Episode 31
"This Generation": Every Single Time, He Meant Them | NT90
What if everything you’ve been taught about “this generation” in the New Testament is based on a misunderstanding? In this episode, Tim Winders challenges popular end-times beliefs and explores how reading the New Testament in the order it was written reveals a powerful message meant for its original audience. Discover why understanding who Jesus and the New Testament writers were really addressing can radically shift how you see prophecy, faith, and your role in the Kingdom today. If you’re ready to rethink familiar passages and dig deeper into the context behind the text, this conversation is for you.
"If the kingdom is already here and expanding, then our job is completely different. We are builders, not bunker dwellers." - Tim Winders
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Episode Resources:
- NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 This Generation Key
00:24 NT in 90 Days Setup
02:38 Not Attacking Futurists
04:33 Why I Rethought Prophecy
07:35 One Generation Story
09:06 Jesus Said This Generation
13:24 Ten Passages Breakdown
18:30 Why Context Matters
22:18 Finished Work And Kingdom
27:08 Dispensational Redefinitions
29:46 Reframing Daniel And Revelation
33:55 What It Means Today
37:50 Final Challenge And Plan
Transcript
Jesus used the phrase this generation 10 times in the Gospels every single
Speaker:time he was talking about the people standing right in front of him.
Speaker:Once you see that the entire New Testament reads differently.
Speaker:Welcome to Seek, go Create.
Speaker:I'm Tim Winders.
Speaker:I just read the entire New Testament in 90 days in the order that it
Speaker:was written, not the order that we typically have in our Bibles.
Speaker:And this is kind of interesting.
Speaker:It's actually the order the letters went out.
Speaker:In other words, when they were dispatched, when they were sent out.
Speaker:And what I found surprised me, it challenged me and truthfully changed
Speaker:the way I understand scripture.
Speaker:This series is kinda where I share those discoveries that came up
Speaker:while I was reading through the New Testament in context and in order.
Speaker:And so I'm just gonna kinda share 'em with you.
Speaker:And this is, as I was going through, I had a.
Speaker:Piece of paper with me.
Speaker:I had my, my pad open and I just kinda kept popping things
Speaker:in that came to my mind.
Speaker:So, before I get to all that, before I get to what today's episode is all
Speaker:about, if you wanna do what I did read the New Testament in order in
Speaker:context, it's a reading plan that I developed because I wanted to do this.
Speaker:And so you could get that K2 M Foundation slash.
Speaker:NT 90 K two M Foundation slash NT 90.
Speaker:You could go there, download the plan to print it out.
Speaker:there's plenty of resources and things available there.
Speaker:You could check the resource, the resources and research that we did just
Speaker:to, get some background and context.
Speaker:I think it'll be helpful.
Speaker:I know it's helped me, it's helped me understand the Bible much more.
Speaker:So download it, read along, and, get the information for yourself.
Speaker:Do not, I'll say this often, don't just take my word for it.
Speaker:I'm not looking to have a lot of followers and start a church or
Speaker:a ministry or anything like that.
Speaker:I personally.
Speaker:Want to understand the New Testament in the Bible, more in context as
Speaker:it was written, and it's my desire that you and others do the same.
Speaker:So download it, read along, see what you find.
Speaker:let me know.
Speaker:Argue with me.
Speaker:Tell me I'm wrong.
Speaker:Tell me I'm right.
Speaker:Whatever.
Speaker:That's fine by me.
Speaker:Let's dive into this.
Speaker:Episode and I've gotta give you a little bit of background so that you
Speaker:understand where I am coming from.
Speaker:I wanna say something clearly because this is something that I've
Speaker:noticed on social media and other things, is that many people will.
Speaker:Think when I begin stating some of the things I'm gonna state here, that I am
Speaker:attacking a certain group of people.
Speaker:Basically what we call a futurist view of the scripture, dispensationalism,
Speaker:I used to call it the rapture theory.
Speaker:People understand that better.
Speaker:I am not here to condemn or attack that.
Speaker:I had that view for most of my life.
Speaker:It was just baked.
Speaker:10. I was brainwashed.
Speaker:I had it.
Speaker:I didn't even question it.
