Rightly Divided s01e04 Prophecy

In this podcast, the host, Tom Terry, interviews Dr. Steve Posey about how to study and interpret biblical prophecy. They discuss the primary function of Old Testament prophets, the difference between prophets in the Old and New Testaments, and the different forms of prophetic utterance. They also touch on the percentage of prophecies related to the Messiah, the new covenant, and the last days. They emphasize the importance of understanding the forms of prophecy to better understand their meaning. This is Truth Rightly Divided, a podcast of PreachItTeachIt.org. I'm your host, Tom Terry. And in this podcast, we'll be exploring the various ways of doing Bible study so that you can get the most out of your time when studying God's Word. Our guest for this eight-week series on basic Bible study is Dr. Steve Posey, an instructor with International Leadership University. Dr. Posey teaches Bible study methods and conducts other training for crew staff all across Africa. He will be with us for the next six episodes of Rightly Divided to help you get a firm grasp on how to study the Bible according to its various types of genre. For this episode, we'll be talking about how to study and interpret biblical prophecy. Steve, what was the primary function of Old Testament prophets in Israel? Excellent question, and a pivotal, if I can say the word, primary question when we approach the prophets. The primary function of the prophets was to speak for God, to speak the message of God to the people of their day. As you know, and as most people who've been in the Bible know, there were a lot of prophets in Israel's day. Only 16 of them are written down. But their messages, although spoken in different manners, and we'll talk about that later in how they approached to speaking their message, their message was always the same. They were speaking for God. Well, now it seems to me that, especially in the Old Testament, there were a lot more than just 16 prophets. I mean, because there were prophets that are mentioned in passing, and there seems to be some allusion to schools of prophets and things of that nature. Does that mean that all of those prophets were speaking for God? Yes, in the sense that if they were a true prophet, there are, of course, false prophets. And I remember very clearly, once I was instructed, that the way you could tell a true prophet in those days was he would prophesy something in the immediate future and also prophesy something a little bit further down. If that that he prophesied in the immediate future came true, that was revealing that he was truly a prophet of God. Well, then how is that different from prophets in the New Testament? Well, in the New Testament, what we have, generally, is we have people who are writing and they are, through God's leading, they are bringing forth the prophecies from the Old Testament. And, in fact, the Apostle Paul does that in 1 Corinthians 14. We'll talk about that later. But they bring those forth and they tell us what they mean for the New Testament times. Now, there is the gift of prophecy, and we have to be very careful in that because I could tell you, Tom, I'm a prophet, and I prophesy that tomorrow morning you are going to wake up and there will be a million dollars in your bank account. Oh, thank you very much. I believe you. But you and I both know, because we know each other, that I'm not a prophet. And so we have to be careful when someone proclaims themselves to be a prophet because what the prophet does is speaks for God. Okay. Okay. All right, so then what was the primary function of the prophet in the Old Testament? Well, there are basically four aspects to the primary function of the prophet. Please allow me to go through them. The first thing was that the prophet was the covenant enforcement mediator. In other words, he was the spokesman for God to the people of Israel or whoever he was prophesying to. For example, some of the prophets prophesied to Babylon what was going to happen to them. So he was the covenant enforcement mediator. A covenant, as we probably most know, the covenant was the agreement between the suzerain or the king and his subjects. And God initiated a suzerain type of covenant with the people of Israel. And the prophet's function was to tell the people whether they were following that covenant or whether they had broken it as the covenant enforcement mediator or spokesman. And if you've broken it, there's trouble ahead because in a suzerain covenant or a suzerain treaty, there were curses and blessings. Curses if you didn't do what you were supposed to do and blessings if you fulfilled your obligations. But now we even see that before the prophets in the book of Deuteronomy. I mean, you could argue that Moses was a prophet. I think that's probably true. But we see a lot of that in Deuteronomy before we even get to the major prophets. That's correct. And that's going to lead us to another thing. And this was my fourth one, but let's just move it up to number two. The prophet's message is unoriginal. It is not original. We already have it in Moses. We already have it as he basically delivered to the people of Israel God's message about his covenant with them. The prophets that we're talking about, the 8th, 7th, 6th century prophets, they gave the same message. Maybe they used different words, but they gave basically the very same message that Moses had given. Aren't there prophecies that foretell future events such as and especially about the coming of the Messiah? There are, but those prophecies don't make up very much of the Old Testament prophecies. In fact, I remember as a younger Christian and as a young man, I thought that the prophecies were all about the coming of the Messiah. But experts tell us, scholars tell us, and if you dig in to the prophecies in the Old Testament, you'll find that only a little less than 2% of the Old Testament prophecies have anything to do with the Messiah. And wouldn't that mainly be in