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Prophecies Aren’t Predictions of the Future

The Anointed

Well-Known Member
Would be reading about Jonah. Its worship service today. I would be leaving in an hour.



It is God who tells the prophets what would happen. Even before the NT Bible was compiled and bounded, God already knows what would happen one, two and three millennia before the first person could say Matthew.

There is individual free will alright, but God knows the events that would happen.
The end of the world - God already knows when that time will be up.

God the Alpha, the Most high intellect to have developed in the previous cycle of universal activity, is also the omega at the end of each cycle. HE who is both the beginning and the end of each cycle, and who is one with the Alpha, knows exactly what you have done in his past according to your own free will.
But time seems to confuse you all, doesn't it.

Do you know that the Lord God our saviour, has not yet descended from his heights in time, to fill the man Jesus with his spirit, and nor will he, until Elijah appears and gathers to himself the required number of Jews and Gentiles, who are to take their thrones and reign with Christ for the thousand year Sabbath.

For according to the ancient scriptures, it is then, and only then, when Elijah appears, that the only begotten prophet of the Most High, descends and enters the first temple.(The body of Jesus) where he is treated with outrage hung upon a tree, and when the veil of that temple is torn, the spirit of the Lord shall be poured forth as fire upon the Gentiles

Elijah, like Enoch, the only two men in scripture, who were taken into heaven without experiencing death, who, (Enoch) after three thousand years in the valley of man, revealed himself through his obedient earthly host body, 'The Man Jesus,' He (Elijah) has almost been in the valley,of man himself, for three days of one thousand years, and he is soon to appear, when the world has become wholly depraved. for the final destruction of the wicked, and re-establishment of righteousness upon the earth, and the renovation of all creation with the return to a new age of purity.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
Prophets aren’t Fortunetellers or Meteorologists (by C. A. Strine)

How does one explain with any intellectual honesty a Second Coming that Jesus said would come soon but didn’t? As Christopher mentioned in the first post, we believe it comes down to how one understands “predictive prophecy.”

We think that the statements about Jesus’ return in the Gospels are prophecies, which aren’t meant to be predictions of future events. Now that really sounds weird.

Except, it isn’t.

When most people read something called prophecy, especially predictive prophecy, they assume that the statements about the future intend to describe accurately what the prophet understands, through divine inspiration, will actually happen in the future.

We tend to think of prophets like divine meteorologists providing a long-term forecast. Predictions of doom and gloom or images of abundant blessing are taken to be statements about what the future will be like. That’s what prophets do: they tell us now about what things will be like then, some time in the future.

Only that’s not what the Old Testament tells us.

The Book of Jeremiah comes closest to giving a model for how predictive prophecy works, and it is rather different than the “predict the future” model.

Indeed, Jeremiah makes it very clear that some predictive prophecy is not meant to come pass at all.

Let’s look at Jeremiah 18:5-10. This passage explains that God reserves the possibility to change course even after the prophet who speaks on God’s behalf predicts blessing or cursing.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

In other words, God may not send the predicted punishment if the people repent, or conversely withhold a predicted blessing if the people do evil in God’s sight.

Statements about the future are descriptions of how bad it might be, or how abundant God’s blessing could be. It all depends on what people do.

Prophecies are conditional statements. Predictive prophecies explain what is on offer, not what has already been decided.

This dynamic is highlighted later in Jeremiah (ch. 26, to be exact). After having prophesied the destruction of the Temple—obviously not a popular position in Jerusalem—the priests, the prophets, and all the people condemn Jeremiah to death (vv. 7-9) because of his prediction of doom.

But then the elders of the land recall that Micah had predicted a similar fate for Jerusalem. They also recall that, on that occasion, Hezekiah (the king reigning at that time) didn’t try to eliminate Micah because he was irked by his dire prophecy; rather, the threat of destruction provoked Hezekiah to plead with God to spare Jerusalem.

And God did. Crisis averted.

Micah’s prophecy didn’t come to pass, but drove Hezekiah to change his ways. And that made him a good prophet. A very good one indeed.

Prophecy does not simply seek to predict the future, but to change the present. The potential of future disaster is meant to change current behavior, to motivate people to repent, to turn back to God, and to live in a way that will persuade God to hold back judgment.