Speaker:When I went to read the Bible, I was reading for things in all throughout
Speaker:the New Testament scripture and trying to project it into the future.
Speaker:Even in the eighties, the nineties, the two thousands, I
Speaker:just kept looking ahead instead of.
Speaker:Thinking.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:I wonder if this applied to people in the first century.
Speaker:So I'm not, I'm not attacking people here, even though some
Speaker:people get really, really defensive when you start talking about this.
Speaker:But I had the same view myself.
Speaker:I grew up with the, what I call the left behind framework.
Speaker:I read almost every one of those books in the nineties when they came out.
Speaker:The end times, the rapture coming, tribulation, read the
Speaker:books, followed the teachers.
Speaker:I spoke it.
Speaker:I used the term, when Jesus comes back, when Jesus comes back, the end is near.
Speaker:I used it often myself.
Speaker:It just rolls off the tongue without even knowing many times what we're saying.
Speaker:I, I looked at all of the headlines in the Middle East all throughout
Speaker:the eighties, the nineties, the two thousands up until recently actually.
Speaker:And I basically looked at 'em through that lens.
Speaker:I would look at the headlines, listen to prophecy teachers, go
Speaker:to scripture and say, Oop, that's what it says, and match it all up.
Speaker:But something kept nagging at me time after time.
Speaker:The prophecy teachers, the things that I saw, the headlines that I read, they
Speaker:would tie it to a current event, a Bible passage, and they'll say, this is it.
Speaker:Here it comes.
Speaker:The end is near.
Speaker:And this is the sign.
Speaker:And then, you know, it just, it wouldn't happen.
Speaker:The event would come and go and yeah, maybe it was a big deal.
Speaker:Maybe there was a war or an event or nine 11 or something like that.
Speaker:And I'm not belittling any of those events.
Speaker:They were significant, but they didn't have the biblical repercussions
Speaker:that we thought that they would.
Speaker:Instead of stepping back and asking whether the framework was wrong, we would
Speaker:just move on to the next prediction.
Speaker:New headline, new interpretation.
Speaker:Same certainty.
Speaker:And it happened again and again and again.
Speaker:And truthfully, it should have caused many of the teachers to lose credibility.
Speaker:Unfortunately, it didn't, you know, but after enough of that, I just
Speaker:started asking different questions.
Speaker:I'm just a question asking person, not which teacher has it, right?
Speaker:This wasn't what I was asking and whether I actually knew
Speaker:what the text said for myself.
Speaker:You know, what I really wanted to do was say, what does scripture say?
Speaker:Not looking at it with some kind of interpretive lens and trying to project
Speaker:it forward or something like that.
Speaker:I really just started having a hunger to say, what does the Bible say in context?
Speaker:That is what opened up the door for me to begin reading,
Speaker:attempting to read in context.
Speaker:I just started studying the first century more.
Speaker:And then I started looking at things like the order that the Bible was written
Speaker:in, and I started looking at ways that I could understand it more in context.
Speaker:I did not just wanna read the New Testament.
Speaker:I wanted to read it in the order it was written, not the order that
Speaker:was printed in your Bible, and not a simple chronological arrangement.
Speaker:Many people will say when they've been hearing me talking, oh yeah, I
Speaker:love reading in chronological order.
Speaker:I actually didn't like that with the New Testament got confusing, the
Speaker:gospels kind of jumped around, and then with Acts you had to pull in Paul's
Speaker:letters and other letters and all that.
Speaker:Didn't really, that's not what I was looking for.
Speaker:I wanted the order that the letters were written and released to
Speaker:audiences in the first century.
Speaker:That's the way I wanted to read it.
Speaker:So the sequence is kinda what I was looking for, the sequence
Speaker:that the letters went out in.
Speaker:I wanted to see how the story unfolded from the people living.
Speaker:In it, and here's what I found.
Speaker:It's not really what I was expecting.
Speaker:I was thinking I was just gonna get a little bit more
Speaker:context and understand it more.
Speaker:But what I found was the New Testament is not really a book of predictions waiting
Speaker:to be fulfilled in the 21st century or the 19th century, or the 22nd or 23rd century.
Speaker:It is the story of one generation, the resurrection
Speaker:to revelation or the revealing.
