FulfilledOne Column Page
and responsive to boot
Why I Became a Preterist
by Charles S. Meek
This article appeared in the 2023 Fall issue of Fulfilled! Magazine
|
|
With a measure of teeth gnashing, and years of study—I became convinced that the preterist view of eschatology is the correct one. Here are a dozen reasons why.
- Bible teachers to whom I had been listening could not give meaningful answers to my challenging questions about prophecy. Worse, they seemed less interested in truth, and more interested in defending a presumptive position. I wanted to follow the Shepherd, not the sheep. I wanted to defend God’s Word, not an institution.
- I could no longer ignore, in good conscience, the over 100 time-statements in the New Testament that limit fulfillment of the prophesied events within the lifetimes of the New Testament writers. (There really are over 100 of them.)
- I did my homework and found that the setting of all fifteen specific mentions of the “last days” or “end times” in the New Testament cannot be placed beyond the first century without doing violence to the text.
- I realized that I was ignorant about what happened in Jerusalem in AD 70 and the theological significance of these events.
- I was shocked to discover that Jesus, as well as his disciples, stated that virtually all OLD TESTAMENT prophecy would be completed in their literal generation—that is, the first century.
- I realized that if Jesus and his disciples were wrong about the timing of fulfillment of the prophetic events, the charges against Christianity concerning Jesus being a false prophet would be true. The preterist view is the only one that answers the critics’ charges. Jesus kept his word. He is not a false prophet. There is no need to make excuses for Him or gloss over challenging passages.
- I had heard Christians argue that language such as “moon turning to blood,” “coming on clouds,” “make the heavens tremble,” etc. should be understood literally. I was always skeptical about literalizing these phrases, and my closer investigation revealed that my skepticism was warranted. Such phrases are typical non-literal Hebraic apocalyptic language to describe God’s intervention (usually judgment) on cities or nations in history.
- I realized that the Bible never speaks about the end of the physical universe or planet earth. (Really, it doesn’t.)
- I noticed that Christians tend to interpret the Bible through the lens of the daily news events—and have accordingly been making false and embarrassing predictions about the end of the world for 2,000 years. If they would be reading through the lens of the original audience instead, they would get a different picture.
- I learned that over 130 competent scholars have been identified as teaching that Revelation was written prior to AD 70, and that Revelation is mostly about the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple during the Jewish-Roman War of AD 66-70.
- I discovered that there are over 30 passages in Revelation that (a) demand fulfillment soon after being written down, and (b) Revelation does not introduce new concepts, but rather connects the events described there with the same ones mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.
- I noticed that objections to preterism are shallow, disjointed, biased, arbitrary, and inconsistent. Objectors are willfully blind about key passages and mostly regurgitate things they have heard from people who have not really studied the issue either.
Perhaps you might have an initial knee jerk reaction to the above. Please don’t take my word for it. Don’t be lazy—do the homework this important topic deserves. Start at my websites below.
Comments:
| H "Reg" Sappie | October 6, 2023 | |
|---|---|---|
|
||
Your honest review will help others in their search for truth. If you must leave a negative review please be gracious.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every
way into him who the head, into Christ . . . .
(Ephesians 4:15)
