Eternal and Forever: Unending or Just a Very Long Time?

Here is another one to add to this discussion, PD.Matt 24:14--And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.END, ENDING
2. sunteleia NT:4930 signifies "a bringing to completion together" (sun "with," teleo, "to complete," akin to No. 1), marking the "completion" or consummation of the various parts of a scheme. In Matt 13:39-40,49; 24:3; 28:20, the rendering "the end of the world" (KJV and RV, text) is misleading; the RV marg., "the consummation of the age," is correct. The word does not denote a termination, but the heading up of events to the appointed climax. Aion is not the world, but a period or epoch or era in which events take place. In Heb 9:26, the word translated "world" (KJV) is in the plural, and the phrase is "the consummation of the ages." It was at the heading up of all the various epochs appointed by divine counsels that Christ was manifested (i. e., in His Incarnation) "to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."
(from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright (c)1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers)Perhaps forever merely means the consummation of an age. It all boils down to that one moment in time when we are like God or the Beast: We either were, are, and always will be....or we once were, now are not.Kinda like a judgement and summation of sorts. (But I'm straying into Faith/Belief. I'll stop. )

I wonder if the meaning "as long as the world exists" is from an individual perspective? I mean, if I died tomorrow, the world would end as far as I saw it...I guess what I am suggesting is that any sort of writing is mean't to convey a point to those who read (or hear) it.Thats one thing that I am trying to do more often lately: Look at scripture in the context of the culture of its time and to whom it was written.