Speaker:That's really what it is from the cross to the return of
Speaker:Christ for them in the year 78.
Speaker:D, everything the New Testament writers were building toward was implemented
Speaker:within their lifetime, their generation.
Speaker:Once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it.
Speaker:All of those, I guess just the dogmas and beliefs that I
Speaker:had just started falling away.
Speaker:It took a little while, a little bit of repetitive reading and kinda.
Speaker:Erasing some things that I realized I had been brainwashed on reading
Speaker:all those left behind books, and that is what this episode is all about.
Speaker:I just wanna tell you, I know many of you may disagree with this and
Speaker:you may may already be going now.
Speaker:Hold on a second.
Speaker:Don't mess with my rapture.
Speaker:I'm just waiting on Jesus to come back and fix it all.
Speaker:Well, this may mess with you a little bit, but hang with me.
Speaker:Just stay with me and let's walk through this process together in this
Speaker:episode, and let's start with what I believe is the most important theme.
Speaker:Jesus.
Speaker:Let's look at what Jesus said about this timeframe and what was going on.
Speaker:as I started off this episode with Jesus said, this generation over
Speaker:and over 10 times in the Gospels.
Speaker:We'll walk through those in just a moment.
Speaker:Every single.
Speaker:Time he met the people standing in front of him.
Speaker:It is very clear.
Speaker:It is not one of these things that we could say, well, maybe he really, no.
Speaker:If you read it in the context, it is so clear that he is speaking to
Speaker:them, and in many ways it would've been cruel for him not to be.
Speaker:So he met the people standing in front of him.
Speaker:Most of us, myself included, we've been taught to read his warnings as
Speaker:future events, end times the rapture coming tribulation 2000 years away.
Speaker:But when you read it straight through, the phrase is never ambiguous.
Speaker:He was warning a specific people about a specific event, and that event happened
Speaker:a generation later in the year 70 80.
Speaker:It's historical, we know it.
Speaker:Just a few episodes ago, I talked about the end of the age and I went through
Speaker:all the historical events of that time.
Speaker:You can circle back and listen to that if you haven't listened to it.
Speaker:Now, here is where it gets.
Speaker:Bigger though we could look at the 10 times that Jesus mentioned this
Speaker:generation, but it was not just Jesus.
Speaker:Every single writer in the New Testament.
Speaker:Use the same urgency language, and they were all writing to the same generation.
Speaker:Paul was writing roughly between 80 49 or 50 to 65, and he said the
Speaker:ends of the ages have come upon us.
Speaker:In one Corinthians 10 11, James, one of the earliest New Testament
Speaker:letters written in about 80 48 is where we've put that one.
Speaker:He says, the coming of the Lord.
Speaker:Is at hand in James five eight.
Speaker:Peter.
Speaker:The end of all things is at hand in one Peter four, seven.
Speaker:He wrote that in the sixties, John writing in the mid to late sixties.
Speaker:It is the last hour, first John two 18, and then finally John again in Revelation.
Speaker:The first sentence and the last sentence, the time is.
Speaker:Near Revelations one, three and Revelation 2210.
Speaker:Same phrase, same urgency, same window, every single.
Speaker:One of them.
Speaker:And if we don't read it with that in mind, we are taking it out of
Speaker:context and it means different things.
Speaker:This is not a coincidence.
Speaker:They were all standing inside that 40 year period, the cross in roughly a ad
Speaker:30 to the destruction of the temple in.
Speaker:70 a 40 years later, they all knew what was coming.
Speaker:Jesus said it first and then the rest of the New Testament confirmed it, letter by
Speaker:letter all the way through the revealing, the coming, the revealing of Christ.
Speaker:In Revelation, this is the domino.
Speaker:It's the build, it's the story.
Speaker:It's what's happening with the New Testament, and it is
Speaker:so incredible and powerful.
Speaker:When I started seeing that, and I'm hopeful you have or you will, as you
Speaker:read this in context, in order when it tips the entire New Testament reads.
Speaker:Differently.
Speaker:It makes so much more sense.
Speaker:It's, it's like, oh, I see what's going on now.
Speaker:I'm not trying to use it as some crystal ball to predict the future.
