Interpretation of Prophecy

Ok I will admit it, prophecy is hard to interpret. Because the events have not happened yet there can be disagreement on what exactly will happen. Questions are asked like: should we take what is written as spiritual? Meaning that it only happens where God and the angels can see it. Another way is to take it as a metaphor- that what is being written actually means something else- a great example of a metaphor is “it is raining cats and dogs outside.” Which means it is raining really hard. Another way to interpret what is written is to take it literally as much as possible. There are many great thinkers who disagree on exactly how to interpret. I will give the teaching from the literal standpoint as it is the best method of interpretation that I have found.

Here are the major different methods of interpretation of The Revelation of Christ I will also provide a brief description

I.      Preterists:        Believe all or most of Revelation was fulfilled in the past.

         Past                 (Revelation is interpreted as literal history, but of the past not the future.)

   The preterists believe that all or most of the events of the Revelation were fulfilled in the past, and refer to the first century persecutions of either Nero or Domitian.  They believe the book was written before AD 70 and the destruction of the Jewish temple by the Romans, and that its purpose was to encourage Christians.  Some are "full preterist", who believe that all of the Revelation was fulfilled in the past, and others are "partial preterist".  

    This view requires some great leaps of assumption to fit various prophetic statements into the past.  Note what Jesus says about the time following the "abomination of desolation" spoken of by Daniel, when the Anti-Christ will proclaim self-deification.  Matthew 24:21-22 "'For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. "And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened."' 

II.    Historicists:      Believe Revelation is a general overview of church history.

         Present             (Revelation is interpreted symbolically, regardless of the context)

This theory and method of interpretation assumes the Revelation (and related prophecies elsewhere in the Bible) are being fulfilled during the present church age, from apostolic days to the end.  Yet the very name of the book and its claimed purpose present it as an unveiling, not a hiding or obscuring of truths.  
    The subjective method of interpretation used by historicists opens the door to an unlimited number of possible meanings for the "symbols" found in the same prophetic passages.  For example, the very same passages could be interpreted to be the rise of Islam or the rise of the Roman Catholic church.  Such a subjective process is not an unveiling, but in practical reality a form of guaranteed confusing of the Body of Christ.
    Historicists believe Revelation was written primarily to edify, exhort, and encourage Christians, not Jews.  Most do not see national Israel as a future focus of God's plan to reveal His glory to the World.

III.   Mythacists:      Believe Revelation is just a spiritual picture of good vs. evil.

         No Time           (This view is a generic variation of the historical view.)       

This theory is often called the "Spiritualist", "Historical-Spiritualist" or "Idealist" perspective, and assumes that Revelation and parallel prophecies are referring to no real time chronology.  It's a variation of the "Historical" theory.  I think of this view as the "Mythacist" perspective, because it unwittingly reduces the Revelation to a vague and mystical allegory that merely portrays an ageless battle between what is holy and what is unholy.  As a result, the Revelation is presented as a mere myth, not an unveiling of future events as the book actually claims.  For example, some holding to this view believe that the two beasts in the Revelation symbolically refer to imperial and provincial Rome, rather than individuals.  Daniel 2 and 2 The 2 and other parallel passages clearly and consistently present these "beasts" as individuals who will head the first and final, global dictatorship.
    Mythacists believe Revelation was written primarily to edify, exhort, and encourage Christians, not Jews.  Most do not see national Israel as a future focus of God's plan to reveal His glory to the World.                       

IV.   Futurists:          Believe Revelation 4-22 will be fulfilled in the future.

           Future                  (Literally, except as the context demands a symbolic understanding.)

The futurist view believes that Revelation and parallel prophetic passages primarily refer to future events beyond our current day.  It is a natural outgrowth of using the normal method of interpretation for all written human language.  The text is interpreted with the basic historical, grammatical approach, accepting the author's statements at face value.  The assumption is that the author of the book says what he means, and means what he says.
    Therefore, the statements are seen to be literal, unless the context forces a symbolic interpretation.  Even then, the symbols represent real events, real people, and real nations in the real world, plainly laid out in real time frames of real chronological order.  

Source

http://www.soulcare.org/Bible%20Studies/eschatology_views.htm

Reason for The Revelation of Christ

Reason for The Revelation of Christ

The major basis of the book of The Revelation is that Christ will return!

2^nd Coming

Matt 16:27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.

26:24 Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven

John 14: 1-4 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God[a]; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going."

Philippians 3:20-21 20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Colossians 3:4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

1 Thess. 2:19 19For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes?

1 Peter 1:13 13Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

IMPACT

Ok I am writing another series for my youth. The subject matter is IMPACT, or how God changes our lives and we are impacted with the change.

