Reading the context Avoids Interpretation Mistakes
Apr 25, 2020 3:57:07 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Apr 25, 2020 3:57:07 GMT -5
Reading the context Avoids Interpretation Mistakes
Some mistakes which Bible readers make might be excusable due to confusion or lack of familiarity with the customs or the culture of the time in which a text was written. However, some misinterpretations are inexcusable because if the context had been read, then no misunderstanding would have taken place. Here is an example. Let’s consider how the following scripture is understood:
Revelation 12:7-9 (NIV)
7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
10 On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.
Soon to take place in the Lord’s Day.
Perhaps it is John’s use of the past tense phrase “was hurled” or the word “fought”? But he is describing was what he saw happening in the Lord’s day as it was unraveling in visions before his eyes and so the past tense was referring to how things happened in the vision and not to some distant past. That should be clear if we paid attention to the book’s introduction.
So the events revealed in Revelation were to take place in the future in the Lords’s day or as Christians refer to it today, the Time of the End. In short, there is absolutely no basis to claim that this heavenly war and the hurling of the Devil down to Earth took place in the distant past prior to the Revelation.
When Bible scholars makes such claims, one wonders whether they have actually read the book of Revelation’s introduction. After all, if they had, then they would never place that event in the distant past but would know that it was prophetic and related to the the Lord’s day as the Apostle john had indicated from the start.