Speaker:This is what happened and it makes sense.
Speaker:So we'll talk more about that.
Speaker:let's walk through the passages.
Speaker:That Jesus, that he shared about this generation.
Speaker:I think it's important that we look at each one.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Ready?
Speaker:I grouped these in a few different areas.
Speaker:The first grouping are what I'll call the comparisons, Matthew 1116.
Speaker:This is Jesus.
Speaker:To what shall I compare this generation?
Speaker:He's comparing them to the children who refuse to respond to
Speaker:either John the Baptist or Jesus.
Speaker:Then in Mark eight 12, Jesus says, why does this generation.
Speaker:Seek a sign.
Speaker:They want proof while they're standing in front of the proof.
Speaker:Jesus Christ, mark 8 38, whoever is ashamed of me in this
Speaker:adulterous and sinful generation.
Speaker:Urgency.
Speaker:This group, this moment, he's calling them out.
Speaker:That generation.
Speaker:Alright, next grouping is what we'll call the condemnations related to this
Speaker:generation, Matthew 1241 through 42.
Speaker:The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this
Speaker:generation and condemn it.
Speaker:Nineveh repented.
Speaker:And Jesus is basically saying this generation will not,
Speaker:and we know that they didn't.
Speaker:That is why Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed as judgment.
Speaker:Alright, and then in Luke 1150 through 51, the blood of all the prophets.
Speaker:Maybe charged against this generation.
Speaker:That's pretty man.
Speaker:That's strong.
Speaker:I mean, you could see if Jesus was speaking to you and accusing you of
Speaker:that, it would be very difficult.
Speaker:That's accountability language.
Speaker:He's basically saying, this generation, you standing in front of me, you.
Speaker:Are to blame.
Speaker:The blood of all the prophets is charged against you.
Speaker:It's a reckoning that's within their lifetime judgment language.
Speaker:Luke 1725.
Speaker:First, he must suffer many things.
Speaker:And be rejected by this generation.
Speaker:And of course he's speaking of himself suffering many things and then he will
Speaker:and was rejected by that generation.
Speaker:All right, next grouping, we'll call them prophecies.
Speaker:The prophecies of this generation, Matthew 26 36.
Speaker:Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation,
Speaker:and of course there were a long list of things that led up to that.
Speaker:It and it's judgment on the religious leaders, their system, and their temple.
Speaker:Then Matthew 24 34.
Speaker:Of course, Matthew 24 is what we term the Olivet discourse.
Speaker:Truly, I say to you, this.
Speaker:Generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
Speaker:The temple's destruction is what he's pointing to and referring
Speaker:to this generation Mark 1330, same statement, same context.
Speaker:And then also in Luke 21, 32, third time, same thing.
Speaker:Three gospel writers.
Speaker:Recorded it.
Speaker:10 examples in scripture of Jesus.
Speaker:This is red letter.
Speaker:This is what we as believers and followers of Christ hang our belief on,
Speaker:and that is the words of Jesus Christ.
Speaker:If we are going to argue against that.
Speaker:And say that he didn't really mean this generation.
Speaker:In my opinion, we are going down a slippery slope because then we're
Speaker:going to have to start reinterpreting every word that Jesus said.
Speaker:Let's not do that.
Speaker:Let's believe him and believe that when he said this generation to the group
Speaker:of people standing in front of him in roughly 30 ad. That he meant the biblical
Speaker:generation 40 years, and that it included the people between that 80, 30 and 80 70,
Speaker:the 40 year generation, we believe him.
Speaker:Okay, so that's 10 passages.
Speaker:Three gospel writers.
Speaker:Every single one refers to the people alive at that time.
Speaker:Not one of them requires a future reading to make sense.
Speaker:Now I, I think what we need to do is let's talk about why this matters.
Speaker:I've had people say, yeah, but this doesn't, we don't need
Speaker:to get into this stuff, Tim.
Speaker:This is just a little bit too controversial and
Speaker:let's don't get into that.
Speaker:This is where we need to discuss people.
Speaker:And maybe you're going through it too, if you're listening in, you
Speaker:know, I don't believe that I'm gonna kind of push back on that.
