This is the second of two lessons that Ed Stevens presented at the 2016 Blue Point Endtimes Conference. The first lesson looked at HOW the pre-70 saints lived, and WHY they lived that way. We looked at their expectations and hope and other motivations to live holy lives. In this second lesson we apply those principles to our lives today. We show when the Kingdom was supposed to arrive, and what Jesus and the apostles taught about our lives in the Kingdom AFTER it arrived. Even though we do NOT h...
May 13, 2016•49 min
This is the first of two lessons that Ed Stevens presented at the 2016 Blue Point End Times Conference. This lesson discusses the kind of godly lifestyle that the pre-70 saints maintained, and explains WHY they lived that way. Their reasons for living sensibly, righteously, and godly during that time of persecution right before the End, was somewhat complex. While they were motivated by all of the same reasons that we are, they had an additional factor of eschatology. The nearness of the Parousi...
May 13, 2016•59 min
The most important doctrine in all of Biblical revelation is the Deity of Christ and the Trinity. This teaching is certainly hard to wrap our minds around, but fortunately a full understanding of it is not crucial to our salvation. What is essential, however, is that we believe in the Deity of Christ, regardless of whether we fully understand it. So we will be looking at several Biblical texts which reveal and illustrate the Deity of Christ and the Trinity. We examine the powerful arguments of A...
Jun 29, 2014•48 min
David Chilton gave these two speeches at a full preterist conference in Oklahoma City in 1997, not long after he had become a full preterist, and only a few months before he died. That was the occasion when he made the now famous remark: “...Here I am as a Full Preterist.” Chilton explained the meaning of Matthew 5:17-20 where Jesus predicted the passing away of the old heavens and earth. He shows that this was referring to the soon-coming end of the old covenantal world and the arrival of the n...
Jun 22, 2014•1 hr 2 min
Premillennialists connect the “Times of the Gentiles” (Lk 21:24) with the “fullness of the Gentiles” (Rom 11:25), and claim that both texts will only be fulfilled after “all Israel” has accepted Jesus as Messiah, returned to the land of Israel, and rebuilt the temple. They see the “times of the Gentiles” as being the whole period from AD 70 until that future restoration (now almost two thousand years). We show from Lamentations 1:15; Revelation 11:2; Daniel 7:7-25; Ezekiel 30:3; Jeremiah 27:7; t...
Jun 15, 2014•1 hr 7 min
We explain John 14:3 to show that Jesus was promising a real cognitive experiential "reception" (rapture) of his disciples into the unseen realm of heaven at His Parousia. Critics of the first century rapture have to SPIRITUALIZE the "dwelling places" language, and IGNORE the "receive you to Myself" promise of Jesus! But that was NOT just figurative language about a covenantal status or soteriological condition, or code for the Collective Body or life in the Kingdom in a spiritual sense only. We...
Jun 08, 2014•1 hr 6 min
This is the first episode of our Summer 2014 Series. You are in for a treat this summer. We will be presenting some of our best seminar presentations, and former Preterist Radio podcasts that have not yet been posted here. This session will share a message that I presented at the 2009 Evangelical Theological Society conference in New Orleans. There were several young seminary students in the audience, along with a few fellow preterists. My lesson deals with the morals and ethics that come out of...
Jun 01, 2014•34 min
After Titus dismantled Jerusalem, gathered its spoils, and dispersed its captives, he left Judea to join his father in Rome. He commissioned Bassus and Silva to capture the three remaining rebel fortresses of Herodium, Macherus, and Masada. The Roman soldiers overturned every stone of the temple building in order to get the gold and silver that had melted into the cracks, unwittingly fulfilling Jesus' prophecy that there would not be left one stone upon another (Matt 24:2). The temple vessels an...
May 25, 2014•1 hr 2 min
Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by his troops in Judea, Egypt, and Syria. He left Palestine to go to Egypt before heading to Rome. He left his son Titus in Judea to begin the siege of Jerusalem. Titus waited until the city was full of people at Passover time to begin the siege. We read a number of passages from Josephus which have parallels in the book of Revelation, such as the weight of the stones thrown by the catapults, the pestilence and famines, as well as the blood in the lakes, rivers, ...
May 18, 2014•1 hr
Vespasian bottled up the Jews in Jerusalem, so that he could fight them all together in one place in one big decisive battle. Then Nero died and Rome was plunged into civil war and external rebellions. The Zealots thought that would force the Roman army to make peace with them and leave Judea. Wrong! After a year-long suspension of warfare, Titus came back with a bigger force than ever. The Zealots seemed oblivious to the danger, and weakened themselves by factional in-fighting. John of Gischala...
