DAVID BYRD

No One Knows the Hour

Jesus spoke about the fall of the temple ahead of time.

If He was to be held up as anything but a failed messianic pretender, then it was ultimately necessary for the temple to be destroyed. The Resurrection only mattered if Jesus received His kingdom as the Son of Man, and He clearly said that He would come to His reign (or His reign would be confirmed) when the temple fell.

If indeed it was well understood that Jesus — as reported by Matthew, Mark, and Luke — was speaking of the fall of the temple as something that would occur within the lifetimes of many of those who heard His answer to the disciples’ question about when the temple would be thrown to the ground, then this reveal insights about the time period when the Gospel narratives circulated in the first century.

Had one been in the position to hear Jesus speak, one may not have known the hour that the temple would come crashing down. However, anyone who heard Him would be certain that when it did, Jesus would rule as the king of kings.

Decoding Laodicea

A letter to a church is not a letter to a building, but rather, a letter to a group of believers. Those believers comprise the body of a congregation that is a part of the larger body of the church, which is the visible body and representation of the Lord Jesus in the world. When that is understood, the idea that these words can be lifted out of their context as some type of offer to somebody that does not know Jesus becomes an absurdity. To use common, religious terminology, these words about standing at the door and knocking are not directed to somebody that is not “saved.” These words of knocking are to a church.