What did God mean in Matthew chapter 24?

Answer 1

God communicated through Matthew the signs of the end times. He warns believers repeatedly to be on watch for these signs. He did not mean that the end times were to come within their lifetime - no man was to know the time and all needed to be on guard.

The discourse is prophetic; it points forward to the Tribulation Period and the Lord's Second Coming. It primarily, though not exclusively, concerns the nation of Israel. Its locale is obviously Palestine; for example, "let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains" (V16). Its setting is distinctly Jewish; for example, "Pray that your flight may not be ... on the Sabbath" (V20). The reference to the elect (V22) should be understood as God's Jewish elect, not the church.

Answer 2

Mark's Gospel, speaks about the end of the world and the return of Jesus in the lifetimes of those still living. Having given the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple as a sign of his imminent return, Mark 13:24-26 continues, "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken and then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory." He concluded by saying that he would return within the lifetimes of some of his own generation: "Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done." So, around 70 CE, this gospel is confident that the end of the world was imminent - within perhaps four years of writing.

Biblical scholars now say that Matthew's Gospel was actually based on Mark's Gospel, but that some of the material from Markwas added to or altered, to meet Matthew's theological needs.

By the 80s of the first century, the time when Matthew's Gospel was written, the return predicted in Mark's Gospel was becoming unlikely - the generation had already passed - and the author of Matthew had to change the emphasis away from an impending end of the world. While copying as faithfully as possible from Mark, he changed the position of the sentence about "this generation", relative to the destruction of the great buildings, so that it referred to something else altogether. He added, and emphasised, material where Jesus told the disciples that the end is not yet, and (24:36) that no man knows when the end of the world will occur. Matthew 24:21 talks of a great tribulation that will be followed by the end of the world and the second coming. There is a short analogy about the evil servant who thought he knew when the master would come, but one day the master will catch him doing wrong.

In case others disagreed on any of these points, the author of Matthew, at 24:11, says, "And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many."