May 11, 2014•55 min
Vespasian literally went from victory to victory. He finished reducing all the pockets of resistance in Galilee, and sent detachments all over the Decapolis, Perea, Judea, Idumea, Samaria, and Jericho, methodically driving out all the remaining rebels and forcing them to flee to Jerusalem. There were rumors of revolt in Turkey, so Vespasian quickened his pace to finish the Judean war, just in case his forces would be needed elsewhere. Just when he was ready to besiege Jerusalem, news reached him...
May 04, 2014•42 min
This time we dig a little deeper into the details of the Galilean campaign of Vespasian and Titus, as they began to subjugate all the fortified cities of Galilee (AD 67). Josephus had tried to unite all the cities of Galilee under his command, and get them fortified before the Romans attacked. But it simply did not work. Some of the Galilean cities were still allied to Rome, while others only wanted to participate in the Zealot rebellion if they could be in command. Josephus was only 29 years ol...
Apr 27, 2014•45 min
We give a quick overview of the first year and a half of the Jewish War with Rome, which began in earnest in the Spring of AD 67. When Nero heard about the humiliating defeat of Cestius Gallus in the Fall of AD 66, he immediately sent Vespasian, one of his most capable generals, to settle the score. Vespasian and his son Titus gathered three legions from Syria and Alexandria, plus the whole army of Agrippa II, and other auxiliaries and mercenaries from surrounding allied nations. It was a fighti...
Apr 20, 2014•55 min
After Eleazar b. Ananias lawlessly put a stop to all Gentile sacrifices, the Moderates and pro-Roman citizens of Jerusalem pleaded with him to restore the sacrifices, but he refused. This division between the Moderates in the upper city and the Zealots in the Temple rapidly degenerated into armed conflict. Menahem overpowered the Roman garrison on Masada and brought all of its weaponry back to Jerusalem. The Zealots grew stronger by the day. The Greco-Syrian inhabitants of Palestine slaughtered ...
Apr 13, 2014•47 min
We are continuing to build a chronology of the Zealot rebellion and their war with Rome. We pick up the historical narrative in May of AD 66 just after Gessius Florus had attempted to seize all the remaining temple gold. This action by Florus forced the Zealots to revolt. Josephus mentions several of the reasons why the Zealots broke with Rome at this particular time. One of the first things the new Zealot government did, was to mint their own coins. After Agrippa failed to persuade them to brea...
Apr 06, 2014•52 min
We begin by looking at how the Zealot leader Eleazar started the rebellion by blowing the ram's horn and rallying the troops inside Jerusalem to block Gessius Florus's attempt to get the rest of the imageless gold coins out of the Temple. This shows how Eleazar was the originator of the revolt, and the fulfillment of the Man of Lawlessness. Josephus gives "the day and the hour" of the Parousia with its associated resurrection of the dead and bodily change of the living. Josephus, Tacitus, Yosipp...
Mar 30, 2014•46 min
After a few months of looking at the book of Romans, we are now picking back up with our historical studies. The last two historical podcasts (July and August 2013) dealt with the military campaigns of Cestius Gallus and Vespasian against the Zealot forces. Before getting into the chronology of the whole war (AD 66-70), we need to review the events that occurred just before the war (AD 64-66). Those last two years were chock full of false messiahs, rumors of war, abominations, lawlessness, signs...
Mar 23, 2014•55 min
It has been almost two months since we shared some of the great listener feedback that we are getting. This is always interesting and encouraging for other listeners who often have the same thoughts and questions. The first question wanted an explanation of the differences between the Futurist Bodies Out of the Ground resurrection view (BOG) and the two Preterist resurrection views (CBV versus IBV). Other questions focused on Daniel's Seventy Weeks, the first century rapture, and how the NT manu...
Mar 16, 2014•50 min
As Douglas Moo notes in his Romans commentary, "Romans 12:1-2 is one of the best-known passages in the New Testament." Here Paul urges the Roman saints to present their bodies as living sacrifices to God, and be transformed by a renewal of their minds. Since some of the Collective Body advocates use this text to support their resurrection view, we show why the word "bodies" (plural) cannot be referring to a collective body. We quote from two of the Collective Body advocates to clarify their posi...
Mar 09, 2014•59 min
Another of the most important texts which the Collective Body View (CBV) uses to support its concept of a collective body resurrection is Romans 8:23. They contend that the phrase “our body” mentioned here in this text is a reference to the collective body (the church) being resurrected or “redeemed” at the Parousia. Through grammatical and contextual analysis, as well as a look at similar passages, we very effectively debunk that theory and show that this text is talking about a bodily change f...