I am looking for real stories from people of how God had impacted their lives. If you have such a story or know of one, please send it to me-yes I would like to use it in my series if you would allow.

Thanks

TH

Prenes

A SPONGE

A pet peeve of mine is dirty sponges. I simply can’t stand to use them, can’t figure out how to clean them good enough to use again. So as you can guess I purchase them quite frequently and use for about a week then throw away and grab another.

My mind works in a weird way and I decided to do some experiments with a sponge, what I found out was simply that they worked as they are supposed to, yet what is remarkable is I began to think about my life as a Christian and I found some awesome parallels between mankind and the sponge.

Test 1

I set a completely dry sponge in a bowl of water with the water about ½ height of the sponge, I wanted to see if the sponge could absorb all the water. It took a good while for the sponge to completely get wet, but after about 5 minutes it soaked up all the water.

Test 2

I slowly picked up the sponge that had all the water soaked within its dimensions, as soon as I disturbed the sponge water leaked out, as soon as I picked it up more water poured out.

Test 3

I set a completely dry sponge on top of the wet sponge and I added water only high enough to reach ½ the height of the first sponge making sure that the sponge on top had no water. The test proved that over 30+ minutes the completely dry sponge absorbed water from the sponge underneath until all the water was soaked up.

Test 4

Now that the sponges are wet I tried my hardest to get all the water out, no matter how hard I squeezed I could not get the sponge to release all the water.

Test 5

I placed the damp sponge in the water to see how long it would take to fill back up, the sponge took 90% of the water back up in less than 5 seconds, the other 10% in about 1 minute.

Duties of a sponge

A sponge has two primary duties, for the most part sponges are to help scrub off unwanted food and dirt from the surface. It accomplishes this by being pressed onto the surface and with the added benefit of soapy water, the sponge becomes a device to clean. The second duty of a sponge is to soak up whatever it is placed into. The sponge acts differently in this case as opposed to the first, in the first duty the sponge has already soaked up the soapy water filling its small pores all the way to the center. When applied with a firm grip and pressing down the sponge acts as a releasing mechanism and as a soft scouring device. In the second application, a sponge acts as an absorbing agent. No pressure is needed to be applied but can work faster to soak up. The sponge becomes filled with whatever it is sitting in to the core.

Application to human life

In compiling the application I am finding out that there are many parallels and to list them all might be a little mind numbing, but hey…why not. This will be a work in progress as many will read and submit more applications with mankind and Scripture. So here goes.

A dry sponge out of the package represents a totally clean sponge, yet none of us, in this life, can ever be a clean dry sponge out of the package. There were 3 people in all of human history who fit this criteria: Adam, Eve, and Jesus.

Adam and Eve decided on their own to sit in dirty water (sin), not to clean as a sponge can do, but to soak up dirty water. Just as I could not, with all my might, totally get all the water out of the sponge (get rid of sin), we cannot get out the dirty water.

Because Adam and Eve sat in dirty water they soaked up all the pollutants that the dirty water had, anyone after them, the Bible states, are polluted with the same dirty water. So, just as the sponge sat on top of the dirty wet sponge it soaked up the dirty water- thus making the second sponge dirty.

We are much like a sponge in the first application of scrubbing. The sponges duty is to soak up and to help scrub off unwanted pollutants off of other things. The sponge never cleans as that is the job of the soap and hot water (Holy Spirit and Christ death on the Cross). When placed in the right hands (God’s) we can be used to help clean off others with the Holy Spirit. But we must make sure that we are filled with the soapy water first or we will absorb the pollutants.

In the second application we are like the sponge in the fact that we become the environment we sit in. If we are not prayed up, if we are not stayed up, if we are not read up, we (as sponges) are not effective in scrubbing but only effective in absorbing. So we absorb whatever we are around until we become a part of that environment.

Just as the sponge that sat on top of the wet sponge absorbed the water from the sponge below, the people we hang out with, will absorb whatever is in us, which do you choose to give away to your friends-pollutants or soapy water?

Now a sponge can sit out until it completely dries out (not being used in any way-thus having no use) yet even when a dirty sponge is completely dry, only the water dries out, the pollutants that were there to begin with are still in the sponge.  We too, are the same, you see when sin entered into our lives (from Adam) we became polluted and on our own we cannot clean out. With the help of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ we can absorb Him and fill up with Him, even though the pollutants are there. We will never be a totally clean sponge until that great day that we meet, face to face, the one who holds us and uses us, the one who made us, God the Father.

One of our own youth is in the service

He is needing people to write him and support him

Private Caleb Roseberry

2ND PLR "Mafia"

CO B21/81st AR

3576 Wilson Rd

Ft Knox KY 40121