with genuine ignorance about eschatology. that's fine theologically but Christians who use that verse usually don't follow the implications all the way. if he didn't know the timing, why are we reading his other timing statements as precise predictions?

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• M_

  Morgan _x2w ago

  Matthew 16:28 is referring to the Transfiguration which happens in the very next chapter. Reading comprehension, people.

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• MK

  Marco K.2w ago

  Respectfully, this question is a bit too clever by half. The fact that predictions were wrong doesn't mean the ultimate promise is wrong. People have been predicting the end of democracy, the end of the American empire, the next big earthquake for centuries too. The wrongness of predictors doesn't falsify the thing being predicted. Logic matters here.

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• K

  Kofi2w ago

  I have a different take: the consistent expectation of an imminent return across 2,000 years is itself evidence that this hope is deeply embedded in Christian DNA in a way that can't just be explained by wishful thinking. Every generation felt the pull of it. Maybe that's the Spirit keeping the church on its toes rather than a failed prediction.

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  Riley2w ago

  Pastor who stops preaching prophetic scripture because it's complicated isn't being humble — he's being a coward. All of Scripture is profitable. Preach all of it.

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  Iris2w ago

  that's beautiful but also could be used to justify pretty much any recurring human belief. 'People keep believing X so X must be real' isn't really an argument.

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  Taylor2w ago

  You cannot let the failures of false prophets determine your view of actual Biblical prophecy. Jeremiah was a genuine prophet in a sea of false ones. The fact that charlatans get it wrong doesn't mean the real thing doesn't exist.

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• NL

  Nina L.2w ago

  This is the pietist escape hatch that sounds humble but actually avoids the intellectual question entirely. 'Just be ready' is a beautiful sentiment and also completely orthogonal to whether Jesus made accurate predictions about timing.

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• K

  Kofi2w ago

  The 'soon' in Revelation 22 is the Greek word 'tachy' which means quickly or suddenly — it's about the MANNER of His coming, not the timing. This has been the standard scholarly answer for a long time. I genuinely don't understand why this isn't better known in the pew.

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  Yuki2w ago

  That's not actually Wright's position. Please read him before summarizing him.

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  Maya2w ago

  Israel becoming a nation in 1948. Jerusalem recaptured in 1967. Daniel's prophecies. We are living in the most prophetically significant era in 2,000 years and people are on here acting like the dots don't connect. I'm not setting dates. But I am watching.

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• HR

  Hana R.2w ago

  NT Wright is great on resurrection but he basically denies a literal personal Second Coming so let's not present him as the balanced middle ground here

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