Speaker:Because many of you and someone's going to say, I just love Jesus and read my Bible.
Speaker:Why does it matter who the New Testament was written to?
Speaker:Jesus is writing that to me.
Speaker:I'm gonna take it as it means things to me, and it does.
Speaker:It is written for us.
Speaker:my argument here, my belief as I've gone through it in context in
Speaker:order is it wasn't written to us.
Speaker:Yes, it's written for us.
Speaker:It was written for us to understand.
Speaker:All that went on in that first century.
Speaker:It wasn't written to us.
Speaker:let's talk about why it matters, because that's a very fair question.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Here's the answer.
Speaker:Reading the Bible.
Speaker:Is not the same as reading it in context.
Speaker:I saw this so much when I spent time at Bible school.
Speaker:I was guilty myself of taking a scripture or a chapter or even a book
Speaker:of the Bible and ripping it out and trying to do something in modern times
Speaker:without understanding the context.
Speaker:Sometimes it works and it's fine.
Speaker:Many times it's twisting things and it's causing issues.
Speaker:Everyone, myself included, we read the Bible through a lens.
Speaker:The question we have to ask, this is what was bothering me, is whether the lens
Speaker:is honest about what the text actually says, or if we're trying to force the
Speaker:text into a system that we believe.
Speaker:Or something that we've been brainwashed or taught or something like that, or
Speaker:what we really, really wanted to believe that's almost as bad, if not worse.
Speaker:So who was it actually written to?
Speaker:And when we take the urgency language written to the first century audience
Speaker:and apply it to the 21st century.
Speaker:We're not just making an interpretive choice, we're putting words in the
Speaker:mouth of people who were talking to someone else about something
Speaker:specific, and it just doesn't apply the way many of us want it to.
Speaker:Most of the time it produces confusion.
Speaker:Like I spoke about at the beginning.
Speaker:We're predicting things.
Speaker:We're saying this is about to happen.
Speaker:Look at what's going on in the Middle East, and here's where it says that in
Speaker:the scripture this is about to happen.
Speaker:And then it's interesting.
Speaker:It doesn't happen.
Speaker:And to me it makes many people, sometimes us go, maybe the Bible isn't
Speaker:about that, and it's okay to say that.
Speaker:And it's also okay to say, you know what?
Speaker:It probably wasn't, it probably meant more to that first century audience.
Speaker:Sometimes it produces fear and sometimes it's used to control people.
Speaker:Keep watching the headlines.
Speaker:Listen to me because I'm the one decoding the prophecy charts for you, and I've
Speaker:got this special knowledge waiting for an event that the New Testament writers
Speaker:believed was imminent in their lifetime.
Speaker:But we're trying to say that it means a, a. It means something in our lifetime.
Speaker:It's just a mismatch.
Speaker:We have to be careful of that.
Speaker:Here is, this is what, when I read it in order, I started seeing this
Speaker:and as I got deeper into reading the New Testament in context, this is
Speaker:something that really bothered me.
Speaker:This is what matters the most.
Speaker:When you push the fulfillment of Jesus' warnings, the arrival of the kingdom
Speaker:and the completion of his work, the it is finished work into the future.
Speaker:You're making a very dangerous, I believe, theological claim, whether you
Speaker:realize it or not, you, we are saying.
Speaker:The work is not finished.
Speaker:I've got a comment in my Facebook messenger right now where someone
Speaker:is going through this reading plan and they're starting to see this
Speaker:and they commented, but Jesus has to come back and fix everything.
Speaker:And my question to him is, what does Jesus need to fix?
Speaker:Because that comment basically says, and this is a good guy, Christian
Speaker:man, it says Jesus was not and is not.
Speaker:Is.
Speaker:Enough, and that is dangerous theology in my opinion.
Speaker:We think that he needs to come back and fix what is broken and rapture take us
Speaker:outta here before he starts fixing it.
Speaker:And you know, maybe turning over the tables again and all of those things.
Speaker:He needs to come back and fix what is still broken.
Speaker:And you know what?
Speaker:I'm not saying things aren't broken.
Speaker:I'm saying that in context.
Speaker:All of that was fixed.
