During the week before He went to the cross, the Lord explained to His disciples some of the things that would take place in the future.  It was sparked by the disciples as they became impressed by the elaborate buildings in Jerusalem.

As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher!  What massive stones!  What magnificent buildings!”
“Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will these things happen?  And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?”
Mark 13:1-4

There are many in the body of Christ who love to study the end-times, and I’m one of them.  Unfortunately, there’s a tendency to stick with our pet Scriptures and never look at them in the greater context of the Bible.

The end result is a skewed idea of what is being taught.  This causes many to have a wrong view of what the Bible teaches about the Last Days.

Over the next few posts, we’ll be looking specifically at Mark’s record of how Jesus taught it to His disciples.  It’s important to keep this in mind because we are still in one of the foundational books of the New Testament.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while then you know the rationale behind this teaching.  I’m systematically going through the New Testament in the order that the Holy Spirit revealed it to the church.  Let me review what we’ve learned about the end-times so far.

We started in the book of James.  In James chapter 5 and verses 7 through 12, we saw the first mention of the return of Christ.  The emphasis was on developing the patience needed to stand until His return.  To see those posts, click here.

The next letter we studied was First Thessalonians.  In chapter 4, verse 13, through chapter 5, verse 11, was the next teaching on the return.  In that section, Paul dealt with the fact of the Resurrection Day.

On that day, the body of Christ – both the living and the dead – will be caught up to be with the Lord.  He went on to warn us how we should be living in the light of that knowledge.  He said that if we were spiritually awake, then that day would not take us by surprise.  To see those posts, click here.

The next book we looked at was Galatians.  There was no mention of the Last Days in that letter.

Finally, we arrived at Mark’s Gospel.  Other than a brief discussion with the Sadducees concerning the resurrection, this is the first mention of Christ teaching His disciples about the end-times.  Knowing the Scriptural context will equip us to better understand what’s being said.

Please be aware.  Mark is not going to give us everything Christ taught about His return.  Notice that he only records the disciples’ questions about the destruction of the temple.

We know from the other Gospels that they asked more than this.  But at this point in the growth of the church, that’s as far as the Holy Spirit wanted Mark to write about.

Now that we have this foundation firmly in place, we can move on.  Over the next few posts, I’ll be going through the teaching of Christ as recorded in this section of Scripture.  Hopefully, it will give us some new insight into the coming of the Lord.

To read my entire teaching on the Second Coming of Christ, check out my book.  The ad for it is to the right of this post.

Question: Why is the Second Coming of Christ such a popular topic among believers?

© 2018 Nick Zaccardi