Wednesday 12 September 2012

Changing End-Times Views

Decades ago end-times teachers were asserting that Germany will figure prominently in the fulfilment of end-times Scripture. They even found Hebrew or Greek words in the Scriptures which they felt refer directly to modern-day Germany.

That was back before the Berlin Wall came down. But after WWII was further away from memory and the Cold War ended, Germany was no longer perceived to be an imminent threat to America or to Europe, and therefore we seldom hear anything about Germany in end-times teaching today. All of a sudden the Hebrew and Greek words don't seem to refer to Germany any more. Since September 11, the new threat has been perceived to be Islam. Now all of a sudden, some end-times teachers are 'clearly' seeing Islam in the same prophetic Scriptures that were once perceived to be about Germany.

I though of an analogy which illustrates this method of interpreting Scripture. Imagine that the color of a wall inside your house is cream. Outside the window is a light that changes from red to green. Ask somebody what color the wall is. While the light outside is red, the wall looks reddish, because it reflects some of the red light outside. "It's red," he says.

Then the light outside changes to green and the green light shines on the wall. "The wall is green," he says.

He was actually wrong both times, because actually the wall is cream. His mistake was that instead of examining the color of the wall itself, he allowed the changing circumstances outside the window (the changing color of the lights from red to green) to reflect on his assessment of the colour of the wall.

That's what a lot of end-times teaching does. Changing current affairs are imposed onto the meaning of Scripture, rather than seeing that the wall is cream - rather than allowing Scripture to speak for itself.

Irrespective of whether or not Germany or Islam are to figure prominently in future times, my observation is that the focus of popular end-times teaching changes as perceptions of what is threatening our society changes. Yet the text of Scripture doesn't change.

A good place to start in order to understand Bible prophecy, would be to study what the text of Scripture says for itself, before allowing changing current events to be imposed onto what the texts might mean. But many of us are more aware of contemporary interpretations than we are aware of the Biblical text itself.

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