Gary is interviewed by Paul Edward Stevenson on the Last Man Standing radio show about Israel, Hamas, and popular prophecy. Part One of Two
Without a proper context, a verse from the Bible could be used to support atheism, because as one out-of-context passage reads, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). The full reading of a passage in its proper context reveals its true meaning: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good.”
We’re often told, “The Bible commands us not to judge.” While in the above “atheist” text, the context is contained in a single verse (it’s the fool who says there is no God), this is not the case with Matthew 7:1: “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” It’s only in the second verse where a more accurate contextual study supplies a better understanding of the first verse: “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”
Jesus is commanding that a person who judges a situation must be consistent in his judgment. The Bible forbids using two different standards of judgments (Deut. 25:13-16). There are numerous calls in the Bible to practice righteous judgment (John 7:24; Lev. 19:15, 35-36; Isa. 11:3; Zech. 7:9).
The rules regarding (1) citing a text correctly, (2) in its full context, (3) including the intended audience, does not change when a longer passage is being studied. In fact, greater attention to these three elements is necessary to come away with the proper interpretation.
It’s impossible to interpret a passage correctly when it isn’t cited correctly. Sometimes it’s a translation issue. The Greek words aion and oikoumenē are often translated as “world” instead of “age” and “inhabited earth.” Words are often added to a passage to force a particular translation. For example, in Matthew 24:34, some prophecy commentators will remove and/or add words to make a passage fit a prophetic preconception. Instead of Matthew 24:34 reading, “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place,” the passage is made to read, “The generation that sees these signs will not pass away until all these things take place.”
Wars and Rumors of Wars
A first-century interpretation of the Olivet Discourse was once common in commentaries and narrative-style books that describe the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. There is also a history of skeptics who turn to Bible prophecy and claim Jesus was wrong about the timing of His coming at “the end of the age” and the signs associated with it. A mountain of scholarship shows that the prophecy given by Jesus was fulfilled in exacting detail when He said it would: before the generation of those to whom He was speaking passed away.
Buy NowGary is interviewed by Paul Edward Stevenson on the Last Man Standing radio show about Israel, Hamas, and popular prophecy. Most people who believe that the events in Gaza right now are fulfilling Bible prophecy have no idea what their system actually says about what awaits Israel in the “end times.”