Or, when blessing is promised, prophecy aims to encourage people to persevere in following God’s commands, to do so with all the more conviction, and to remind them that backsliding into rebellion might convince God not to bestow the good things offered to them at all.

Prophets want to activate certain behaviors in their audiences, not prognosticate future events. They are like parents warning children against foolish behavior and encouraging good behavior, not weather forecasters attempting to tell you whether or not you’ll need an umbrella at noontime tomorrow.

This is the case around the ancient world and the Old Testament (as we discuss in the book
ir
).

Think, for instance, of the book of Jonah. This prophet is no doubt a comic figure, in a comical book, but surely one with a serious point.

Strine-speaking-header-image-180x180.jpg

C. A. (Casey) Strine
Why does Jonah resist going to Nineveh? Precisely because he knew that alerting the people of this foreign nation to the potential of God’s punishment would cause them to change their ways (Jon 4:1-4). Jonah wanted God to punish Nineveh; he knew his “prediction” of punishment could change their behavior and avoid that outcome; so he ran away.

In the book we show how this same view of prophecy lies beneath passages in Isaiah, 2 Samuel, early Jewish texts, and, as Christopher will explain in the next post, the New Testament too.

In the book we show how this same view of prophecy lies beneath passages in Isaiah, 2 Samuel, early Jewish texts, and, as Christopher will explain in the next post, the New Testament too.

Prophets are not fortunetellers or weather forecasters. They are not claiming to predict an inevitable, unchanging future, but to change the way that people live in the present.

When we read predictive prophecy—in the Old Testament, the Gospels, or elsewhere—we need to ask what it wants to activate us to do, not what it might prognosticate about the future.

As we’ll see in our next post, this is just what New Testament shows us.

[Part 3 coming tomorrow . . . ]

See some of Pete’s popular books: The Bible Tells Me So (HarperOne, 2014), Inspiration and Incarnation (Baker 2005/2015), and The Sin of Certainty (HarperOne, 2016).

Prophecies Aren’t Predictions of the Future (You Can Look It Up)


a mind set is predictive of what one realizes. the kingdom of heaven/hell is within the spirit. listen to what the spirit = mind says..........and then watch what happens.


wherever the mind's eye goes the body follows
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
There's a major problem with the "conditional" aspect that is trying to be woven in here (at great, painful length). The blog posts (linked website) first admit that Jesus claimed he'd be back within a generation, and indeed even point out the quote:
Mark 9:1 - Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power

And express their sincere doubts, and inability to accept ideas that perhaps this was Jesus' taking a seat in heaven to rule that was being spoken of.

But then they go on to completely ignore the fact that this statement of Jesus' MARKS A SPECIFIC, PREDICTED TIME.

In other words, it doesn't matter, at all, if "prophecy" as a broader category is based on conditions rather than being set for a specific time. Jesus CALLED OUT A SPECIFIC TIMING HIMSELF. Done deal. Simply ignoring that and trying to cling to "it's conditional" doesn't change the quote, or intent of the quote. It just makes the one clinging look very foolish.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
a mind set is predictive of what one realizes. the kingdom of heaven/hell is within the spirit. listen to what the spirit = mind says..........and then watch what happens.


wherever the mind's eye goes the body follows

I don't understand.
 

MJFlores

Well-Known Member
Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel began his public career before the destruction of the first Temple and was instructed by G-d to bring the attention of the Jews (particularly those already in Babylonia) to the oncoming tragedy.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel • Torah.org

Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel lived AFTER King David.

Your religion is Judaism not Christian
No wonder your views are like that.
So when will the Messiah come?
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Your religion is Judaism not Christian
No wonder your views are like that.
So when will the Messiah come?

David lived BEFORE either Ezekiel or Jeremiah so how could they prophesy the coming of King David. Its a legitimate question.

“And he (Jesus) said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.” (Luke 9:27); Note: A similar verse also occurs in Mark 9:1 and Matthew 16:28.
 

MJFlores

Well-Known Member
God the Alpha, the Most high intellect to have developed in the previous cycle of universal activity, is also the omega at the end of each cycle. HE who is both the beginning and the end of each cycle, and who is one with the Alpha, knows exactly what you have done in his past according to your own free will.
But time seems to confuse you all, doesn't it.

Do you know that the Lord God our saviour, has not yet descended from his heights in time, to fill the man Jesus with his spirit, and nor will he, until Elijah appears and gathers to himself the required number of Jews and Gentiles, who are to take their thrones and reign with Christ for the thousand year Sabbath.

