A Study of Matthew Chapter 24, Part 2 -- Matthew 24:3(Stay tuned for more posts until study of Matthew 24 is completed.)
As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?" (Matthew 24:3)
After the Lord predicted the destruction of the temple (click here to read), He went to the Mount of Olives, where some disciples approached Him. The parallel passage in Mark 13 specifies the disciples who came to Jesus privately: Peter, James, John, and Andrew. These four disciples were very perplexed. If Jerusalem and the temple were to become desolate (which Christ had prophesied in Matthew 23:37-38), and if the temple would be destroyed, which Jesus had said would happen (Matthew 24:2): then how would there be a nation of Israel over which Messiah would rule? Also, the disciples were probably trying to connect what Jesus had just prophesied with the siege of Jerusalem in Zechariah 14, because Zechariah had predicted that when Jerusalem was under siege, Christ would intervene with His second advent, and the covenant nation would turn to Christ in belief.
Now it is important to recognize the order of events of Matthew's narrative: When Jesus said, regarding the temple, that, "...not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down" (Matthew 24:2), He was coming out of the temple. It was later, on the Mount of Olives, that His disciples asked Him, "Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?" The Mount of Olives faces the temple and was a few minutes walk from the temple. (The walking route from the Mount of Olives to the temple mount currently suggested by Google maps takes about 17 minutes.) The disciples had a few minutes to ponder on what Jesus had said about the temple and were attempting to grasp the sequence of the prophetic events recorded in the Scriptures. What Christ had predicted about the destruction of the temple, which was fulfilled in AD 70, was not within the same time frame as the events He later conveyed on the Mount of Olives.
So, the disciples asked Jesus two questions:
1. When will these things happen?
2. What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
The two questions that the disciples asked Jesus will be considered in the next two posts of this blog.
Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.http://www.lockman.org/
