After His resurrection, the Messiah spoke to these early followers over the course of a month and a half about the kingdom of God—a common eschatological theme within Judaism at the time. The disciples clearly perceived this familiar future thrust to the things He was saying. They responded, “Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?” [Acts 1:6] Their question betrays a couple of things. First, this focused time with Jesus reinforced a future thrust to the Gospel message. That is, none of them thought the redemption had occurred because of His death or resurrection. Secondly, we see that future hope was clearly tethered to the restoration of Israel. This has been an expectation since the time of Moses and the writing of the Torah. As I’ve written in many other places, the redemption of Israel throughout the Hebrew Bible is the trigger for the redemption of the nations. This assumption is carried forward and reiterated by the teachings of the apostles. -Bill Scofield, The Biblical Narrative and the Inconvenient Existence of Israel