Mark 13:14-20
“But be ready to run for it when you see the monster of desecration set up where it should never be. You who can read, make sure you understand what I’m talking about. If you’re living in Judea at the time, run for the hills; if you’re working in the yard, don’t go back to the house to get anything; if you’re out in the field, don’t go back to get your coat. Pregnant and nursing mothers will have it especially hard. Hope and pray this won’t happen in the middle of winter.”These are going to be hard days—nothing like it from the time God made the world right up to the present. And there’ll be nothing like it again. If he let the days of trouble run their course, nobody would make it. But because of God’s chosen people, those he personally chose, he has already intervened.
June 9th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I don’t really understand this passage and I find it very unsettling. Is the monster of desecration satan? And why is everybody to run for the hills, not looking back? Is that about keeping focused on Jesus?
June 17th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
This is one of those incredibly complicated passages that only begins to make sense (a bit) when you understand the kind of imagery and so on that the people Jesus spoke to were used to. It’s using deliberately OTT (”apocalyptic”) language and probably isn’t referring to the end of the world, but rather to the end of the temple in Jerusalem.