I’ve heard it said more than once when all the people groups of the world are reached with the Gospel, then the “end” should come, in reference to Matthew 24:14.
Then I was reading Colossians and came across these verses:
Colossians 1:23b-24
This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
24Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
They struck me as odd two-fold:
1. The Gospel according to Paul has already been proclaimed to every creature under heaven.
2. Christ’s afflications are lacking in some way.
Does anyone else scratch their heads at these verses?
The Nelson Study Bible offers commentary on both points:
Regarding #1:
And #2:
Thanks Hugh –
Personally, given the tenor of the text preceding Col 1:23, I can’t buy into Nelson’s explanation. Paul unpacks the Gospel so clearly for the Colossians. I can see how someone could relate this verse back to Romans 1, but it still doesn’t explain away Paul’s assertion.
As for point #2, I can align with this explanation. If you look at Revelation 6:10, you see martyrs asking for vegenence, but they are told to wait a little longer so all the rest of the appointed martyrs can be killed. Their sufferings indeed were endured for Christ’s sake.
More on #1 – it might be worthwhile to unpack the language a little.
Side-by-side ESV, NASB, NIV
Excerpting (emphasis mine):
ESV
NASB
A great Greek/English interlinear site helped me note that in the original Greek, Paul used the preposition “in,” not “to.” Seems to me the NIV got it wrong there.
That would seem to be more in line with a Romans 1 sort of understanding, would it not?
The problem you guys are having is an incorrect (IMHO) interpretation of Mt. 24:14. In context, the “little apocalypse” is referring to the beginning of the gospel age and the end of the temple age. “The end” is the end of the Temple which was destroyed in A.D. 70 soon after Paul wrote Colossians.
By the way, Mt. 24:14 uses “in” and not “to”.
Thanks Ken – that seems pretty tight!
By the way, what’s the Greek word for “DOH!?”
Sorry, I’ve missed it. Ken – we were talking about Colossians 1:23. What’s the relevance of Matthew 24:14?
Refer to the original post. 😉
“DOH!” Homer said…
Kevin,
Mt. 24:14 speaks of the gospel of the testimony to be preached in all the world.
Those with a “futurist” view of the events of the “little apocalypse” have found that no matter how much of the world the gospel has reached, Jesus still hasn’t come back (d’oh!). Therefore the focus, for dispensationalists and other futurists, has shifted over the years from a geographical “all the world” to an ethnic “all the world”. Thus you have the phenomenon of fundamentalists (most of which are heavily influenced by dispensationalism) anxiously awaiting the gospel’s spread to all “people groups” so that the end will come.
The Preterist (and partial Preterist) view is that Paul was right (no exaggerations) in Col. 1:23 and that the known world had been reached and the “end” came when Gen. Titus led his Roman hordes to sack Jerusalem and destroy the temple in A.D. 70.
Ken,
First, a clarification – I don’t think the Preterist view states that “all the world” means the geographic “all the world” but normally the Roman world. People at the time of Christ knew of Germanic tribes and people on the British Isles yet the gospel did not reach there until after the fall of Jerusalem. So first, one must accept that when Jesus and others were talking about all the world they were refering to a “political world”, not even a geographic one.
Secondly, how can the fact that Paul states the gospel has been preached to the whole world in 1:23 when he has yet to get to Spain (Romans 15:24)?
For an alternate position, here is a quote from John Piper on this particular verse:
This is from a sermon he gave on Colossions.
Not to say that the Preterist view doesn’t have some advantages to it. I just don’t think it adequately answers the problem Kevin raised here in 1:23.
I know I have a tasty blog going when my audience is Hugh, Ken and Matt! Thanks fellas. As to my short attention span on the Matthew reference, I can only blame the FISH. 😉
Matt,
Interesting points made. One question…Why must Paul have gone to Spain for the gospel to have reached Spain. The gospel had reached Rome long before he ever went to Rome.
