Since the Bible does contain prophecies, and I would think that the whole Bible should be important to us, it would be something we should be interested in reading and even studying.
I agree that we should study God’s word to prepare ourselves for living our life.
(2 Timothy 2:15 NIV) Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
(2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV) All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, {17} so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
However, even those who studied the prophecies in the Old Testament found that they had no clue what those prophecies truly meant. I don’t anticipate that we’ll understand the current prophecies any better.
Like any part of the Bible we should not argue about the Bible but there is a lot of information in there that actually can be encouraging to us.
Is there a biblical admonition to not argue about biblical interpretation? This is bible study. I think scripture references should be provided as supports here.
Like when the prophets were prophecying that Israel would be a nation, and this was being written as they were beging taken captive. It was prophecy for them to be encouraged that that time of captivity would not prevail forever.
That’s certainly one way of looking at it. Another would be that God was letting them know that at least an entire generation would live and die in captivity so he could clean out the idolatry from the nation that had become unfaithful to him. Just as he waited while all the grumblers died off in the wilderness before leading them to the land of milk and honey he also waited for those who were in captivity to die off before he would establish Israel.
I find prophecy quite encouraging because it shows us that God truly does have everything under control. It is like reading the end of the book as you are experiencing the middle of the book.
If we look at prophecy with the additude that God is in control and NOTHING happens without HIS knowledge then we can rest in that knowledge.
I think that’s kind of the problem with prophecy. It doesn’t seem to stand on its own until it is fulfilled. It’s so easy to project our own attitude onto it and come away with a ‘personal interpretation’ that it’s dangerous.
Yes, it shows us the end game. That’s an encouraging thing to me as well. It’s also a discouraging thing. I think of all those people who will be in hell suffering. I also don’t believe this is a true end game. It’s only an end game to the human race’s story. Those of us to go to heaven will, I believe, be shocked to learn that the entire existence of our universe was merely a point God was making about one aspect of his character.
I personally believe that just as the angels had a story in that Satan fell then the faithful angels became servants in God showing his love nature, we’ll also have a story and we’ll become servants in God showing some other aspect of his nature. We’ll want to learn about that as much as the angels want to learn about the current nature of God that’s being revealed.
See, I do not believe this is GOd's world, as in the best that he can do. I believe Jesus is coming back to set up HIS government and bring LASTING peace to the earth FINALLY. This is so encouraging to me that when I see things happen that I feel could be setting things up for future prophecies, then I get encouraged and excited that Jesus is just that much closer to returning.
That is why I want to discuss prophecy.
I see.
So what is the benefit of studying prophecy for those of us who don’t hold your views?
