JD: I’ve been discussing with our broadcast partners top stories prophetically speaking in 2019. I wanted to give some perspective about handling the prophetic scriptures especially when thinking about current events.
DJ: You and I have both heard a lot of prophecy teachers some very good and some not so good and probably too many who try to be sensationalistic. You know when I was a kid I always loved to get connect the dot books for Christmas and you would just connect all the dots in the right order to get a big picture. But unfortunately I think too many people try to do something similar by connecting dots from today’s headlines to whatever they think might be the right dots in the word of God. And if those dots aren’t intended to be connected by God then the prophetic picture or timeline or whatever usually ends up being a mess and little resembles what we find in the Bible.
JD: What are some of the steps that believers should take to avoid the kinds of mistakes in Bible study that lead to these wrong interpretations?
DJ: For those who have been listening to us for any length of time they can probably already guess many of the things I’m going to mention but it never hurts to be reminded. The first is that we accepted the Bible as the aspired word of God. In that being the case it needs to be taken seriously and it can be expected to communicate truth and with clarity about the past, present and the future. Further more God is both eternal and sovereign. Meaning that he’s in complete control and what He says will come to pass and it will happen with certainty and precision. In other words prophecy will always be fulfilled literally even when described figuratively and exactly according to the timetable that God has set forth in His mind.
