Just now as I was perusing Greek professor Dr. David Alan Black’s unblog, I was struck by the following from his Friday, July 31 entry:

As I was riding along a thought had been forming in my subconscious mind and now I let it surface and examined it. One of the things I really want to emphasize in my classes this year is independent thinking. Tell me, do you have a mind of your own so that you reach your own mature, Christian convictions? Or are you like the persons described in Ephesians 4 who are tossed unsteadily about by the strange doctrines of others and whose opinion is always that of the last person they spoke to or the last book they read? You don’t know what you believe or why you believe what you do believe. I strongly believe that all of us need to develop…

When the time arrives, be sure you’re following the right parousia.

Some readers may immediately think, “Sure. But what’s a parousia?” Glad you asked. This term is used in the technical (and not-so technical) literature for Jesus’ Second Coming, aka the Advent, and is most often capitalized (Parousia).¹

This particular word is used in this way, because it is found in a number of New Testament (NT) texts in reference to Jesus’ return. Seventeen to be exact. These include Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount of Olives, aka the Olivet Discourse:

…when shall these things be and what is the sign of your parousia, and of the end of the age? (Matt 24:3)

For as lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so will be the parousia of the Son of Man (Matt 24:27)

However, there are other occurrences of this term…