things like Isaiah and the Psalms? That's correct. Very well said. Because in Isaiah, he's one of the major messianic prophets, if I can say it that way. He really develops our understanding of who the Messiah is and what he will be like and what will happen during his time here on our earth. Now, about 5% of the prophecies describe the new covenant relationship that we can have with God. And that relates to you and me, as we are members of the new covenant with God. So 2% messianic, 5% new covenant. And it's very interesting, less than 1% describe events that have anything to do with us in the year 2000. In terms of last days. Last days, that's right. Less than 1%. And yet, it seems to me that most of those last days prophecies in the Old Testament can be found in the minor prophets, and especially Daniel. Yes, especially Daniel. Especially Daniel, and yes, the minor prophets, yes. And minor there means that they're not little guys, but it means that they're not as prolonged, they're much shorter, and they didn't have the, if I can use the word, prestige, even in the Jewish mind of the prophets like Daniel or Isaiah or Jeremiah. Interesting thing about that 1% of our times, or that 1% of the prophecies that relate to our time, as I was growing in my faith, I thought that, as I said, everything related to the Messiah. And I also thought that all the prophecies in some way, shape, or form related to our time, as we're coming into the last days. And not so. Not so at all. Yeah, I think that we tend to look, especially as Americans living in America, I always get a question, and I'm sure you've heard it too, where is America in biblical prophecy? And after years of looking through the scripture, I come to the conclusion, it's nowhere in biblical prophecy. Doesn't mean that America or any other nation won't have a role to play in the future. The world, everybody in the world will have a role to play in that in time. But we're not listed. That's right. And you know, it's interesting, at that level, the prophecies are more about covenant actions on our part. Are we lying, stealing, cheating, committing adultery, or are we living a righteous life? The prophets are more about that. I remember as a younger Christian and a younger man, I was always trying to figure out who was Gog and Magog. And we had Gog being, I think he was Russian. And that's not the issue. That's really not what the prophecies were about, that we were able to do that. Those are, obviously they existed in the times of the prophets, but they were, if I can use the word, representative or metaphorical to show us what God wanted to communicate to his people about their having broken the covenant relationship. All right, what are some of the basic forms of prophetic utterance and why should we pay attention to those when we're studying prophecy? Okay, let me answer the second part or give you an idea to think through as I answer the first part. The second part is that if we understand those forms a little bit and understand what they're doing in those forms, we're better able to understand what the meaning of the prophecy is. So, now let's go back to what those forms are. Probably the most common, well not probably, the most common form of prophecy is the oracle. And an oracle is simply an utterance, a prophetic utterance, which refers to the spoken words of God. Whether there's Moses or the inspired other prophets, it's a spoken word to God and that is communicated through the oracle. Now, I have a number of ways that these oracles are communicated. Should I share some of those? Okay, the first thing, probably the very common one, is what they call the covenant lawsuit. And in that type of oracle, the prophet begins to proclaim that God is the judge, he's the prosecuting attorney, and he has the plaintiff, you, in his sights, and he goes through all that you've done to break the covenant. It's like a court of law type of an approach to the prophecy. And of course, you need to remember here, that's made to the nation of Israel. It's not about one individual. Even when Israel as a nation was breaking the covenant, there were righteous people living within the nation. Remember Elijah? Right. How many people was it? 7,000 reserved for himself. That's right, who had not bowed the knee to Baal. So it's very important to understand that this is the communication to the nation, the corporate nation. It's not to one individual. Then the second form of an oracle that we have is what we call the woe oracle, W-O-E. Woe is you. You are in deep trouble. And the entire idea of the woe is you have not only broken your covenant with God, but now you will experience the sanctions that were in that covenant. In other words, you will experience punishment. Now we do see the woes also used in the New Testament in Jesus' speech to the Pharisees and the religious leaders. Woe to you, Pharisees, for you do this and that. And those are all covenant related, whether or not they're following God's word or they're being hypocrites. That's correct. And Jesus used the woes because within the Jewish nation and within the Jewish culture, that one, was the way that it was communicated, if I can say it that way, it was the way that when you had violated God's covenant, that's the way it was communicated. But also that aligned Jesus with God. And he was standing in the place of God when he said that. And the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the religious leaders of his day, they did not miss that. That angered them that he was standing in the place of God because they had figured out their system and they thought they had God on a rope and they had pulled him and then let him loose and pulled him and let him loose as they wanted to. And here stands a man by the name of Jesus the Christ and he is God telling them exactly what they're doing. I want to toss in one more thing about woes before you get to the other two folks. Sure, go ahead. It seems to me that when Jesus used the woes and when