Bible Prophecy

Since there seems to be at least some interest in discussing Bible Prophecy here, I will start the ball rolling with some thoughts on the interaction about Bible Prophecy between "Anonymous" and Jake. Two assertions/propositions seem latent in the discussion. Jake suggests that the Bible has much more to say about how we live than about the what is going to happen in the future. Anonymous' comments suggest a notion of Bible Prophecy that expects Prophecy to be about the future. I would like to pick up on Jake's statement about the scope of Biblical Prophecy.

The first key thing to notice is that while Jake's suggestion that the Bible has much more to say about how we live than about what is going to happen in the future is true, it is imperative that we recognize that the actual means for doing this in much of the Bible is through the genre of Prophecy. Prophecy is not primarily about the future other than in some vague sense that changing our behavior as a community is a future act and is a future implication of the prophetic oracle. Thinking that Bible prophecy is primarily (or even secondarily) concerned with providing predictors of a specific point in time at which the world will end is to fundamentally misundersatnd the notion of prophecy. This understanding of prophecy makes it quite easy to miss the "punchline" of prophecy. For example, how concerned is the American (Evangelical) church with homosexual marriage? How does compare to the outcry over crippling healthcare costs, or, God-forbid, crying out against the use of torture as a pseudo-policy, or against the deleterious impact we have had in Iraq? These are the concerns of prophecy.

This should get some things going.

TQH