Did Apostles think Jesus was coming back soon?

[Penfire]

Since Jesus had said even He did not know the day or the hour and said “this generation” they may have thought it would be in their lifetimes. And Jesus did say that, “there be some of you standing here who will not see death until you see the Son of Man coming in the clouds…”. Well, this was the Transfiguration which Peter, Jame and John witnessed. He was transfigured into the Son of Man before their eyes and appeared as in the clouds and with Him, at first, appeared Moses and Elijah. Peter said they should build an alter to all three of them but when he looked he only saw Jesus and heard God the Father say, “This is My Beloved Son, hear Him.” indicating that Jesus had fulfilled the Law and the Prophets. Scripture says that many will say in the last days, “we have looked for His coming for a long time and it hasn’t happened…”, and will begin to believe it won’t happen. The He said another time that when we are not looking for His return is when it will happen. I think it is possible He will return in our lifetimes because one of the signs was when the armies of the world surrounded Jerusalem…that is occurring now. If we see U.N.troops gathering against Israel we can look up ourselves.

 

[COPLAND_3]

Phrases in Scripture like ‘time is short’ and ‘last days’ and so on are, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out, are to be understood as short in comparison to eternity. Also, if we look at those phrases in relation to our personal lives and not in general to the end of the world, but in the end of the world of our life, James says that life is like a vapor, here one day gone the next. It is easy for people to dwell on the end of the world and be anxious about it coming, but the end of our lives is much more likely to come sooner and it will provide the same fate to us individually. People should be much more concerned about falling over dead then the apocalypse happening.

I imagine Paul might have had periods of his life when he expected Christ to come again anytime. Jesus certainly taught that nobody knows, not even the angels. Paul wrote about the end while under divine inspiration, but he was also excluded from hidden details. Maybe even his own uncertainty that is hinted in his own writings and his expectation and readiness for Christ to come again is more evidence that we need to always be prepared for Christ to come, but by no means to sit on our rooftops and literally wait. The end of our world on earth is most certainly coming soon because life is like a vapor.

 

[Veector]

I say thank you to everybody! Lots of helpful comments here.