For according to the ancient scriptures, it is then, and only then, when Elijah appears, that the only begotten prophet of the Most High, descends and enters the first temple.(The body of Jesus) where he is treated with outrage hung upon a tree, and when the veil of that temple is torn, the spirit of the Lord shall be poured forth as fire upon the Gentiles

Elijah, like Enoch, the only two men in scripture, who were taken into heaven without experiencing death, who, (Enoch) after three thousand years in the valley of man, revealed himself through his obedient earthly host body, 'The Man Jesus,' He (Elijah) has almost been in the valley,of man himself, for three days of one thousand years, and he is soon to appear, when the world has become wholly depraved. for the final destruction of the wicked, and re-establishment of righteousness upon the earth, and the renovation of all creation with the return to a new age of purity.

These are all of your ideas or the religion which you belong to right?
Couldn't catch a few.
Like you wrote that Jesus was not taken up to heaven but is now wandering on the Earth?
What verse did you read about this?
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Prophets aren’t Fortunetellers or Meteorologists (by C. A. Strine)

How does one explain with any intellectual honesty a Second Coming that Jesus said would come soon but didn’t? As Christopher mentioned in the first post, we believe it comes down to how one understands “predictive prophecy.”

We think that the statements about Jesus’ return in the Gospels are prophecies, which aren’t meant to be predictions of future events. Now that really sounds weird.

Except, it isn’t.

When most people read something called prophecy, especially predictive prophecy, they assume that the statements about the future intend to describe accurately what the prophet understands, through divine inspiration, will actually happen in the future.

We tend to think of prophets like divine meteorologists providing a long-term forecast. Predictions of doom and gloom or images of abundant blessing are taken to be statements about what the future will be like. That’s what prophets do: they tell us now about what things will be like then, some time in the future.

Only that’s not what the Old Testament tells us.

The Book of Jeremiah comes closest to giving a model for how predictive prophecy works, and it is rather different than the “predict the future” model.

Indeed, Jeremiah makes it very clear that some predictive prophecy is not meant to come pass at all.

Let’s look at Jeremiah 18:5-10. This passage explains that God reserves the possibility to change course even after the prophet who speaks on God’s behalf predicts blessing or cursing.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

In other words, God may not send the predicted punishment if the people repent, or conversely withhold a predicted blessing if the people do evil in God’s sight.

Statements about the future are descriptions of how bad it might be, or how abundant God’s blessing could be. It all depends on what people do.

Prophecies are conditional statements. Predictive prophecies explain what is on offer, not what has already been decided.

This dynamic is highlighted later in Jeremiah (ch. 26, to be exact). After having prophesied the destruction of the Temple—obviously not a popular position in Jerusalem—the priests, the prophets, and all the people condemn Jeremiah to death (vv. 7-9) because of his prediction of doom.

But then the elders of the land recall that Micah had predicted a similar fate for Jerusalem. They also recall that, on that occasion, Hezekiah (the king reigning at that time) didn’t try to eliminate Micah because he was irked by his dire prophecy; rather, the threat of destruction provoked Hezekiah to plead with God to spare Jerusalem.

And God did. Crisis averted.

Micah’s prophecy didn’t come to pass, but drove Hezekiah to change his ways. And that made him a good prophet. A very good one indeed.

Prophecy does not simply seek to predict the future, but to change the present. The potential of future disaster is meant to change current behavior, to motivate people to repent, to turn back to God, and to live in a way that will persuade God to hold back judgment.

Or, when blessing is promised, prophecy aims to encourage people to persevere in following God’s commands, to do so with all the more conviction, and to remind them that backsliding into rebellion might convince God not to bestow the good things offered to them at all.

Prophets want to activate certain behaviors in their audiences, not prognosticate future events. They are like parents warning children against foolish behavior and encouraging good behavior, not weather forecasters attempting to tell you whether or not you’ll need an umbrella at noontime tomorrow.

This is the case around the ancient world and the Old Testament (as we discuss in the book
ir
).

Think, for instance, of the book of Jonah. This prophet is no doubt a comic figure, in a comical book, but surely one with a serious point.

