Week 39 Luke 21
People were oohing-and-aahing over the beautiful temple in Jerusalem and the Lord surprised them by saying it would be smashed to pieces. So they asked two questions:
a) when will these things happen? and
b) what will be the sign that they are about to take place?
They wanted some kind of rough estimate about the timing of the event and they wondered if there’d be any pre-destruction tip-offs.
The Lord could have at least ball-parked question a) with something like: “within about 60 years”. But he didn’t. His focus was on question b). About things that would happen first.
I reread the chapter and counted 16 pre-event indicators that would occur before the temple fell. (A lot of them don’t seem all that illuminating – although I’ll admit that verse-20 sounds pretty definitive).
But that aside the bigger concern for me is that the Lord seems to move seamlessly from the topic of the destruction of the temple (which is how the conversation started) to his own return to earth (at that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory sounds a lot like the Lord’s return).
How these two future events got tied together is a good question. But the bigger question for me (as I hurry to finish Luke by tomorrow) is: ‘how am I supposed to start unknotting them?’
Note: quotes from Luke 21:7 27 (NIV). A quick fact-check: the temple was demolished in 70 AD.