Interpreting Prophecy

Lesson 1Introduction

Realizing many months ago that this summer’s Sunday School quarterly study would be the Book of Revelation I decided to precede it with a three month study in interpreting prophecy. As you will see when we study the book of Revelation it represents the keystone of all biblical prophecy therefore to fully understand the book we need a sound understanding of interpreting prophecy throughout the Bible. While difficult enough to do in a Sunday School class environment this will be even more difficult over the internet. I will do all that I can to make the materials available that we use during class time, structure questions so that they lead you to the most clear and correct meaning possible, and encourage all of you to forward any questions or comments to me as often as you like, so that through the leadership of the Holy Spirit you can gain an understanding on a topic often found to be difficult for many Bible students.

As a way of introducing my approach and understanding of this area to many of you who have not sat in a class with me, I offer the following background. I discovered early in my Christian walk that I had a keen interest in prophecy and that with prayer and a great deal of thought and scholarship God revealed an understanding of basic prophetic precepts to me. As time went on I was blessed by having many excellent Pastors, Sunday School teachers, and Seminary Professors who added immeasurably to both my knowledge and my approach to studying God’s Holy Word.

I have read and studied the Book of Revelation somewhere between twenty and thirty times, and combined with my passion for the Old Testament, have gained a great deal of insight into the coming return and reign of Christ. It has provided me with a Paulian zeal for witnessing and teaching, and daily provides with me a peace that passes all understanding even during turbulent economic and political times. As prophecy represents over 25% of God’s Holy Word I encourage my students to study and learn all they can in this area so that as the day approaches we are not easily mislead by the false teachers, anti-christ’s, and apostasy that will threaten to undermine the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe strongly that the Bible interprets itself and that our best source of information is the Bible, and our best teacher, the Holy Spirit. As Peter tells us (2Peter 1:20) no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. I personally am a pre-millennial, pre-tribulation, dispensationalist, who takes a literal approach to interpreting scripture. (By the end of our first week of study you will have a basic understanding of those terms.)

Bible

With all this said, let’s begin building an interpreting prophecy notebook together. When finished with our 12 week study you should have a complete list of terms and definitions, a time line (called a chronology of events) a list of symbols found in prophecy, their meaning with a biblical reference to support that meaning. And, using John Walvord’s book as a basic outline for our twelve week study, you should have in summary form in your notebook the role that each of the elements will play in the return and reign of Christ (the Church, Satan, Gentile world,etc.). Then, when we begin to study Revelation in the summer, it will be a study that brings together all of the elements of prophecy that you will have learned in advance of studying this difficult but exciting prophetic book.

Questions For Our First Week (You may use any source you chose to answer the following.)

  1. Is End Time Prophecy something we should study? Why? (I personally like two verses in Isaiah to answer this one – 42:8-9 and Isaiah 44:8, as well as 1 Peter 1:20.)
  2. If you do study End Time Prophecy list three specific things you hope to learn:
  3. Interpreting any document, particularly one written in a language other than our native one, requires a process that will result in an accurate interpretation and one that can be repeated by others. In our study you will need to know the definitions for two approaches – Allegorical and Literal to interpreting scripture. Find and write out a definition for each:
    1. Allegorical
    2. Literal
  4. Of specific interest in interpreting end time prophecy is the position taken by the interpreter on whether there’s a rapture (meaning to be caught up or snatched out) or not, if Christ will have a literal, physical 1,000 year reign (called the Millennial Reign) or not, and their relationship to each other. From this we get the following terms:
    1. Pre – Millennial – Rapture occurs before Christ’s literal thousand-year reign
    2. Post-Millennial – Rapture occurs after Christ’s current reign – no literal 1,000 year reign
    3. Amillennial – There is no rapture and the “thousand year” reign of Christ is a figure of speech, His “reign” began at the beginning of the Church age at Pentecost and will end at the final judgement.
  5. Given these approaches, read 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 and write out your definition for the rapture – or why you don’t believe there is a rapture.
  6. Do you know what the Southern Baptist’s current position is? If you have The Baptist Faith And Message, by Herschel Hobbs, it can be found there – write it here and be prepared to discuss in class.
  7. To complete our word list for today let’s look at the terms Pre-tribulation, Mid-Tribulation and Post-Tribulation. These also refer to the timing of a physical, literal, rapture in relation to the seven year period preceding the second coming of Christ called the Tribulation Period, also known as Daniel’s Seventieth Week. Pre-tribulation - holds that the rapture of the Church will occur prior to the beginning of the Tribulation Period. Mid-tribulation - places the rapture at the mid point, 42 months, 3.5 years into the Tribulation Period. Post-Tribulation places the rapture at the end of the Tribulation Period.
    1. Why is it important to understand what your position is (pre or post trib, pre or post millenial, etc) before beginning to study end time prophecy?
    2. Why is it important to know what someone else’s position is?

As we close this week's lesson, I ask you to think about ways that the study of End Time Prophecy can enable us to better share the Gospel.

Yours in Christ,

Wes