Strine-speaking-header-image-180x180.jpg

C. A. (Casey) Strine
Why does Jonah resist going to Nineveh? Precisely because he knew that alerting the people of this foreign nation to the potential of God’s punishment would cause them to change their ways (Jon 4:1-4). Jonah wanted God to punish Nineveh; he knew his “prediction” of punishment could change their behavior and avoid that outcome; so he ran away.

In the book we show how this same view of prophecy lies beneath passages in Isaiah, 2 Samuel, early Jewish texts, and, as Christopher will explain in the next post, the New Testament too.

In the book we show how this same view of prophecy lies beneath passages in Isaiah, 2 Samuel, early Jewish texts, and, as Christopher will explain in the next post, the New Testament too.

Prophets are not fortunetellers or weather forecasters. They are not claiming to predict an inevitable, unchanging future, but to change the way that people live in the present.

When we read predictive prophecy—in the Old Testament, the Gospels, or elsewhere—we need to ask what it wants to activate us to do, not what it might prognosticate about the future.

As we’ll see in our next post, this is just what New Testament shows us.

[Part 3 coming tomorrow . . . ]

See some of Pete’s popular books: The Bible Tells Me So (HarperOne, 2014), Inspiration and Incarnation (Baker 2005/2015), and The Sin of Certainty (HarperOne, 2016).

Prophecies Aren’t Predictions of the Future (You Can Look It Up)
I have real trouble not taking this as excuse-making by someone coming to grips with the fact that their prophecies failed.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
I have real trouble not taking this as excuse-making by someone coming to grips with the fact that their prophecies failed.

Lots of prophesies have failed.. most notably prophesies about Babylon, Egypt, Damascus and Tyre..Perhaps the fault lies in OUR DEFINITION of what is a prophet???
 

MJFlores

Well-Known Member
David lived BEFORE either Ezekiel or Jeremiah so how could they prophesy the coming of King David. Its a legitimate question.

“And he (Jesus) said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.” (Luke 9:27); Note: A similar verse also occurs in Mark 9:1 and Matthew 16:28.

I could not match your 1st paragraph to your 2nd paragraph.
could you review both of them and maybe rephrase your post?
Thanks.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
I don't understand.
it has to do with the idea of recognizing one's own thought processes as possibly healthy/unhealthy.


if one is born of the Spirit, then one is born of the psychic, the mind, then obviously one's thoughts tend to lead to one's actions.


Matt 6:22-6:23 NIV “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

Strong's G3788

ophthalmos
  1. the eye

  2. metaph. the eyes of the mind, the faculty of knowing

spirit = mind not incorporeal, or not in earthly matter.
psyche = soul = mind in corporeal, or earthly matter.



what's on your mind? spirit?


 
Last edited:

sooda

Veteran Member
I could not match your 1st paragraph to your 2nd paragraph.
could you review both of them and maybe rephrase your post?
Thanks.

They are separate paragraphs. Jesus tells us when he will return..

Ezekiel and Jeremiah couldn't have prophesied about the future King David because both were born after king David.

The issue here is what does a prophet do... Is he a fortuneteller? Maybe we are stuck in some childish notion that prophets foretell the future..
 

MJFlores

Well-Known Member
Ezekiel and Jeremiah couldn't have prophesied about the future King David because both were born after king David.

Maybe if you could give the verse were Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied then everything would be clearer.
Really poofed out on this.
 

InvestigateTruth

Well-Known Member
Prophets aren’t Fortunetellers or Meteorologists (by C. A. Strine)

How does one explain with any intellectual honesty a Second Coming that Jesus said would come soon but didn’t? As Christopher mentioned in the first post, we believe it comes down to how one understands “predictive prophecy.”

We think that the statements about Jesus’ return in the Gospels are prophecies, which aren’t meant to be predictions of future events. Now that really sounds weird.

Except, it isn’t.

When most people read something called prophecy, especially predictive prophecy, they assume that the statements about the future intend to describe accurately what the prophet understands, through divine inspiration, will actually happen in the future.

We tend to think of prophets like divine meteorologists providing a long-term forecast. Predictions of doom and gloom or images of abundant blessing are taken to be statements about what the future will be like. That’s what prophets do: they tell us now about what things will be like then, some time in the future.

Only that’s not what the Old Testament tells us.

The Book of Jeremiah comes closest to giving a model for how predictive prophecy works, and it is rather different than the “predict the future” model.

