By "set up" I mean in the literary sense. The meaning of a passage depends entirely on how it was set up.
Mt24A runs through v29, at which point there is a marked shift away from 1st century Judea, and the temple and Sabbath police etc, to the whole judgement day of God, expected to be right after the calamity of 66+.
Working back, then, this was set up by Mt 23, in which a scathing treatment of Judaism led Christ to declare that the house (the temple and/or the identity of Israel in Judaism) was desolate. Only people who sang Ps 118 of Christ (like those in ch 21) would understand how he was Christ. The connecting word is desolate. This is the trigger for the questions that open ch 24 (when will the temple fall, and when do you 'come back'?). It is also repeated in the explanation of the AofD which is coming shortly. When Christians see it at the temple, they should split.
This was in turn set up by the wedding parable of Mt 22. Overstatement bursts off the page. The people who don't respond to the wedding invites are not just unfriended: "He will come and burn their city." It does indeed sound like a rough culture in which to refuse to attend a wedding!
This was in turn set up by the more elaborate (and maybe more reasonable!) parable of the vineyard in ch 21 which had its roots in Isaiah. The workers in the vineyard are not only lax in productivity because the master is away, they decide to mutiny and seize the property by offing the master's highest representative--his son. Again, the repayment for this is thorough going. And this time it is also tied in with the sacred stones of the temple, which are going to come down. (I don't know if it mattered, but I assume there were some people injured by such pieces of the temple as it burned).
All theology about Israel must 'work' in terms of the parable of the vineyard because it is in Isaiah and elaborated on by Christ. The work of the vineyard is given to another people. There is clearly another people, from that point on, who are doing the work of God's vineyard, although some cleaned up their act, repented, and became part of the new crew.
Mt 24A is not a magical complete departure from the weight of the story preceding it; it is not a flight into our distant future as though our times today were the first thing on their minds, as though Jesus and the apostles were flannel graph characters whose times were as plain and soft as a gray flannel backboard, and had nothing going on.
Mt24A runs through v29, at which point there is a marked shift away from 1st century Judea, and the temple and Sabbath police etc, to the whole judgement day of God, expected to be right after the calamity of 66+.
Working back, then, this was set up by Mt 23, in which a scathing treatment of Judaism led Christ to declare that the house (the temple and/or the identity of Israel in Judaism) was desolate. Only people who sang Ps 118 of Christ (like those in ch 21) would understand how he was Christ. The connecting word is desolate. This is the trigger for the questions that open ch 24 (when will the temple fall, and when do you 'come back'?). It is also repeated in the explanation of the AofD which is coming shortly. When Christians see it at the temple, they should split.
This was in turn set up by the wedding parable of Mt 22. Overstatement bursts off the page. The people who don't respond to the wedding invites are not just unfriended: "He will come and burn their city." It does indeed sound like a rough culture in which to refuse to attend a wedding!
This was in turn set up by the more elaborate (and maybe more reasonable!) parable of the vineyard in ch 21 which had its roots in Isaiah. The workers in the vineyard are not only lax in productivity because the master is away, they decide to mutiny and seize the property by offing the master's highest representative--his son. Again, the repayment for this is thorough going. And this time it is also tied in with the sacred stones of the temple, which are going to come down. (I don't know if it mattered, but I assume there were some people injured by such pieces of the temple as it burned).
All theology about Israel must 'work' in terms of the parable of the vineyard because it is in Isaiah and elaborated on by Christ. The work of the vineyard is given to another people. There is clearly another people, from that point on, who are doing the work of God's vineyard, although some cleaned up their act, repented, and became part of the new crew.
Mt 24A is not a magical complete departure from the weight of the story preceding it; it is not a flight into our distant future as though our times today were the first thing on their minds, as though Jesus and the apostles were flannel graph characters whose times were as plain and soft as a gray flannel backboard, and had nothing going on.
