The Phone booth
By Richard P. Joseph
The New Testament simply makes no sense to futurists (those that think that Christ’s return is still future). Week after week pastors dance around the entire New Testament with almost ridiculous interpretations that puts their flocks in mass confusion. I finally walked out in the middle of some message about “the end of the world, give me money, and a church baseball diamond”. I haven’t been to church in almost a year which is giving my mind a chance to reorganize. But every now and then I will catch a sermon on the radio and listen to them attempt to explain away the elephant in the room. In the end, the entire New Testament needs to be twisted because none of it fits the futurist paradigm. I can’t just choose one scripture to explain my preterist view because every verse is geared toward it but for the sake of argument let’s take 1 Corinthians 7:29-30
29 But this I say, brethren, the time is short, so that from now on even those who have wives should be as though they had none, 30 those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they did not possess, 31 and those who use this world as not misusing it. For the form of this world is passing away..
Paul seems to have had some “insider trading” secrets. He was trying to explain to the church that there will soon be some serious changes to the world that they are now living in. He seemed to be telling them to not take on any permanent tasks because it will only be stripped from them in short order. This is the same thing that Peter did in Jerusalem when he had people selling their land in order to support the church. That would be terrible advice under normal circumstances. Peter and Paul new, however, that land and wives and money would not matter because their very city would soon be laid waste and all would be lost. They also new that the true followers would be raptured. The futurists simply cannot reconcile this type of activity with their faulty theology.
Futurists use the same method as evolutionists do in order to create a scenario that is hard for the average kid to digest. They both use unreasonable time units in order to numb the crowd into believing it is hopeless to argue against. By using millions or billions of years, you give the listener too big of a problem to overcome and they soon succumb to your lies. But to us who seek the truth, God gives wisdom. The New Testament time statements like the one above reminds me of a guy I knew; let’s just call him Gary.
Gary was an entrepreneur who found a bargain on phone booths back in the 1980’s. Someone was selling the business for a very reasonable price and Gary began gobbling up as many phone booths as possible. Life was good and the money was flowing in. But, as you can guess, in the 1990’s a new product started to show up in the market place. I never even heard of a cell phone until my sister pulled one out of her purse. She had to explain it to me. Obviously the guy who sold Gary those phone booths at a discount price had some “insider” information that times were a changin’ (as Bob Dylan would say). What common person would have ever guessed that the entire phone paradigm would shift in such a short period of time? One era was coming to an end while another era was about to begin.
A futurist is someone living today who walks around trying to explain away that people who are talking on cell phones are really crazy and they are just talking to themselves. Maybe they need medication or they are just hearing voices. They warn their flocks that the change to cell phones really didn’t happen yet as it can only happen in the future sometime. Therefore, they tell their flock, they need to keep the money flowing into my coffers so that I can keep explaining away why people are talking to themselves using those funny things. They keep promising their flock that cell phones are something for the future and that they are going to be invented any day now but just not yet. Then they look at us preterists as if we are crazy!
Jesus and every New Testament writer warned us about a soon impending paradigm change. They had “insider” trading secrets. They knew what they were talking about because they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. I am relieved that I do not have to explain away scripture, but I can boldly say that everything that Jesus and the Apostles said has come true and that they are not false prophets. Jesus really did return exactly when he said he would and this gives me comfort that he was divine.
So in the end Gary would have two choices; he could deny that there was a change and keep trying to set up new phone booths or he can admit that the predicted change occurred and that he needs to shift gears into the cell phone business. Eschatology is the exact same thing. Over 95% of preachers today are still trying to set up phone booths. A preterist is someone who accepted the change that the cell phones have brought and are using them to their fullest capacity. Paul warned us in the scripture above that a change was about to happen. He said nothing about thousands of years down the road. He gave instruction pertinent to the impending change, not instructions for “after” the change. We, after the change, are the beneficiaries of the change. Futurists are doomed to not marry, sell their land, and live in communes until Jesus returns. It is funny we don’t hear much about that today.