Speaker:The law, the temple, the sacrificial system, the covenant relationship
Speaker:between God and his people, it is not still going on today That.
Speaker:Ended in that year 70 ad, and when you read the New Testament, the New Testament
Speaker:writers, they didn't believe that they believed the cross was the completion.
Speaker:It is finished, John 1930.
Speaker:It wasn't a placeholder.
Speaker:It wasn't like it is finished for a season.
Speaker:It is finished.
Speaker:Hebrews 9 26.
Speaker:He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away
Speaker:sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Speaker:Not future tense, not really even current.
Speaker:It's, it was like it has been done once for all end of the ages.
Speaker:Their ages, the age that they were in, the futurist or rapture
Speaker:theory or dispensationalist reading doesn't just move the timeline.
Speaker:It quietly undermines the sufficiency of what Jesus actually did.
Speaker:And listen, I know this is gonna be touching on something
Speaker:here, but there's an entire.
Speaker:Industry that's built on keeping it complicated, confusing it so much that
Speaker:you don't quite understand it, but the people that sound really, really
Speaker:good, throw around some scriptures.
Speaker:They go to Daniel, they go to other Old Testament prophets, they jump
Speaker:to Revelation, they look at the headlines and they tell you all
Speaker:these things that are going on.
Speaker:Books, conferences, charts, courses.
Speaker:All designed to explain prophecy that when you read the texting context
Speaker:is not that hard to understand.
Speaker:It already happened.
Speaker:The confusion is not accidental.
Speaker:Complicated, keeps people dependent on the experts who explain it.
Speaker:It shapes politics.
Speaker:When you believe the world is heading towards a cataclysm that only Jesus
Speaker:return can fix, you stop trying to build something, you start voting for
Speaker:outcomes that accelerate the collapse.
Speaker:In times thinking does not produce people who work to make things better.
Speaker:It produces people who are waiting to be rescued.
Speaker:It changes how we treat each other and how we do church.
Speaker:If the kingdom is still coming, then our job is to hold the line, protect
Speaker:the remnant, and survive until.
Speaker:Rescue.
Speaker:If the kingdom is already here and expanding, then our
Speaker:job is completely different.
Speaker:We are builders, not bunker dwellers, and it keeps us in a posture of waiting when
Speaker:the New Testament says, we're already.
Speaker:Inside the thing that everyone was waiting for, the kingdom is not coming.
Speaker:It came and it has been expanding ever since.
Speaker:That is why this matters, not as a theological debate, as a question
Speaker:about who Jesus is and whether Jesus was enough and whether
Speaker:you're going to live like he was.
Speaker:All right, so something that we want to do here is let's talk about sort of, I
Speaker:guess, a little bit of how we've gotten to this, why it creates a little confusion.
Speaker:It seems that every time this shows up, the Dispensationalist Rapture
Speaker:theory framework has to redefine it.
Speaker:What do I mean this generation?
Speaker:They have all of these complicated, definitions of what this
Speaker:generation really means instead of just taking it for what it is.
Speaker:This generation, it becomes the generation that sees these signs or
Speaker:the Jewish race or a type of generation that comes throughout history over
Speaker:and over again, or it's the generation that starts when Israel becomes a
Speaker:nation in 1948 or something like that.
Speaker:It just gets so convoluted and confusing instead of just saying, what if.
Speaker:It means this generation.
Speaker:Let's just take it for that.
Speaker:I know that's super simple and it doesn't sell a lot of books, but what if we just
Speaker:say it is this generation When you read it straight through, when you read the New
Speaker:Testament in context, and I encourage you to, if you've just finished it up, great.
Speaker:I'm excited that you've done that.
Speaker:But if you haven't, I encourage you.
Speaker:Read the New Testament in context.
Speaker:You'll see what I'm talking about.
Speaker:You'll see why I'm sort of getting a little bit worked
Speaker:up and excited about this.
Speaker:It really does become simpler, not simple, totally, but simpler.
Speaker:It's not as confusing as we've made it.
Speaker:When you read it state through the meaning is consistent and
Speaker:obvious every time This generation.
Speaker:It's the people standing right in front of Jesus, the event he
Speaker:warned about the destruction of the temple, the end of the sacrificial
Speaker:system, the judgment on Jerusalem.
