Tuesday Morning Theology August 18
Evidences of the truth of the Bible: Part 1: Prophetic Evidence
(quick commercial: there's a Youtube Video out there explaining how the Lord Jesus Christ gave us the name of the Anti-Christ, and that name was: Barak U-Bam-aw! Daniel Wallace is one of several excellent scholars in New Testament languages. He writes the books that smart people read to get smarter on the subject. He's got a response here. Check it out)
The next few weeks, TMT will focus on how we can know the Bible is accurate and truthful. While I firmly believe that the Christian faith hinges on the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, our evidence of this, all we know about it, originates in the Bible. So, knowing how we can know the Bible is a critical building block. Why does it matter? Well, I'm sitting in a concrete block building. I know it won't fall in on my head. Why? Because I know that the concrete blocks are sound. If we know the Bible is sound, we can know whether or not our faith is sound.
There's a variety of evidences that can be used. Today, we'll start with prophetic evidence. Why? Prophetic evidence is the least likely to be trusted by non-believers, and so I want to start there. We'll look at the prophetic evidences of Scripture, then the historic evidences, and see that since we can trust the latter, we can also trust the former.
So, what is prophetic evidence ? Simply put, I class as prophetic evidence those statements made in the Bible that clearly related to the future that have come to pass in the manner mentioned. Generally, it's not hard to discern these statements. For example, Ezekiel 26:14 speaks to a specific fate for the city of Tyre. There is no theory of Scripture that places the words after the fact in this case. It is a statement of what will happen in the future. Likewise Micah 5:2 is a prophecy of the place of birth of the Messiah.
Prophetic evidence is not: 1.) that there are prophecies in Scripture; 2.) Any prophecy that has not been fulfilled, such as those of the end of the world; 3.) based on shaky interpretations of Scripture, such as assuming a prophetic statement when it is not evident. Note that I believe that there are prophecies in Scripture, that some have not been fulfilled, and that some of them might be less obvious, but these result in more debate than evidence.
Next week we'll look at some examples of prophetic evidence .
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