he confronted people in that capacity, I find it interesting that he confronted the religious leaders of his day but not the politicians of his day. He wasn't out there rebuking Pilate during his trial and he responded to Herod zero. He didn't give him anything to go on whatsoever. But to the religious leaders of his day, he was really very sharp. That's correct. You know, Old Testament prophets, They spoke to the political leaders of the day. They got the political boys partially, well not partially, but one reason because the kings were the leaders of the country. And when you spoke to those kings, you were speaking to Israel. But he didn't speak to the Romans because they didn't understand and they had no covenant with God. I was just about to ask that if you think it's because guys like Pilate and Herod not being Jews were not under covenant at that time that was applied to Israel. That's the first thing. But the kings in the Old Testament obviously were. And they were. But then the second thing is he did speak directly to Pilate about religious things. He said to Pilate, well if I ask you, my father can send a legion of angels and you'll be in deep trouble. Was the implication. So Jesus wasn't afraid to do that. It's just that he was speaking to the people of Israel because they were the covenant people. He spoke to the woman who had a daughter and she was from Tyre, I believe, or Sidon. And he said, well no, I have to give the message to the people of Israel. And she said, even as dogs. And she understood her place with comparison to the covenant people. And of course her faith saved her daughter's life. Okay, what are the other two? Well, we have the promise or the salvation oracle. That's a very positive oracle. That's when the people of Israel had done things correctly. And the prophet would tell them, because you've done this, this will happen. God will honor his treaty with you and you will experience blessing. And then the next one was what we call the enactment prophecy. And that's when the prophet did something to show the people, to draw attention, so that they would see and hear what God was going to do. And for example, we have Isaiah. He was told in Isaiah 20, let me read what he was told to do. He was told to go stripped and barefoot for three years so that he could symbolize that the Assyrians were going to lead away the Egyptian and the Cushite slaves that they had stripped and barefoot. Stripped, you can't conceal a weapon when you're stripped. Barefoot, you can't fight a war when you're barefoot. And this was Isaiah's prophecy on what was going to happen to the Egyptians and the Syrians. And he enacted that by going stripped and barefoot for three years. So you had that enactment prophecy. And there's one other one, too. They had what they called the messenger speech. It basically is, this is what the Lord says. And prophet after prophet used the messenger speech format, if I can use that word. It was an oracle. This is what the Lord God says. And then he would speak to the people about that. Okay, so recap. The four types of oracle speech are covenant lawsuit, woe oracle, the promise or salvation oracle, and then the enactment prophecy. And I included in that is the messenger speech. It can be part of those four. Okay. All right. So on our last episode, we were talking about how to interpret biblical poetry. And that was really an eye-opening episode, I think. But the prophets use, especially the major prophets, the prophets use a lot of poetry to communicate that which they're prophesying about, whether it's foretelling or forth telling. They really have an extensive use of poetry in their messages. Yes. And the reason for that, Tom, is basically the same reason why we were talking about poetry last time. The reason is poetry is more memorable than regular prose. And they wanted the people to remember what they said because they needed to hear and understand and remember and think it through. And the poetry provided an avenue for the prophet to be with them for days on end, so to speak, as their mind went over the poetry again and again and again. And as you remember, last time we talked about Hebrew poetry, it's much different than the type of poetry we are used to in our culture. Right. And the whole idea of that was that it was more intellectual, it was the way people learned, and that type of thing. So the prophet was simply stepping into his culture and using poetry as a way to communicate truth. And a truth that would be remembered as a result. Now, is there a difference in the type of poetry between, let's say, what's used in Psalms and then what's used in the prophets? Because, you know, you've got 150 Psalms recorded in the Old Testament and only some of them are Messianic Psalms. The rest are written about worship and God's faithfulness and the status of the people with God and their relationship and things of that nature. But then the prophets are using prophecy, it would seem, in a similar way. But also, I'm not really sure about the word I want to use here. I don't know if it's refined or targeted or more sharper than you would see in the Psalms because they're trying to communicate something beyond just a lesson of a poet. Well, that's totally correct. And I think the major difference is the Psalms, the poetry in the Psalms was written to be, for lack of a better word, songs, S-O-N-G-S, and played to music and people would remember it as a result of the musical aspects of it too. Whereas the poetry that the prophets used to give their message, their oracle, they had no intent of it being sung. It was to strike you, if I can say it, to strike you and to make you think. And so, yes, a different type of poetry, but poetry all the same. So how do we take that into account when we're interpreting prophecy and poetry which are together in those prophets? Are there any special rules that we need to be aware of when we do that? Well, I think the first thing is we need to know that those are the general