Defenders Podcast

Defenders is Dr. William Lane Craig's Sunday school class on Christian doctrine and apologetics

Defenders Podcast is a religion podcast hosted by William Lane Craig, with 963 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

William Lane Craig hosts Defenders Podcast, a religion show with 963 episodes published.

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  Defenders Podcast

  Doctrine of the Last Things (Part 7): The Nature of the Second Coming

  Sep 9, 202612 min

  Having rejected both the Rapture view and the Preterist view in prior lessons, Dr. William Lane Craig lays out the classical Christian position: Christ's return will be a single, visible event. In this lecture he examines four characteristics of that return. It will be personal, a literal coming of Christ himself, not a symbolic or figurative event. It will be glorious, a public display of power in contrast to the humility of his first coming. It will be decisive, bringing human history to its close. And it will be sudden and unexpected, which is why Scripture calls believers to readiness rather than speculation about timing. Dr. Craig supports each point from Scripture, including 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5, Acts 1, Matthew 24, Mark 14, 1 Corinthians 15, and Revelation 1.

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  Defenders Podcast

  Doctrine of the Last Things (Part 6): The Preterist Interpretation Continued

  Sep 2, 202617 min

  Dr. William Lane Craig continues his critique of the preterist view that Christ's "coming" as the Son of Man was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. He argues, first, that the New Testament consistently describes this coming as visible and public: witnessed by everyone, not a secret event hidden from history. Second, he contends that Christ was already reigning as the risen and ascended King well before AD 70, so the Olivet Discourse can't be describing his enthronement in that year; it's better read as his future return as conquering King. Third, and most decisively, Paul ties Christ's coming to the bodily resurrection of the dead, which plainly did not happen in AD 70, a problem so sharp that even interpreters sympathetic to a preterist reading, as N.T. Wright's own remarks show, end up treating Paul's resurrection hope as a separate, still-future event. Dr. Craig explains why, despite its appeal, he can't accept Preterism as the solution to the New Testament's expectation of Christ's return.

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  Defenders Podcast

  Doctrine of the Last Things (Part 5): The Preterist Interpretation

  Aug 26, 202614 min

  Continuing the series on the Second Coming, Dr. William Lane Craig examines the Preterist view, the position, defended by scholars including G. B. Caird, R. T. France, and N. T. Wright, that the coming of the Son of Man predicted in Jesus' Olivet Discourse already happened in AD 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem. On this reading, the Great Tribulation was the horror of the Roman siege of Jerusalem, and the apocalyptic imagery of Mark 13 (e.g., darkened sun, falling stars) is symbolic language paralleled in Isaiah 13, Ezekiel 32, and Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2, not a literal description of the end. Dr. Craig walks through the Preterist case, including its appeal to Daniel 7 for the Son of Man's heavenly enthronement rather than an earthly return, and explains why Mark 13:30, "this generation will not pass away," is really what drives the view. He finds it initially attractive for solving that verse, but ultimately unpersuasive: like the Rapture view, Preterism ends up requiring an invisible coming of Christ before his final return.

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  Defenders Podcast

  Doctrine of the Last Things (Part 4): The Rapture Interpretation Concluded

  Aug 19, 202617 min

  Does the New Testament actually teach a secret "rapture" before Jesus' final return — or is that idea being read into the text rather than out of it? In this episode, Dr. William Lane Craig wraps up his case against the Rapture view by turning to the passage its defenders lean on most: 2 Thessalonians 2, where Paul tells the Thessalonians not to be shaken by claims that "the day of the Lord" has already come. Dr. Craig walks through Jesus' Olivet Discourse, Paul's letters to the Thessalonians and Corinthians, and a strange episode in 2 Timothy where two men taught that the resurrection had already happened — testing each passage to see whether it points to a two-stage return of Christ or a single, unmistakable Second Coming.

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  Defenders Podcast

  Doctrine of the Last Things (Part 3): The Rapture Interpretation Continued

  Aug 12, 202614 min

  Dr. William Lane Craig continues his examination of the "secret rapture" view, tracing Paul's language about the Lord's coming through 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians 15, and Jesus' own words in John 5 and Mark 13. He argues that the "coming of the Lord" in 1 Thessalonians 4 and the resurrection described in 1 Corinthians 15 are one and the same event as Christ's visible, glorious Second Coming and not a separate, secret snatching away of believers beforehand. Comparing the Greek vocabulary Paul uses (parousia, episynagoge) with Jesus' Olivet Discourse, Dr. Craig concludes that Scripture gives no basis for a pre-tribulation rapture distinct from Christ's final return.

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