The job of a pastor, as it relates to his preaching the Scriptures, is at least two fold. You must preach sola scriptura, but you must preach tota scriptura as well. Only scripture, but all of scripture. This doesn't mean that you have to preach through every book of the Bible. But if you were for example preaching through Matthew, I think it would not be true exposition to not deal with some of these issues. Especially because so many people sitting in the pews are being tossed to and fro by every wind of eschatological doctrine.
And by the way, the following statement, again shows the misuse of the term hermeneutic:
The NT writers would have actually had some futurist interpretations and some preterist (in the past) interpretations. It would all depend upon the specific prophecy which was being dealt with. There is no overall encompasing scheme that can be placed upon Scripture, where all prophecies must be future or in the past. With respect to many NT prophecies, and some OT ones, the writers of the NT would have been futurists, because they hadn't taken place yet. But with respect to many OT prophecies they would have been preterists, because they had already been fulfilled. Just read through Matthew and you will hear the constant refrain "to fulfill...." or "so that it might be fulfilled...". With respect to these prophecies they viewed them as being in the past. Likewise, the orthodox preterist (today) does not believe every prophecy has been fulfilled. So in the sense that they are only partial preterists, they are also partial futurists.
What is simply being said here is that text need to be dealt with on a text by text basis. There is no blanket scheme or hermeneutic that can solve these issues
I agree. I was refering specifically to those prophecies in Matt 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. My point is that Paul, John and Peter, when 'looking back' to the prophecies of Jesus in those passages would have *interpreted* them to refer to some time in the future. Thus, wouldn't they be called 'futurists' by today's definition?