Do these verses in Matthew and Luke refer to a rapture? In context it seems that they do not. I am looking at the parallel writings of the Olivet discourse in detail in order to understand what is being relayed and I have been shown this:
Matthew 24:37-41
37 “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.
38 “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,
39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
40 “Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.
41 “Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.
Now before the parable of the fig tree which was given just before this, it refers to the Son of Man coming on the clouds and sending his angels to gather his elect, but I’m struggling with the fact that the immediate passage is not extended from that but is a different expectation altogether of Chrsit’s coming. All would agree -though some would choose to hold to a traditional view- that according to the immediate passage this being “taken” is not seemingly refering to a good thing but a bad thing as is those who were taken away by the flood. And, the passage’s flow does not allow for the being “taken” to refer to the “gathering together” earlier in the discourse because according to Luke they were not given one after the other as in Matthew. However, Matthew grouped stories together in subjects and Luke gave an account in consecutive order (Luke 1:3 transliterated as “orderly account” in NKJV and NIV and as ”consecutive order” in NASB and as “in order” in KJV. the original greek word was: kathexes [kath-ex-ace’]; thereafter, i.e. consecutively). I’m not making this up. This is known by all who would care to look into it. And if we look at Luke’s rendering, he seems to write agreeable to Matthew in that Luke is also stressing the bad things and warning us not to cling to our life. However, we don’t get the “being ‘taken’” comparison like we do in Matthew’s version. Instead, we get something even more allusive to the fact that the being “taken” refers to a bad thing:
Luke 17:34-37
34 “I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left.
35 “There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left.
36 [”Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.”]
37 And answering they said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered.”
It seems to me that Jesus was not intending this to refer to the rapture or the gathering together, being that the ones who are being taken are taken to “Where the body is…” which is understood by all to mean “dead body” (NIV).
Understanding that scripture’s inspiration is not based on my understanding of the passage but the original intent of the inspired author, I believe that I’ll have to leave this to speculation but maybe I can add a couple other scriptures to this to see if what I suggested can be true.
Matthew 13:36-43, The Tares Explained
36 Then He left the crowds and went into the house And His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”
37 And He said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man,
38 and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one;
39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels.
40 “So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age.
41 “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness,
42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
43 “Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father He who has ears, let him hear.
Matthew 13:47-50, A Dragnet
47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind;
48 and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away.
49 “So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous,
50 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Now of course these could be simply quote mined from scripture and pasted to prove my point but I actually came across all of this by chance in my bible studies. It is not my intent to do damage to scripture but I do not believe that scripture allows for the traditional view of these passages to stand. The more I try and make them say what tradition holds, the more I feel like I have to damage inspired scripture to do so. (All quotes are from NASB)
It’s my understanding that the “traditional” view of these verses and the whole “rapture” idea depend upon which Christian tradition a person’s coming from. I’ve found that most fundamentalists believe in the pre-trib rapture interpretation while most churches with a longer historical lineage don’t teach the pre-trib (or, for some, “any”-trib) rapture. I found myself a bit confused when reading your post because of your statements about “the traditional view” because different traditions have different traditional views. The most modern tradition is actually the whole rapture thing, while the most traditional tradition is non-rapture belief. Wasn’t quite sure which you were saying is traditional … but I’m brand new to your blog so please forgive me if you’ve detailed that elsewhere … I’m only just starting to mosey around.
~Ms CP
Comment by mscrankypants — April 5, 2007 @ 6:25 am
Your right. I should have clarified. I believe that those who hold to the modern tradition believe it was the only one. I was going off of that. But I am aware that it is only about 170 years old. I have been told by many that the early churh has always believed the pre-trib stuff but I have recently studied that in more depth and found hundreds of writings by early church fathers showing quite the contrary, and found that Darby was sort of a Joseph Smith of the 1830’s. But anyway, thanks for pointing that out. I actually meant the modern traditional view. I said that to point out that some are welcome to their view and that I’m not posting to rob, kill or destroy.
Anyway, happy mosey-ing
God Bless,
Sam
Comment by heardofgod — April 5, 2007 @ 7:25 am
Hey, Sam …
I became a Christian later in life (age 25), so I missed all that lovely (sarcasm) childhood indoctrination many people who grow up in the church seem to be subjected to by their well-meaning Sunday School departments, AWANA leaders, and even their parents.
