Matthew 24:34, The Liberal’s Bible

Posted on Tuesday, November 11, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

//What does this verse mean to you? Should it be read literally–as a promise that Jesus would arrive in power within the lives of those he spoke to–or should we interpret the word “generation” to mean something other than the obvious?

I have a friend on a forum I frequent that often accuses me of hating the Bible. To him, much of what I say about the Bible is a loose interpretation–what he calls a liberal interpretation–and he feels I need to “read the Bible more closely.” Of course, it seems to me that he needs to do the same. To me, his beliefs about Jesus simply don’t match what the Bible says at all.

A while back I finished Richard Gist’s new book, and it was a fascinating read from cover to cover. He definitely reads the Bible differently than his conservative friends. But he reaches this unexpected conclusion about who reads the bible “liberally” and who does not:

“I slowly realized that, often, the more conservative the preacher, the more liberally was the Bible used. Such preachers created a Bible that did not exist to preach messages they wanted to convey. On the other hand, the more liberal the preacher, the more conservatively was the Scripture applied to preaching. In other words, people in the religious community misunderstood and misapplied the labels of conservative and liberal.”

I guess that means I’m really a conservative and my friend is a liberal? Uh-oh.