Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. –Matthew 24:40-42 ESV
What is this famous section of Scripture about? The rapture right? This describes the end times when God will remove the Christians from the world and bring them to heaven. I’ve heard this taught many times. No doubt you have too. What I am about to say may shock you, because it certainly shocked me when I heard it. This verse is absolutely NOT about the rapture.
Greg Koukl, the founder of the Stand to Reason apologetics ministry has a rule that I think we should all follow: “Never read a Bible verse.” What he means is that unless you read a section of verses in context you run the risk of seriously misinterpreting a passage. That is what is going on here. Lets read the larger context. Here are the verses right before the section I quoted above.
For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. –Matthew 24:37-39 ESV
So who is taken and swept away? The wicked right? That doesn’t sound like the rapture I know about.
Check this out, another parable of Jesus from Matthew.
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn –Matthew 13:24-30 ESV
This parable is about the end times. (Not my interpretation, Jesus says that it is) What is gathered first? The weeds. What are the weeds? Jesus explains later in the chapter that the weeds are the “sons of the evil one”. That sure doesn’t sound like the rapture of the church to me.
Let me make it clear that I absolutely believe in the rapture. But the verse I quoted in the beginning of this post has nothing to do with it. So why did I used to think it did? Why have we so often heard this verse preached, like it did? There's a good chance that this realization bothers you, because I know for a fact it bothered me. Why did I not notice this before? It is right there, perfectly clear.
I am not trying to cause you to be suspicious of your pastor. I am trying to cause you to recognize the need to study the Word of God for yourself. When I was shown all this a few weeks back, it really convicted me. How much about what I know of the Bible is something I just believe because I was told? Lets all commit to study the Bible for ourselves. If we do not, how will we know true teaching versus false teaching? Lets not be spiritually lazy anymore. It is not only your pastor’s job to make sure you know the truth about God. It’s also your job. Lets be like the Bereans who didn’t even take Paul’s word for it. Is your pastor more trustworthy than Paul?
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. –Acts 17:11 NIV
No comments:
Post a Comment