How To Interpret Prophecy (2)

By: Pak Hendrik Wieland

As a practical matter, we cannot convince people of our interpretation if we are using special insight they don’t have access to.

If we did that, we would be asking them to have faith in us.

What we need to do is to base our understanding, our arguments, and our teaching on what the scriptures say and on what people can see for themselves, in the translations that are commonly available.

We have to use an understandable method of interpretation, one that makes sense historically, linguistically and theologically.

We need to examine the words, the grammar, the paragraph flow, the type of literature we are dealing with, and with the overall message of the Bible.

We have to remember that prophecy was not inspired to satisfy our curiosity about the future – it has always had a theological purpose.

It tells us something about what God is doing with humanity, and it is given to help motivate people to do something in the present.