Mar 02, 2014•54 min
We study three uses of the word "body" (Gk SOMA) which are found in Romans chapter eight, verses 10, 11, and 13. When Paul said their "body is dead because of sin" (Rom 8:10), he meant that their bodies were mortal (subject to death, because of sin). Paul said that at the Parousia God would "give life to your [plural] mortal bodies [plural]" (Rom 8:11). Since the dead were disembodied, this means that the living and remaining saints were the ones who had their mortal bodies changed into immortal...
Feb 23, 2014•48 min
We look at two more of the thirteen uses of the word "body" found here in Romans chapter seven, verses 4 and 24. The Collective Body View interprets both of these references to "body" as being collective. However, we show from the context that a collective application of these two texts is absurd, and makes total nonsense out of Paul's flow of thought here in Romans 7. All of the moral, ethical, and spiritual exhortations that Paul expresses here, must be connected to the individual saints, and ...
Feb 16, 2014•42 min
This week I listened to one of Ken Ham's presentations on the Biblical Foundations of Western Civilization. He clearly shows that our compromise with Evolution in the interpretation of Genesis 1-11 has played a major role in destroying the foundations of our nation, culture, and the Church. Moreover, we show how some preterists are continuing that compromise with Evolution by their Covenant Creationism and Collective Body views. Only a return to a literal-historical Genesis 1-11 can correct thos...
Feb 09, 2014•1 hr 8 min
We pick back up on our study of the thirteen uses of the word "body" here in Romans. In this session we get down into the context of Romans chapter six to examine two of those "body" texts found in verses 6 and 12. We use the paraphrase translation of F. F. Bruce to help us grasp what Paul is saying in this chapter, and then show that all of its teachings and exhortations are bound up with the individual "bodies" of the Roman saints, not at all with a collective body concept. The individual "bod...
Jan 26, 2014•52 min
Every few months we accumulate a good supply of emails from listeners asking questions and making comments. This is always high interest content and extremely helpful for a lot of other listeners who have the same questions. There are several comments and questions about the differences between the two resurrection views within Preterism: the Collective Body versus the Individual Body. The final question deals with the resurrection of those saints who were raised at the same time as Jesus, which...
Jan 19, 2014•49 min
We take a historical look at the last sixty years since John A. T. Robinson developed his Collective Body concept, and how Max King adopted it and applied it to his resurrection eschatology. We quote from Robinson's 1952 book on The Body, as well as from a couple of recent authors (Holland and Gundry) who have interacted with Robinson's views. We show how Robinson used his Collective Body view to teach Universalism. Gundry points out how the Collective Body concept undermines the pre-70 saints' ...
Jan 12, 2014•38 min
We first look at the lexical definition of the Greek word SOMA (body), as it relates to the uses of that word in the book of Romans. Paul uses the word "body" thirteen times in the book of Romans. We briefly look at each of those thirteen verses to determine how each of them are used, either in an individual body sense, or in a collective body sense. Several of these "body" texts have moral, ethical, and spiritual exhortations attached to them, so that if they are assigned a collective body mean...
Jan 05, 2014•56 min
There is a wide variation of views on baptism among the various Christian traditions. That is no less the case among preterists. Rom 6:3-4 is a good text to study if you want to see how various interpreters explain baptism. Some preterists understand it as water baptism, while others see it as "spirit baptism" or some other metaphorical concept. Some Collective Body interpreters see the baptism here in Rom 6:3-4 as having some kind of connection to the collective body of Christ. Tom Holland is a...
Dec 29, 2013•1 hr
One well-known preterist leader who holds the Collective Body View recently taught that the word "creation" as used in Eph 2:10 and Rom 1:20 is referring to Old Testament Israel. That idea is very similar to the Covenant Creationist view, which he says he does not agree with. We examine the context of Rom 1:20 to show that the phrase "creation of the world" is referring to the "creation of the heavens and earth" in Genesis 1-2, and not about the creation of the nation of Israel at the Exodus. If...
Dec 22, 2013•34 min
Some of the Collective Body advocates have suggested that "the sin" referred to in Rom 6:1 is pointing exclusively to the original sin in the Fall of Adam, and that Paul is talking about a collective body "in Adam" being raised out of "the sin" of Adam into new life in the collective body of Christ. In order for them to make this argument, they have to ignore the context and invent their own rules of grammar in regard to how the definite article ("the") is used with the word "sin" here in Romans...
Dec 15, 2013•44 min
