All work done before He comes again?

[ChildofChrist]

In reading Matthew chapter 10, I saw something that I had not noticed before.

Vs 23 reads "....: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." KJV

23"But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes. NASB

The Cross Reference is Matt. 16:27 which refers to Jesus returning in the glory of His Father with His angels.

SO, does this mean that the gospel will not be preached to all nations so the end will come or what?

[fccool]

This is the mistake that people like to make when reading the Bible... in fact I think this is the reason for most of the denominational bickering today. The mistake is in the principle of application. You have to first ask the basic questions of who, where, why, when, and how... before you rush to apply a certain verse to yourself.

So let's see:

who? 1And having called to him his twelve disciples, he gave to them power over unclean spirits, so as to be casting them out, and to be healing every sickness, and every malady.

2And of the twelve apostles the names are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James of Zebedee, and John his brother;

3Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax-gatherer; James of Alpheus, and Lebbeus who was surnamed Thaddeus;

4Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who did also deliver him up.

It's clearly Jesus and His disciples.

When? .... Obviously when Jesus was alive at the beginning of the AD millenium.

Where? ISRAEL

You can't simply take a verse and apply it uniformly to our day time and situation. Why? Because then you'd have to do the same with this one from the same chapter:

And, going on, proclaim saying that, the reign of the heavens hath come nigh;

8infirm ones be healing, lepers be cleansing, dead be raising, demons be casting out -- freely ye did receive, freely give.

It's pretty clear that this verse does not apply to us, but strictly to the twelve that Jesus was talking to. In fact, I would contend that most of that chapter does. Thus they would not finish through all of the cities because some of them would be killed before they got a chance to.

People, and especially Pastors love to stretch the application of the passage, when passage simply meant to be a narrative that is an example for us to follow.

[John317]

Basically that verse teaches that we should keep working to spread the gospel everywhere we go for as long as we possibly can, right up until Jesus returns. There will always be people who need to hear the good news. There's no stopping point in that work.

It's not bringing up the issue of the close of human probation because that is something we must leave up to God. Our job is to spread the good news.