Speaker:It happened 40 years later within that generation.
Speaker:Jesus was not wrong.
Speaker:I think it's very dangerous for us to try to say Jesus didn't really mean that.
Speaker:Jesus, uh, let me help you understand what Jesus was saying.
Speaker:Jesus was not wrong.
Speaker:He was not speaking in code.
Speaker:He was warning real people about a real thing, and it happened exactly.
Speaker:When he said he would.
Speaker:So if we have that, this is where we can now see why this one insight
Speaker:changes the reading of everything else.
Speaker:Let's look at a few of these as we start wrapping up this episode.
Speaker:The Vete discourse, we mentioned it earlier.
Speaker:It's in Matthew 24, mark 13, Luke 21.
Speaker:Obviously it's kind of a big deal if it's in three of the four gospels.
Speaker:I will also tell you that part of my belief is it's also John, but it isn't
Speaker:in the book of John John's t discourse.
Speaker:Is in the revealing of Christ the revelation.
Speaker:That is what the Olave discourse is in John's writing.
Speaker:So anyway, you could take that for what it's worth, it's not about
Speaker:the end of the world, it's about the end of the temple system.
Speaker:Let's everybody brings this up.
Speaker:Daniel's prophecies, the 70 weeks.
Speaker:It is so easy to show that those 70 weeks land in the first century, they weren't
Speaker:paused or suspended for 2000 years.
Speaker:That's not in Daniel's prophecy.
Speaker:It, it gives a very clear, and the indication is very obvious.
Speaker:It ends in the first century, not in the future.
Speaker:And then I mentioned earlier Revelation, the time.
Speaker:Is near.
Speaker:I was spending a few hours this morning in Revelation, deep in
Speaker:the middle part, chapters 10 through 14, and yes, it's symbolic.
Speaker:It's Old Testament, apocalyptic symbolism and imagery, but it is.
Speaker:Very clear that what John is describing are those events that were occurring
Speaker:in and around the Jewish Roman War of 70 ad. Revelation one three though, and
Speaker:2210 says the time is near same urgency.
Speaker:Same audience.
Speaker:And then there's this word that we throw around repentance.
Speaker:I'm gonna try to pronounce this.
Speaker:It's meteo and it really means change your mind and throughout the New
Speaker:Testament, what you start realizing.
Speaker:Is, that's not something that you do to try to get to heaven or punch your ticket.
Speaker:It's, I, it's really repenting from being associated with either the.
Speaker:The cult, which is worship of the Roman Emperor or the temple
Speaker:system, and repenting and changing your mind and believing in
Speaker:the Messiah, change your mind.
Speaker:It's a last call before a known event.
Speaker:Also, you start reading things like the narrow door insiders who assumed
Speaker:that their heritage was the ticket.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just because we're God's chosen people, they are warned that that door is about to
Speaker:be shut and they are going to be shut out.
Speaker:And then you start looking at things in history, like of course,
Speaker:the events around 70 a d, which we know, we know the history there.
Speaker:It's documented.
Speaker:This is when the decree.
Speaker:The judgment, the divorce is finalized.
Speaker:The old covenant marriage is historically over, and this is oversimplifying
Speaker:it, but the temple is destroyed.
Speaker:No temple, no sacrifice, no sacrifice.
Speaker:No covenant.
Speaker:Now some people will say, oh, that sounds bad.
Speaker:That's, that's, you know, going against the Jewish people.
Speaker:That's what the Bible says in context.
Speaker:And the cool thing is, is that that allowed for A new covenant, the
Speaker:Messianic covenant, which opened the door for both Jews and Gentiles.
Speaker:It's open to all of them.
Speaker:There is no barrier anymore.
Speaker:Believe in Jesus, and you are part of that new covenant.
Speaker:That's good news.
Speaker:That's exciting stuff right there.
Speaker:That is the gospel.
Speaker:Now, what does this mean for us today?
Speaker:And you know, this is.
Speaker:Kind of, kind of a big deal because many of us are struggling.
Speaker:If you read, you've always, if you've always read the New Testament
Speaker:thinking, oh, this is all about us and now I tell you no, it was about
Speaker:them, that generation, many people, my wife and I had these conversations.
