I tend to find preterism to be a rather non-intuitive way of interpreting Scripture, but there is one passage in particular that makes futurism very difficult for me...
Matthew 24:20: "Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath."
Since most Christians agree that rules that would prohibit movement on the Sabbath are no longer in effect, this would make little sense applied deep into the future. It's easy enough to understand this within a AD 70 paradigm; Craig Keener points out in his IVP Commentary that it was impossible to secure an animal for transport on the Sabbath in Jerusalem at that time.
As best as I can tell, here are the possibilities I can think of that would preserve a futurist paradigm:
1) This passage refers to AD 70 but switches to the end times later on (a sermon I heard on the Olivet discourse in church last month argued this, though the pastor used Mark 13, not Matthew 24).
2) The Sabbath is, in fact, binding on Christians.
3) This refers to Jews who will convert in the end times and who still choose to follow the Sabbath, sort of like how some Jewish Christians still saw circumcision as important in Paul's letters.
Anything else I'm missing here?
Matthew 24:20: "Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath."
Since most Christians agree that rules that would prohibit movement on the Sabbath are no longer in effect, this would make little sense applied deep into the future. It's easy enough to understand this within a AD 70 paradigm; Craig Keener points out in his IVP Commentary that it was impossible to secure an animal for transport on the Sabbath in Jerusalem at that time.
As best as I can tell, here are the possibilities I can think of that would preserve a futurist paradigm:
1) This passage refers to AD 70 but switches to the end times later on (a sermon I heard on the Olivet discourse in church last month argued this, though the pastor used Mark 13, not Matthew 24).
2) The Sabbath is, in fact, binding on Christians.
3) This refers to Jews who will convert in the end times and who still choose to follow the Sabbath, sort of like how some Jewish Christians still saw circumcision as important in Paul's letters.
Anything else I'm missing here?
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