Answering A Preterist (Olivet Discourse)

 

I recently received a letter from a preterist:

 

 

Dear Dwayna,

 

 

 

[…] Please keep in mind that one thing preterists would stress, is that as Christians, we must realize that the New Testament is a compilation of letters written to a very specific people. These are letters written to the first century Church and they had great meaning and importance to them. In affect, we today are reading someone else’s mail. It was written "to" them and "for" us. There is a difference here. Once we understand this, we can apply the Bible’s truth to our lives here in the 21st century. In other words, the Bible was written by Hebrews, for Hebrews who understood Hebraic thought. This is how we begin our exegesis of the scriptures. We must first understand it’s original intent before we can apply it’s truths to our lives today. This leads me to my next point. Whenever we read these words of imminency by Jesus and His disciples like, "soon", "shortly", "quickly", "near", "at hand", "about to be", "this generation" etc. in reference to the coming of the Lord, we must understand how those words were first understood by those to whom they were first written. How did those first century Christians understand those words? It is our contention that those words meant that the Lord would come soon (In their generation). Isn’t this how they would have understood these words? I hope you see my point. Does this not coincide with Jesus own words on the Mount of Olives?



 

 

Dear ***,

 

I wanted to thank you for writing. I have addressed some of your points on my blog tonight. I also wanted to recommend a book by Dwight Pentecost entitled Things to Come. I can tell from your writing that you have become an avid preterist. There is nothing you can write to persuade me to become a preterist or a partial-preterist, having studied the positions. Here is what I posted tonight on my blog in explanation of Matthew 24:

 

 

http://lightingtheway.blogspot.com/2008/04/olivet-discourse-this-generation-shall.html .

 

 

Also, the Bible teaches that the Word of God is ETERNAL and ACTIVE and not just written for another time. It is written also for today!

 

 

Because of God’s mercy on me,

 

 

Dwayna Litz

 

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