Swine Flu and the Book of Revelation
On Wednesday, April 29, I was teaching a class entitled “Biblical Interpretation for Ministry.” Gary Hall, my colleague who teaches Old Testament, and I developed the class more than a decade ago. One of its goals is to equip our students with proper principles for interpreting the various genres of the Bible (e.g., legal material, narratives, etc.). This week’s focus was on how to interpret the prophetic and apocalyptic materials in the Old and New Testament.
When it came time for me to lecture, I introduced the material on Revelation by remarking that I had no doubt that if I were “to google” and do a search on “Swine Flu and Biblical Prophecy,” I would get numerous hits. After the class I returned to my office to have a bit of lunch and grade papers. But I decided to sit at the computer and do the search. I typed in “Swine Flu and Biblical Prophecy.”
Surprise! Surprise! I discovered that there are those biblical prophecy experts who are truly trying to show that the swine flu pandemic is linked with certain prophetic passages. I admit that I did not click on any of them to see what they were saying. I have done so with such searches on “Hurricane Katrina and Biblical Prophecy,” “Iraq and Biblical Prophecy,” “President Obama and Biblical Prophecy,” and “Israel in Biblical Prophecy.”
I have better things to do with my time than to be doing such hits. Why not read the Old Testament passages and let them help me understand John’s message in Revelation, focusing on what it meant for the original readers and then drawing from that same message implications and application for Christians today?
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If these “prophecy experts” could look at the Bible and predict something catastrophic coming then i might lend them my ear. How easy is it to rip a verse out of it’s context and apply it to something that has ALREADY HAPPENED?!?!