3 Mistakes made when reading prophecy in the Bible

This upcoming summer I will have the privilege of preaching through the book of Revelation. I'm excited for this opportunity for more reasons than this book being of much contemporary interest (See the below figure).

This is a google search comparison between Revelation (Blue line), Genesis (Red line), Matthew (Yellow line), John (Green line), and Exodus (Purple line). At least this one data point suggests Revelation is one of the more popular books of the Bible searched on google. 

Beyond simply being a book with much interest, Revelation gives the Bible reader a chance to reflect on their own interpretive methods and habits. There is no book in the Bible which requires more self-awareness of what baggage, assumptions, and frameworks we bring to the text. Since we all have baggage, assumptions, and frameworks through which we view the Bible today I'm going to poke a bit (like a doctor or a parent, asking "where does it hurt?") at 3 mistakes which injure our ability to read a prophetic passage in scripture. 

Benedetto Gennari il Giovane, The Prophet Isaiah, 17th century

Mistake #1 - Thinking that everything that is future speaking, is speaking about OUR future. 

When we make this mistake, we begin to see every utterance regarding future things as being in our future rather than in the future of the original audience. An example of this would be in Genesis 17 when God made his covenant with Abraham. God spoke of an event that would come to pass in Abraham's future, but that doesn't mean that event would come to pass in our future. In Genesis 17:19 we read:

Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him

As you well know Abraham did later have a son (Genesis 21:1-7) and named him Isaac. As we read Genesis, we see future promises made and we know to avoid the mistake of thinking that every future promise is about OUR future. We recognize that God made a promise to Abraham and then later on within Abraham's lifetime that promise came to fruition. As I was taught by my faithful mentors Rev. Jason Helopoulos, Dr. Joel Beeke, Elder Paul Ingram, Rev. David Sarafolean, Rev. Walter Lorenz and Mr. Julian Kampf, when we have a question of a passage keep reading! The answer to the question will often be only a few verses or chapters away. 

Much of what the Bible has spoken of regarding the future, is actually in our past. This is true in Genesis, as well as many other prophetic books of the Old Testament and New Testament (like Revelation). It is a mistake to assume that simply because a prophetic text is speaking of something future it must automatically be speaking of our future.  

You might think this is an absurd example, but this interpretive mistake is made frequently when believers read books like Daniel, the Psalms (which often spoke of a future event in the incarnation of Christ), and Revelation. When reading a passage that you think might be about any future event, slow down and begin to ask as you read "whose future is this speaking of? Is this the future of the original audience, or some extended future which even includes my time?"

Mistake #2 - Disregarding the genre of a prophetic text.

Different books of the Bible (and even different sections within books) have different styles meant to convey a message. A prophetic text may come within the scope of a narrative (such as Jesus' prophecies which were recounted through historical narrative in the gospels), it may come within the lyrics of a song or poem (such as Psalms, Proverbs, Job, or Ecclesiastes), it may come within a dialog between characters (Such as Moses and Aaron prophesying before Pharoah in Exodus 9:1) it may come within an extended section including many other prophetic statements (Isaiah 9 and the promise of the coming "prince of peace"). 

Prophecy within the Bible can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, genres and styles. If we simply assume that all prophecy will sound and look the same, then we will miss out on a great deal of prophecy that is communicated in unique ways we were not expecting. Many English Bibles indent certain passages or sections to indicate a quote, or a prophecy. While this can be helpful to highlight a prophetic text, it can also inadvertently teach us that any passage that doesn't have a special indent isn't prophetic. 

Not all prophetic passages are the same in their message, or in their mode of conveying that message. Rather than ignoring the unique genre of a particular prophetic passage, begin to ask as you read "Who is speaking in this passage? How does this prophetic passage of this chapter of this book differ from other passages also within this same chapter of this same book?".

Mistake #3 - Settling for the first possible interpretation. 

When we read a passage of scripture there are almost always multiple interpretations. I am not speaking here of multiple applications. Multiple applications means that multiple people could both sit down, read the same passage and come away with solid lessons, Godly principles, and Christ honoring precepts to govern their own living. Every passage in scripture has multiple applications, but every passage in scripture also could be interpreted differently. 

Application has to do with "what should I do?" or "what does this teach?", whereas interpretation has to do with "what does this say?" or "what is the intended meaning by the author?". The evil one has an interpretation of scripture, which is to twist and deceive (Genesis 3:1-7). When we read something in scripture (especially prophetic passages) we need to recognize that a passage can be read in multiple ways. 

Once we've accepted that a passage can be read in multiple ways, we can then begin to do the work of discovering which of these multiple ways is most likely to be the original intended meaning by God in scripture. If we neglect that a passage can have more than simply the first interpretation we think of, we will certainly come into all sorts of error. When you are hammering a nail, do you only hit the nail once? When you first learned to drive a car did you practice more than once? When you watched a movie for the first time did you notice all the same details as when you watched the same movie again? 

My point of course is that simply doing something once doesn't mean we've done something correctly or to the fullest extent. The nail needs to be hit multiple times for it to be fastened securely, your driver's training no doubt included multiple hours of practice, and when you watch something for a second time (or more) you undoubtably notice something different. Reading a passage and then neglecting any other possible interpretations other than your first, most immediate reaction is a recipe for disaster. 

This troublesome mistake is only amplified with biblical prophecy which can sometimes have multiple interpretations, and even layers of interpretations (such as a prophecy that has an immediate interpretation for the original audience, and a future interpretation for future audiences). When reading a passage of prophecy in scripture, rather than simply settling for the first interpretation you can think of begin to ask "what are the possible interpretations from this passage? What would the original readers and hearers of this passage have interpreted it to mean?"

This was an attempt to provide clarity about mistakes we make when reading prophecy in biblical passages. In addition to pointing out the nature of the mistakes, I also attempt to provide some solutions to help avoid bad habits when reading biblical prophecy. It is my hope that this is helpful to you and encourages you to take up your Bible and read to see the tremendous stores of treasure God has kept in his Word.