Postmillennial Worldview

PMT 2015-025 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Many scholars argue that Jesus’ rebuke of Laodicea in Rev 3:17 is evidence for a late-date for Revelation. But the postmillennial preterist sees Revelation as being written in the mid-AD 60s, well before the mid-90s (late date). Let’s consider this alleged problem for the early-date.

Revelation 3:17 reads:

Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

Leon Morris notes that in the Laodicean letter “we are told that the church in Laodicea was ‘rich, and increased with goods’ (iii. 17). But as the city was destroyed by an earthquake in AD 60/61 this must have been considerably later” (Morris, Revelation, 37). Mounce and Kummel also endorse this observation, a major component of the complex of evidence derived from the Seven Letters (Robert Mounce, Revelation, 35 and W. G. Kummel, New Testament Introduction, 469). Continue reading →