Indeed, Jeremiah makes it very clear that some predictive prophecy is not meant to come pass at all.

Let’s look at Jeremiah 18:5-10. This passage explains that God reserves the possibility to change course even after the prophet who speaks on God’s behalf predicts blessing or cursing.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

In other words, God may not send the predicted punishment if the people repent, or conversely withhold a predicted blessing if the people do evil in God’s sight.

Statements about the future are descriptions of how bad it might be, or how abundant God’s blessing could be. It all depends on what people do.

Prophecies are conditional statements. Predictive prophecies explain what is on offer, not what has already been decided.

This dynamic is highlighted later in Jeremiah (ch. 26, to be exact). After having prophesied the destruction of the Temple—obviously not a popular position in Jerusalem—the priests, the prophets, and all the people condemn Jeremiah to death (vv. 7-9) because of his prediction of doom.

But then the elders of the land recall that Micah had predicted a similar fate for Jerusalem. They also recall that, on that occasion, Hezekiah (the king reigning at that time) didn’t try to eliminate Micah because he was irked by his dire prophecy; rather, the threat of destruction provoked Hezekiah to plead with God to spare Jerusalem.

And God did. Crisis averted.

Micah’s prophecy didn’t come to pass, but drove Hezekiah to change his ways. And that made him a good prophet. A very good one indeed.

Prophecy does not simply seek to predict the future, but to change the present. The potential of future disaster is meant to change current behavior, to motivate people to repent, to turn back to God, and to live in a way that will persuade God to hold back judgment.

Or, when blessing is promised, prophecy aims to encourage people to persevere in following God’s commands, to do so with all the more conviction, and to remind them that backsliding into rebellion might convince God not to bestow the good things offered to them at all.

Prophets want to activate certain behaviors in their audiences, not prognosticate future events. They are like parents warning children against foolish behavior and encouraging good behavior, not weather forecasters attempting to tell you whether or not you’ll need an umbrella at noontime tomorrow.

This is the case around the ancient world and the Old Testament (as we discuss in the book
ir
).

Think, for instance, of the book of Jonah. This prophet is no doubt a comic figure, in a comical book, but surely one with a serious point.

Strine-speaking-header-image-180x180.jpg

C. A. (Casey) Strine
Why does Jonah resist going to Nineveh? Precisely because he knew that alerting the people of this foreign nation to the potential of God’s punishment would cause them to change their ways (Jon 4:1-4). Jonah wanted God to punish Nineveh; he knew his “prediction” of punishment could change their behavior and avoid that outcome; so he ran away.

In the book we show how this same view of prophecy lies beneath passages in Isaiah, 2 Samuel, early Jewish texts, and, as Christopher will explain in the next post, the New Testament too.

In the book we show how this same view of prophecy lies beneath passages in Isaiah, 2 Samuel, early Jewish texts, and, as Christopher will explain in the next post, the New Testament too.

Prophets are not fortunetellers or weather forecasters. They are not claiming to predict an inevitable, unchanging future, but to change the way that people live in the present.

When we read predictive prophecy—in the Old Testament, the Gospels, or elsewhere—we need to ask what it wants to activate us to do, not what it might prognosticate about the future.

As we’ll see in our next post, this is just what New Testament shows us.

[Part 3 coming tomorrow . . . ]

See some of Pete’s popular books: The Bible Tells Me So (HarperOne, 2014), Inspiration and Incarnation (Baker 2005/2015), and The Sin of Certainty (HarperOne, 2016).

Prophecies Aren’t Predictions of the Future (You Can Look It Up)
The Return of Christ was a Promise in the Bible. God will not change His Promise, and will not Fail to fulfil what He promised. But I agree with the concept of God changing His mind about the time of Return of Christ. God can delay a promise depending how humanity performs. As you may know Baha'is believe Bahaullah is the return of Christ.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
The Return of Christ was a Promise in the Bible. God will not change His Promise, and will not Fail to fulfil what He promised. But I agree with the concept of God changing His mind about the time of Return of Christ. God can delay a promise depending how humanity performs. As you may know Baha'is believe Bahaullah is the return of Christ.

Open ended prophesy? That's vague enough to be Nostradamus .
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Maybe if you could give the verse were Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied then everything would be clearer.
Really poofed out on this.

Wasn't it you who claimed they predicted the coming of King David a few pages back?
 
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