When I finally made the step to faith, I had a sudden memory of a friend of mine from high school whose mom had an “In Event of Rapture, This Car Will Be Driverless” bumpersticker on her car. I’d never known what that was talking about, but I suddenly realized that now that I was a believer, too, somehow that whole “rapture” thing would apply to me, too.
I thought it was very cool and very intriguing, so I went to a man I worked with — a Christian guy — and asked him where I could read in the Bible about this whole rapture idea.
I was very new to the faith, but I’d really grabbed hold of the idea that the answers to my questions about God, faith, etc., were found in Scripture, not in televangelists, Christian self-help books, or even pastors.
So I happily went home from work that day, all excited to find out about this upcoming event, “The Rapture.” But as I read the verses my friend gave me (AND read all the cross-references in my study Bible), I came away scratching my head and thinking to myself, “Hm. I just don’t see it.”
I chatted with my friend at work about it for a few more conversations, but he finally decided to inform me that not all Christians actually believed that the Bible taught a pre-trib rapture. Wow. I was so new to the whole thing, I thought everyone who named the name of Christ believed the same things. LOL!!! (I was young and dumb in the faith, let me tell you.)
Finally, I had to just set the topic aside because I decided there were much more import topics I needed to deal with (plus I wanted to finish reading through the Bible in its entirely for my first time without getting bogged down in side issues).
So basically I went on with my reading, but prayed, “Lord, if I’m missing something here, please show me.”
And I’ve continued to pray that same prayer for 20+ years. “Lord, if I’m missing something here, please show me.” … and I still sit here scratching my head, thinking, “Hm. I just don’t see it.”
Just thought I’d share my own personal “rapture” journey with you. It was one of the first doctrines that I eagerly researched in my Bible after becoming a Christian … but then it was also my first experience with questioning standard church teachings.
~Ms CP
Comment by mscrankypants — April 5, 2007 @ 7:56 pm
That’s cool. I started reading Revelation a couple of months ago after listening to a man named Steve Gregg go through it verse by verse. I wasn’t really sure I could trust him at first because he, being a godly man and understanding holiness the way I do, did not teach the same thing that my church does though they are very conservative (which I believe is commanded by scripture) and understand holiness the way I do as well. They actually are the reason I understand it at all. But seeing how he only committed himself to only what the scripture said and to proper hermeneutics or exegetical approaches, I started reading the rest of the Bible and realized that scripture supported everything he pointed out in Revelation. It gave me a desire to understand scripture as the inspired authors would have me understand it and after that to start teaching it in a discipleship style. God has blessed my teaching with growth (not in quantity but quality) showing me that it is good.
Anyway, I’m going to start posting what I teach on wordpress soon. I’ve just got to get over a few scriptures that I originally misunderstood, having the wrong glasses on.
” A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.” Luke 6:40
The way I see it, it’s like a long drawn out math problem from college. My close friend has a different answer than I do. I scan my problem quickly and decide he is wrong. When he scans his he says I’m wrong. Until we both go over our problem together to see where one of us went wrong, we’re going to assume the other is wrong. The hardest part about this is I’ve had to go with the Spirit and allow him to be my teacher (Matt. 23:8), and in doing that, it has put me in an uncomfortable place of implying “your wrong” to some of my close friends. But I can’t shut my Bible and say, “I don’t care anymore. I want to keep my friends.” That would put me in a more uncomfortable position of implying “Your wrong” to my dearest friend, Jesus.
At first I thought that it wasn’t important but when I learned that most people think that the church will be a failure and that the true love of God is the ethnic Israel, I realized that the importance of my teaching is hopefully to bring people back to the “Israel of god” (Gal. 6:16) which is his Church, and to exhort people to “beat their swords into plowshares” and to start doing the work of the Savior in His Kingdom that he set up at his first coming. We’ve seen the “man of sin” and are in a “great apostasy”. now let’s spread the Kingdom and “haste the coming of the Lord Jesus.”
That is pretty much what I’m doing… (tap… tap… tap…)
Well, okay… I guess I ran out of stuff to say back there.
So,…Thank you for your comments,
God bless you, Ms CP.
In Jesus,
Sam
Comment by heardofgod — April 7, 2007 @ 8:30 pm