With the never ending USA election debacle dominating news headlines that simultaneously fascinates and disturbs, its time to gain solace from that old time religion.
The final sermon of Christ is known as the Olivet discourse where Jesus predicts the destruction of the Jewish Temple and events that will accompany His Return (the Parousia). The sermon is recorded in different ways in the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. One verse in Matthew records the command to preach the Gospel to all nations with an abrupt prediction that the end shall come:
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
Matthew 24:14
Some Baha’is in the West understand the verse to refer to the end of the Christian Era and the beginning of a new era based on renewed religious principles suited to our modern age. The nineteenth century witnessed the last great expansion of Christendom where the Gospel was preached to the remaining nations as part of the great commission. This of course coincides with the dramatic birth the Babi and Baha’i religions.
Any Biblical scriptures attributable to an itinerant Jewish Preacher who was born over two thousand years ago will be subject to a wide variety of interpretations, especially those from the apocalyptic genre.
So if the Olivet discourse is reasonably attributable to the Teachings of Christ, what did He mean by preaching the Gospel to all the nations and has it happened yet? If it hasn’t, what else is required? What did Christ mean when referring to “the end”?
The final sermon of Christ is known as the Olivet discourse where Jesus predicts the destruction of the Jewish Temple and events that will accompany His Return (the Parousia). The sermon is recorded in different ways in the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. One verse in Matthew records the command to preach the Gospel to all nations with an abrupt prediction that the end shall come:
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
Matthew 24:14
Some Baha’is in the West understand the verse to refer to the end of the Christian Era and the beginning of a new era based on renewed religious principles suited to our modern age. The nineteenth century witnessed the last great expansion of Christendom where the Gospel was preached to the remaining nations as part of the great commission. This of course coincides with the dramatic birth the Babi and Baha’i religions.
Any Biblical scriptures attributable to an itinerant Jewish Preacher who was born over two thousand years ago will be subject to a wide variety of interpretations, especially those from the apocalyptic genre.
So if the Olivet discourse is reasonably attributable to the Teachings of Christ, what did He mean by preaching the Gospel to all the nations and has it happened yet? If it hasn’t, what else is required? What did Christ mean when referring to “the end”?