Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 19 Gary deals with current end-time claims about the situation in Damascus. “When” a prophecy is said to be fulfilled is very important to know in determining what events fulfill the prophecy. Time indicators can tell us if the prophecy is going to be fulfilled in the distant future or in the near future. Sometimes a prophecy’s fulfillment is open ended [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 18 Gary interviews Kim Burgess about 1 Thessalonians 4 and the cryptic language that Paul uses. The people who first read the content of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 had a biblical background as to what Paul was saying. These compressed verses assume some of that background information to be able to understand it. In Acts, Luke recorded that Paul preached fo [...]
Gary discusses an article by Daniel Hummel about how concordances made Dispensationalism—and a “scientific” approach to Bible reading—possible. Having a basic knowledge of Greek to study the New Testament is helpful and can go a long way to help with interpretation issues in terms of how a passage literally reads. The Greek alphabet can be learned in a few hours since it close to our E [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 17 With the recent death of Hal Lindsey, Gary discusses his popular books and the rapture and end times that they promised yet never arrived. Jesus used the parable of the fig tree as an analogy. His point was that when leaves begin to appear on the fig tree—or, for that matter, on “all the trees” (Luke 21:29)—it is a sign that summer is near. [...]
Now that the two volumes of The Hope of Israel and the Nations are available, Gary thought it was a good time to interview Kim Burgess about the books and the hermeneutic they present. The aim of this series has been to discern from Scripture itself, in the Reformation spirit and mindset of sola Scriptura, what the Bible’s, and, in particular, what the New Testament’s own hermeneutic is and then t [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 16 In this conclusion to his interview with author Brian Godawa, Gary answers a question about so-called double fulfillment. Some claim that there will be another fulfillment, a future fulfillment. This is pure guesswork, reading into a section of Scripture what’s not there. We know this because Jesus states there will be a great tribulation before that [...]
Gary interviews author Brian Godawa about his new book, Israel in Bible Prophecy: The New Testament Fulfillment of the Promise to Abraham. If Israel and Judah’s distress was so great that there was “none like it,” then how could a future tribulation be greater? In order to get around this interpretive problem, futurists claim that “Jacob’s distress” is a yet future great tribulation. But the conte [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 15 Gary discusses biblical context and its importance to interpreting all Bible passages, but especially prophetic ones. When we study Matthew 24 in its biblical context and allow other passages to shape our understanding, we will have no other choice than to embrace a preterist interpretation. Preterism teaches that most prophetic passages in the New T [...]
Gary continues his hermeneutics lesson with discussions about time statements and the book of Revelation. Proper interpretation of the Bible depends on the type of literature that’s being studied and the way words and phrases are used in different contexts throughout Scripture in their literary setting. “The term literal comes from the Latin litera meaning letter. To interpret the Bible literally [...]
Gary is interviewed about biblical hermeneutics (the art and science of interpretation). He gives a quick lesson about how regular Christians can and should do it for themselves. Many people grow up thinking the Bible says one thing when it actually says something else. For example, when asked who cut off Samson’s hair, a high percentage of people will say “Delilah!” By reading Judges 16:19, we qu [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 14 Gary discusses the history of failed “end times” and “last days” predictions. When we study the history of prophetic speculation, we soon realize that we’ve heard all of this before. For nearly 2000 years uninformed but assured Christians have predicted, in words similar to those of Hal Lindsey, that “they were the [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 13 Gary discusses a popular interpretation by modern prophecy writers and pastors about Israel being the “fig tree” spoken of by Jesus in the NT. If Israel is the fig tree in Matthew 24:32, then Israel is the fig tree in 21:18–20 where Jesus says, “‘No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.’ And at once the fig tree withered.” The fi [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 12 Gary does a short Bible study with his granddaughter, who had a few questions about Mark 13 and Jesus’ coming. In terms of audience relevance related to a study of the Olivet Discourse, students of Scripture need to begin with Matthew 21:1 where we read that Jesus and some of His disciples had come “to the Mount of Olives.” By the time we get t [...]
It seemed appropriate to re-run this article, which points to the podcast on a Christian response to Halloween. Why do Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and Diwali all fall around the same time of year? Is this because paganism is so consistent and ubiquitous around the world, or is the answer much simpler? Christians seldom think in historical terms and assume that since Halloween has pagan origins [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 11 Gary gives a quick lesson on how to do biblical hermeneutics, which simply means how to interpret the text. Many people grow up thinking the Bible says one thing when it actually says something else. For example, when asked who cut off Samson’s hair, a high percentage of people will say “Delilah!” By reading Judges 16:19, we quickly learn that she “c [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 10 Many modern preachers and authors are schizophrenic. They don’t seem to understand that their messages are contradictory and often cause their hearers to become paralyzed with indecision. Thousands of tracts, magazine articles, sermons and radio messages tell the people, “Jesus is coming soon!” “These are the last days of this dispensation” and [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 9 Gary puts the popular claim of dividing Matthew 24 into past and future events under the exegetical microscope to see if it stands up under scrutiny. Matthew 24:33 tells us what audience Jesus had in view: “so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door.” It’s obvious, and without any need for debate, that the [...]
Gary discusses the second volume of the book, The Hope of Israel and the Nations, and what Kim Burgess calls the “meta-hermeneutic” of the New Testament. History cannot be “sliced and diced” without destroying it. History is an organic whole! One also has to understand what the German term, Sitz im Leben, the “situation in life,” is getting at, for it is vital. One has to take fully in [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 8 Gary discusses the idea put forth by nearly all modern pop prophecy writers that Israel becoming a nation again in 1948 is a “major prophetic sign” of the “end times.” A very popular argument for modern-day Israel being the fulfillment of Bible prophecy uses the fig tree illustration found in Matthew 24:32: “Now learn the [...]
Jonathan Sedlak, author of Reading Matthew, Trusting Jesus: Christian Tradition and First-Century Fulfillment within Matthew 24-25 (listen to Gary’s fascinating two-part interview with Sedlak here and here), told me in a recent phone call that it was John MacArthur’s book The Second Coming: Signs of Christ’s Return and the End of the Age (2006) that led him to investigate preterism because i [...]
