To actually read, hear and understand Matthew 24, we must remove all the lenses the doctrines of men have put on our eyes and ears. This may be the most lense heavy chapter in the whole bible.

I have been reading my bible for over 30 years, everyday, for not just one verse or one chapter, but for minutes, hours, chunks, at a time and I still hear the voices of others when I read this chapter. For many people it is the loudest chapter in the New Testament.

The challenge is, it is also the most misunderstood chapter, because the minute you enter it we immediately tend to lean towards end times theology. But the question is whose end time theology?

The story of this chapter recounts Jesus sitting on the Mount of Olives with His disciples, when the disciples pose a question to Jesus because of a comment Jesus made earlier about the Temple being destroyed.

We must enter a Jewish disciples mindset in order to understand the Messiahs answer. Here is what the disciples were really asking…”For a first-century Jew, Temple destruction wasn’t just political catastrophe. It was cosmic. It meant the Shekinah departing, the sacrificial system ending, the covenant structure of Israel collapsing. This question was: When does our entire world end?” (Claude)

Everything in their worldview as a Jew was interwoven with the very Temple Jesus just said would be destroyed. This was huge for them. Everything they had ever been taught, everything they had ever known, their national identity was about to be destroyed. The question was not random, it was intentional.

There is much more to say about this chapter, but just knowing this is enough for us to remove the glasses people have put on us and sit in this truth the disciples were dealing with as they looked at Jesus on that mountain. It is more important to us than we have been taught, so sit with it a minute. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org