Quote:
Originally Posted by puritan lad  Many Postmills, including myself, apply this passage to the Jewish nation prior to it's destruction.
In fact, the entire chapter seems to have been written to encourage Timothy to remain steadfast in spite of persecution. Events of 2008 and beyond were hardly Timothy's concern. |
That is an outstanding hermeneutical approach to cutting out just about every passage in Scripture as having any relevance/applicatory value to the church today. Not to mention the assumption that is being made that Paul was only intending to address Timothy's immediate circumstances, and not give an apostolic description of that which the church would run up against throughout its duration preceding the second advent of Christ.
It is also a classic case (along with Aaron's following post) of having to provide an unnatural reading of a passage(s) to conform to one's eschatalogical presupposition.