Whoever said that the Bible is boring clearly never has opened the book themselves. You can easily find yourself getting involved in one idea or another as soon as you start diving in the pages and wondering what it all means. There are some theologians that have based their entire life’s work on one or two verses of the Bible. The Bible has so much that can be studied from many different vantage points. Taking one simple verse as an example look at Matthew 10:23 when Jesus says, you will not finish going through the cities of israel before the son of man comes. Researching this verse can lead you into a Biblical and historical roller coaster of life long proportions.
On the outset, this verse can be simple. The context is that the disciples have been going out in the world, or at least outside of their comfortable home towns for the time being, and telling people that the chosen Messiah has indeed come. For obvious reasons, the skeptics do not believe that mere simple fisherman would receive the news above the Pharisees and Sadducees. As a matter of fact, if the chosen Messiah had in fact arrived, then the local government would be overthrown and he would be sitting on the throne.
So not everyone that is hearing the message is accepting the news. Jesus simply tells them that they will not get through all of Israel before he returns. He is talking to the disciples about both their current mission and about things yet to have come. Specifically, this type of talk is deemed as an eschatological prophecy. In modern times this is a specific type of theological branch of Christianity that deals with the end times.
So, you can easily see that with one message about how you will not finish going through the cities of israel before the son of man comes can turn into a pandora’s box, so to speak, of ideas that you can research. What does Jese mean by this? Does it refer to specifically to his first return directly following his resurrection or does it refer to the end times when he returns for the second and final time?
Taking one simple verse as an example look at Matthew 10:23 when Jesus says, you will not finish going through the cities of israel before the son of man comes.