I think another good question for all of us to ponder on this subject is what is meant by Jesus’ statements in Matthew regarding the gospel’s spread. What did he intend for us to take away from that statement?
Ken,
You are correct in that others besides Paul could have reached Spain by the time that Paul wrote his epistle. Though I think Romans is clear in the fact that he believes at least at the time of writing that it had not yet reached Spain. F.F. Bruce gives dates of approximately 57 AD for Romans and 60 AD for the prison epistles (Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians). I would assume that three years was long enough for someone else to start churches in Spain (though we don’t have biblical evidence either way). Of course if these datings are correct then we have over ten years that the gospel had reached the “whole world” before the fall of Jerusalem.
Another problem is that Paul uses similar language to the Colossians 1:23 even within Romans. He states that the gospel has been made known to all the nations – 16:25-26, yet in Romans it is clear that he has not yet reached Spain and that it is his belief that they still need him to take them the gospel.
The question of interpretation of Colossians 1:23 in some sense then comes down to ones presuppositions. I personally am not a Preterist which means that I cannot accept your interpretation (though I think it is valid for your theological system). One of us is wrong (or both) but the Preterist/Futurist debate has gone on for many years and I don’t think we are going to clear that up in this thread :).
OK. Forget the second paragraph in my last message (about there being a similar conflict within Romans itself). The phrase for all the nations can go with multiple portions of the verse and it all depends on which translation you read for whether or not there is a problem (I was reading the ESV when I wrote the previous post).
Gentlemen, while, you all are splitting hair, 2-3 million hindusin America are busy building the temples,a dozen large (25-30 million $) across America spreading the gospel of Krishna and Ram.Teaching Hindu philosophy to our young in community colleges and schools under “eastern culture”, yoga and meditation(TM) with hindu idol backdrops.
May the good Lord help us to to focus on the truth.
Prosanto, a Christian immigrant from India.
Prosanto,
Thanks for checking out my blog. My intent on this original blog was to explore Paul’s comments about the spread of the Gospel, which came out of my own personal study of the truth found in the Bible.
I was in no way abdicating the church’s responsibility or need to spread the Gospel. Peter tell us to be prepared with answers, so I believe study and discussion like this blog to be relevant. Through study false Gospels can be kept out of the church.
My hope is that God would use me to share the truth with the people I interact with on a regular basis.
Which leads to a question for you. How would you talk to someone embracing Hinduism about the Gospel of Christ?
Prosanto – thanks for jumping in. Like Kevin, I would love to read your thoughts about bringing the Gospel to a culture you know very well.
Please correct me if I misunderstood you on something. When you say we’re “splitting hairs” it sounds like you think we have to choose between studying the Bible, or preaching the Gospel to the world.
Do you think we have to choose one or the other? I do not — I think we can do both. Actually, I think we must do both.
What good would it do if Christians just sit back and argue about little words in the Bible (like I did in an earlier message when I wrote about whether something should be translated “in” or “to”)? That might be interesting, but we must not stop there – we must act on what we learn.
In the same way, what good would it do if Christians go into the world to bring the truth to others without knowing what the truth is? I think it is embarrassing when a Christian claims to have the truth but cannot say what it is.
Of course, I am not saying that you must be able to address every little point the Bible makes before you can spread the Gospel.
I’m just saying that if you are going to spread the Gospel, you must study it. And studying it means discussing it with others, and sometimes that discussion is about a small point.
In this case, I would agree that we were discussing a small point. But it is a small point that could change a person’s mind about what the Bible says about the end of the world. For some people, that could be an important part of them receiving the Gospel of Christ!
As you said, Hindus are busy teaching their philosophy to our neighbors. How can we oppose that teaching if we do not understand our own Bible?
Please forgive me if I have misunderstood your comment. I just find that people often think that understanding the Bible is not as important as going out into the world to preach the Gospel. But if you do not understand the Gospel, how can you preach it?