tendencies. And then it's very important to realize that metaphor was used not only in the Psalms, but also used by the prophets in all the non-Psalm prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah. The idea is those metaphors would strike the people, once again, in the Psalms or in the other prophets. And in the Psalms, they were for worship. That was the intent to cause us to worship. Whereas in the other prophets, they weren't for worship. They were to cause us to consider. They were to cause us to say, oh, I've done this wrong. I need to repent. So one's intent was repentance or communication of what was going to happen. The other's intent was worship. Okay, so this leads me to the next question. What is God's word to us in our times through these prophets? Well, I think we need to understand that the message to the Israelites was for the Israelites. In other words, it's not the message to us in the same way. But the principles of righteous living, the principles of living in covenant, in the new covenant with God, are included in those prophecies. And those have their application today. In our interpretation, we need to be careful. There's the context of that day. There's the larger context. And those contexts are not the same as our context today. But the truths within the metaphor, the truths within the prophecy, apply to our lives. If we're living in a culture that is lying and stealing and committing adultery and all those things, that's breaking of the new covenant, just as it was a breaking of the old covenant. There was grace in that day and there's grace in this day, but that's not the issue. The issue is we're breaking the covenant. And so that applies to us. You know, I was thinking about this earlier when you were talking about the covenant ramifications of the prophecies that the prophets were giving. So clearly, from Deuteronomy on, you see blessings and you see cursings. But then, when I get to the New Testament and I read the new covenant that Jesus gives later in the book of John and, of course, Matthew chapter 28, when he gives that covenant and then when I continue to read the rest of the New Testament, I see a covenant blessing of what he's doing through us to spread the Great Commission, but I don't see a declaration of covenant curses. What I'm wondering is, is that because Jesus took the curse for us already? Excellent question. I would say yes and no. Okay. Yes, Jesus took the curse for us. And the emphasis in the New Testament is blessing and God's blessing. But there's still discipline, isn't there? That was my next question. Okay. But when one of God's children gets out of line, if I can use that word, God has a way of disciplining us. We're not to be cursed because Jesus has taken the curse. That's Hebrews 12. That's Hebrews 12. Thank you. But that doesn't mean there isn't discipline. And whom God loves, He disciplines. And whom God loves, He disciplines. And the Apostle Paul, in his New Testament epistles, time and again, broaches the topic of discipline of believers. And the reason he does is because people get out of line, if I can use that word. And he says, here's what you do. He says this, as I said, in the epistles time and time again, so that they can walk faithfully with the Lord. So I would say that that's the general gist of what's going on. Okay. Final question as we wrap up. Taking all of this into consideration, how should this knowledge affect our interpretation of prophecy? I would say, be careful. That's the first thing. Be careful. Because we need to understand what sits before us, if I can use that word, in terms of the prophecy. First, I think we need to look at the fact that the prophets were more forth tellers with events in their days than foretellers of events thousands of years later. As we've already established, there's some of that. But we need to understand that a majority of their prophecy was forth telling. They were dealing with events and the lives of the people. So when we begin to interpret it, let's remember that. And that leads me to the second aspect of that, context. What was the context when this prophecy was given? And that leads to the third aspect, prophecy can have a secondary meaning. Okay. Okay. What's the first meaning? Yeah. The first meaning is what it meant then. Right. For those people. The second meaning can be that there are principles of righteous living there. There are principles of who God is there that apply to all of mankind no matter when they're here on earth. So that secondary meaning can be, how to say it, it's just as important for you and me as the primary meaning for them. But that primary meaning for them isn't for us. There's a secondary meaning which is more principle oriented, more applied to the way we live our life than God's going to swoop down on wherever you and I live in the United States of America today and he's going to destroy our village because there's people in our village who are Satanists or something like that. No, no, that's not the way that plays. But there is a very distinct meaning that we need to be living righteous lives in the power of God's Holy Spirit. Not through our own efforts. We can't. But in the power of the Holy Spirit. All right, this has been very enlightening. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, next week, or next episode, let's talk about interpreting parables. Let's talk about that. All right, we'll do that. All right. All right, thanks so much, Steve. Thank you. You've been listening to Truth Rightly Divided, a podcast of PreachItTeachIt.org. Today we've been discussing how to interpret biblical prophecy. This is the fourth in an eight-part series on how to study the Bible. I'm your host, Tom Terry, with PreachItTeachIt.org. Be sure to visit our website for tools and resources to help you craft your sermon or Bible study that you lead. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you again next time on Truth Rightly Divided, a podcast of PreachItTeachIt.org.