Matthew 24 is one of the most contested chapters in all of Scripture. The reason for this is not terribly surprising considering that the whole chapter deals with the disciple’s question to Jesus about future times and events. It is one of those chapters that is almost impossible to read without bias. So many of us have been brought up developing a bias toward certain positions and systems about end times and when we read chapters like Matthew 24 it is almost impossible to let the biblical authors speak for themselves. The weight of importance increases when we also remind ourselves that these biblical authors wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Who are we to import our own ideas into God’s word?
A great example of our systematic biases comes right at the beginning of Matthew 24 in verse three. The disciples approach Jesus privately with questions. Matthew 24:3 – “As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’” The debates many love to have about Matthew 24 start in this verse and carry on through the entire chapter. How many questions are the disciples asking and how do those questions help us to divide up the entire chapter into neat time frames that fit into our own eschatological systems.
Some people believe that the disciples came asking Jesus three questions. One was about the destruction of Jerusalem, one was about the signs of his coming, and the last was about what might happen at the very end. People who see it this way divide the chapter up according to separate eschatological events. This is essential for one particular type of eschatological system that does not fit into the text any other way.
Likewise, others see only two questions. One was about the destruction of Jerusalem and one about the second coming and the end of the age. These two questions are then used to find only two events in the text with one singular coming of Christ at the end of time.
I am not explaining the theological systems behind this because my intention is to make a greater point. In fact, I used to hold strongly to the two-question view until I was asked to consider the context. The verse says that the disciples approach Jesus privately to ask these questions. They have just heard Jesus tell the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem that their house (the temple) will become desolate and that they will not see him again. As he left Jerusalem, the disciples pointed out the temple and buildings and Jesus essentially told them that it would all be destroyed. Now the disciples privately ask him what we read in Matthew 24:3.
The disciples have no way of knowing whether they are even asking separate questions. They had not yet lived through the Romans sieging Jerusalem in 70 AD. They had not heard of any different eschatological systems that may or may not place a “rapture” before a final coming of Christ. They had no indication that there would even be another 2000 years of history (and you and I have no indication that there will not yet be another 2000 years of history). They could just as easily have been asking these questions thinking that everything was going to happen at once at some near or far point in the future.
A second important note to make about this is that when you seek to harmonize the questions in Matthew 24 with the same accounts in Luke 21 and Mark 13, there is no confirmation that the questions must be divided a particular way. If these divisions were so important for understanding the future, would they not also be important for the same accounts in the other gospels?
The bottom line here is simply this – the context does not have us looking for our neat divisions by dictating that the disciples could know more than they could possibly know. They are just confused about what to expect as they live toward the return of Christ. That’s really no different to you and me. If you keep this in mind and allow the text to then simply speak for itself without importing events that are not outlined in the text of Matthew 24, you get a simple message about persevering in Christ and waiting in obedience for his unmistakable return. It allows us to put away our division debates and long for our returning King as we proclaim his gospel to the world around us. Context, not our systems, makes light of God’s text.