All of the Bible
For most of my posts on this site, I have dealt with eschatological issues. One reason being that many radio teachers/preachers have been teaching dispensational premillennialism. Let me quote Henry’s response to my “musings” because many people have given a similar response
Ever since I got out of my hal lindsey phase around the end of high school, there has always been a ten foot poll attached to that book.
This breaks my heart. It does so for two reasons. John writes the following verses in Revelation,
1:3, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
13:18, This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.
22:7, Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.
22:10, And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. (cf. 22:10 with Daniel 12:4 where he is told to seel up the words of his book until the end.)
When a person does not study Revelation, they miss out on the blessings of God! We must study because we can understand this book and God wants to bless us with this book.
Secondly, we are ignoring parts of God’s word. We aren’t comfortable with it so we stay away. What message does that send to God? It says, “I don’t understand parts of your word so instead trying to make sense of it, like any other passage, I will just leave it alone. I only want to read and study those parts that I can understand.” It is because we don’t read Revelation and study it exegetically that we get crazy interpretations from Hal Lindsey and John Hagee.
One of the reasons I am on this horse, besides wanting to teach a view other than what is in Left Behind is because too many people ignore this book and miss out on seeing Christ in his glory as revealed through John’s writing. I do pray that all of the Church will begin to read all of God’s word for all its worth. Every book has something to say to us.
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Comments
Boy this is weird, I agree with you all so far on this post.
When I read Rev (and I do), I simply stay away from trying to chart out the prophecies in an iron-clad manner. In my current readings on the New Testament I keep coming across the Jews thinking that God would fulfill His prophecies in one manner, (chiefly, that the Messiah would usher in a political kingdom) when God fulfilled His word in a completely different manner.
That is what has a ten-foot-pole attached to it. Not necessarily the book itself. The largest problem with a forum of communication like this is that hastily worded passages can miscommunicate the intention of the author.
Boy,
Okay, I do feel much better about that. I’m glad to see that you guys are avoiding Revelation because it is a highly symbolic text. Bob, I do suggest to you that given the genre of the text, it is very likely that the symbols encoded something, most likely something about Rome and Jerusalem in regards to their treatments of Christians and Christ’s coming to vindicate Himself, His church, and to punish those who were in opposition at that time. But that is another post entirely. However, it is good to see that the “ten-foot-poles” are not designed to keep you from the book but from Left Behind theology.
I was in a hurry to get some stuff done and I miss typed that opening line. It should read, “I’m glat to see that you guys are not avoinding Revelation because it is a highly symbolic text.” Sorry.
Yeah my main point I have been saying is that since I have stopped treating Revelation like a secret code needing to be cracked I have been blessed. There are so many rich promises of God to His church in Revelation that I really did not dwell on when I was trying to decipher the meaning of the trumpets and what the seals are…that stuff does matter but in reality it is the minutea the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and the main thing is that Revelation promises the return of Christ, and He will usher His own into a kingdom not defiled by sin and there will be no more tears or pain for Christ will fill all their needs forever.