Well, Jesus seemed to say that his return was soon, so where is he?

And why has the church had to wait for so long?

It's a question from a listener named Ron.

Pastor John, I am writing from Switzerland and have greatly been blessed by your ministry.

I have a question with regards to the New Testament belief that Jesus would come very soon.

As I was studying with our children, the need to evaluate prophets by biblical criteria,

the following thought hit me.

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 18 that a prophet whose predictions don't come true is not

sent by God and that he should not be feared.

However, in the New Testament, we find repeated evidence of people whom we would call inspired

who evidently believed and sometimes claimed that Jesus would come back soon even during

the writer's own lifetime.

Examples of this include 1 Peter 4.7, Matthew 24, 34, Matthew 26, 64, 1 Corinthians 10, 11,

1 Thessalonians 4, 15 to 17, and 1 Corinthians 15, 51.

How can we still consider them authoritative while discarding modern-day messengers whose

prophecies don't materialize?

I am a bit uneasy that at some stage our kids will tell us that Paul was wrong about 1 Corinthians

15, 51, and so he's not to be taken seriously.

Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this tension?

Yes, I do.

It's a large issue and has several layers and each one needs careful patient attention.

It's fairly easy to comb through the New Testament superficially and gather a lot of

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