Johnny Skeptic

Matthew 24:14 says "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." The prediction has been fulfilled, but Jesus has not returned to earth. In addition, since hundreds of millions of people have died without ever having heard the Gospel message, how did the spreading of the Gospel message help those people?

judge

I don't think matthew said Jesus was going to return to earth, did he?

hallq

So, he was on earth until recently, and went back to heaven?

mudknot2005

Maybe matthew was talking about the end of Christianity....... Myabe i am just a wishful thinker

Johnny Skeptic

Yes, in the same chapter that I quoted, in verse 3, Jesus said "And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"

Thomas II

Johnny, what would you answer to this explanation...
http://www.christiancourier.com/archives/matthew24.htm

Johnny Skeptic

I visited the web site that you mentioned, and it appears that I will get better results discussing other topics, so I am vacating this thread. Thanks for the reference.

gregor

Thomas

Maybe I missed it in my quick read, but your link did not appear to have any explanation.

It said preterism (it all happened in 70CE) was wrong. It then has a convoluted argument that Jesus meant the "signs" would all happen during the lifetime of the first followers but they were the signs of the temple destrution, not the second coming.

Weak.

Post hoc explanation of no second coming.

And why does 2 Peter 3 exist, then, if there wasn't a oral tradition preached of a 80 - 130 CE return of christ.

Maybe there's a better summary of the link or the argument proposed.

Barbarian

If you mean that all nations have heard the gospel, that is not completely true. Inhabitants of the Sentinel islands have not heard it, although they may be the last and only ones.
(From here). We had a thread about this very issue a while ago on IIDB; apparently, these tribesmen are all that stands between Armageddon and us.

Johnny Skeptic

I wasn't going to make any more posts in this thread, but since hundreds of millions of people died without ever having heard the Gospel message, why is it important that all of the nations, or people, in the world hear the Gospel message, or even than anyone ever heard the Gospel message?