Speaker:It's like, but, but wait, what does the Bible mean for.
Speaker:Us.
Speaker:I was hanging on that promise of being rapture outta here before things
Speaker:got really bad and Jesus swooped back in to fix things and it it.
Speaker:To me, now that I've gone through this process for the last few
Speaker:years, the story is so much better.
Speaker:It's not about fear.
Speaker:It's not about the end of the world and things like that.
Speaker:If this generation meant them and the event happened, then Jesus was not
Speaker:wrong, and the work is not unfinished.
Speaker:It means that Jesus did.
Speaker:What he said he was going to do.
Speaker:That's not a small thing.
Speaker:It means our foundation holds.
Speaker:We have a foundation that's built on a solid rock.
Speaker:The kingdom he announced is not coming.
Speaker:At some point it came.
Speaker:It is here.
Speaker:It has been expanding quietly, steadily, without headlines for 2000 years.
Speaker:That should.
Speaker:Change your posture entirely.
Speaker:You're not waiting to be rescued.
Speaker:You're not waiting for, you know, you to be raptured or you're not looking at
Speaker:your children that are just being born and go, oh, I hope they live to whatever.
Speaker:You know, you're not looking at a clock that's ticking all the time.
Speaker:You're not waiting to be rescued.
Speaker:You are not holding the line until things get bad enough for
Speaker:Jesus to come back and fix it.
Speaker:You're already inside the thing.
Speaker:Everyone in the New Testament was leaning toward.
Speaker:Now what does that look like on Tuesday?
Speaker:Our episodes typically drop on Monday, so you know, what
Speaker:does that mean for tomorrow?
Speaker:It means that the way you treat that person in front of you is kingdom.
Speaker:Work.
Speaker:You're a citizen of his kingdom.
Speaker:The way you build your family, your business, your community, that is
Speaker:kingdom building, not preparation for something that's coming.
Speaker:Some doomsday event.
Speaker:It is preparation for the kingdom.
Speaker:Expanding the thing itself.
Speaker:New Testament writers were not writing to people who needed to
Speaker:endure until something better arrived.
Speaker:They were writing to people who were standing at the beginning of
Speaker:the greatest expansion in human history, and we are still in it.
Speaker:You don't need a prophecy chart to know where you are.
Speaker:You're in the kingdom.
Speaker:It is here.
Speaker:It is growing and your life the.
Speaker:Actual one you're living right now is part of that kingdom story.
Speaker:You, me, we are citizens of the kingdom of God, and that ever expanding
Speaker:kingdom is what we are in today.
Speaker:That is exciting.
Speaker:That is the gospel.
Speaker:That is excellent, excellent news.
Speaker:So we just saw 10 passages, three writers, every one of them pointed
Speaker:to the same people, the same event, the same generation, and.
Speaker:It happened.
Speaker:If we start there, everything else reads differently and that is what we're gonna
Speaker:continue doing within this series and unfold things that we will look at and
Speaker:see differently when we know that Jesus was truly speaking to this generation,
Speaker:the one that was in front of him,
Speaker:All right, so here's what I'm gonna leave with you.
Speaker:Don't take my word for it.
Speaker:Like I said in the beginning, prove me wrong.
Speaker:Go read it for yourself.
Speaker:The actual text in the order it was written.
Speaker:When you do that, it reads like the one story told by one
Speaker:generation, and it will change you.
Speaker:Very, very powerful.
Speaker:Wanna remind you, we got the free 90 day reading plan.
Speaker:Go get it.
Speaker:Read this in context, read it for yourself.
Speaker:Don't listen to me, don't believe me.
Speaker:In fact, I like to recommend disconnect with a lot of the voices in your
Speaker:head and get in the scripture.
Speaker:In context yourself.
Speaker:K two M Foundation slash NT 90.
Speaker:That's where you can go get more information, download the reading
Speaker:plan, check out more information.
Speaker:Just start wherever you are and if what you find does not match what you
Speaker:were taught, pay attention to that.
Speaker:This Tim Winders.
Speaker:Keep digging.
Speaker:We'll see you on the next episode.
