Ancient Scripture and Our Experience of God

I suppose where I’m going with all this nature-of-Scripture talk is twofold. On the one hand, we should not expect a “perfect” set of documents, even though these texts are divine. On the other hand, the Bible’s human aspect neither makes it “corrupted.”

Let’s approach this today from a contemporary perspective. In our church community we regularly train believers in prophetic ministry. Whatever your own thoughts on modern day prophecy, we believe that God loves to speak to His children and we don’t mind sharing what we’ve “heard” or “seen” with others. We do, however, preach caution.

We find that there are plenty of times in which well meaning believers “hear” something that is not from the Lord. And that’s OK. Every word ought to be tested anyway.

Other times we “hear” something that is genuinely from God and yet we interpret its meaning incorrectly. I don’t know a Christian alive who hasn’t gotten something straight from the Lord, so to speak, and mis-applied it. They heard right, but they thought it meant something other than it did. And that’s OK. God can handle our mistakes.

Is there something inherently different about the way God had communicated with the writers of Scripture in their own days?

Perhaps. But perhaps what we regard as different about Scripture is in the meaning we’ve invested in the word “inspired” or the expression “God breathed” (2 Tim 3:16). And perhaps (perhaps) we’ve put too much weight on those expressions.

What do you think? Can we retain the value of Scripture even with its very human qualities?

Secondary Fulfillments in Our Future

Yesterday, I posted a piece on immediate and secondary fulfillments for biblical prophecy.  It’s a valid interpretive tool, in my estimation, and we highlighted the fact with the well known Isaiah 7.

Now, to something more difficult.

The reason the subject emerged was a few conversations on Matthew 24, and my preterist view on the subject.  (That is, I believe the future events Jesus was prophesying there have already occurred.)  In suggesting that Matthew 24 had already been fulfilled, the question arose: “Do you believe that prophecy can have two fulfillments?”

And, yes, my answer is “yes.”

But I will approach any still future fulfillment of such prophetic material with great caution.  And I will focus my energies not on trying to determine those future objects of the prophetic, but on understanding as best I can the historical elements of such prophetic material.  I take this approach because God’s prophetic words tend not to mean what I think they mean when I hear them first.

Personally, I cannot count the number of times I have received a prophetic word from someone I trust, been excited and encouraged by it, and yet found that the fulfillment had little to do with how I first interpreted it.  That’s not to say that the fulfillment was discouraging, just different than expected.

So then, with Matthew 24, do I believe Jesus was anticipating the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD?  Yes, absolutely.  Do I also believe he could have been referring to some other, greater and far-distant future event?  Yes, it’s possible.  Do I have any idea what that future event will really look like?  I think if I said “yes,” I’d be certain to discover myself mistaken whenever it might actually come about.

Where Is the Locus of Our Hopes?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been thinking about eschatology lately. (I mean, doesn’t everybody?) There’s a question that’s been rolling around my head lately that I’d like to pose generally.

Are there any Old Testament prophecies, promises from the Lord, which may not reasonably have an earthly object?

Now, I’ve not done any extensive research into the question (yet), but it seems to me that at least most OT prophecies and, indeed, OT prayers are aimed at seeing some kind of result affected here on the earth. It seems that prophets and other godly characters in the Old Testament are primarily concerned with things like justice and well being here on the earth and, if possible, in their own day.

If this is true, it leads me to a second question regarding New Testament eschatology. If it is true that the prophets in Israel’s history foresaw and sought after God’s goodness displayed on the earth, then why have many Christians transferred many (if not most) prophetic hopes onto some kind of future ethereal state? Why do we not apply our eschatological hopes to this world?