The second book in Logos Bible Software’s “How to Read the Bible” collection is “A Concise Guide to Bible Prophecy: 60 Predictions Everyone Should Know” by Stan Guthrie. This is book is an introductory level book that is designed to put some of the most important (and often misunderstood) prophesies all in one place. The introduction gave me the impression he was going to cover 60 misunderstood prophesies. Honestly, I think that would have been a better book! He could have explained the common misconception and then done solid exegesis to show us what he thinks the verses are really saying.
I wasn’t nearly as impressed with this book as I was with Strauss’ book in the previous post. If you ran across these prophesies in study you would probably already be looking in some sort of commentary that is dealing with the verse in context. I was also confused by the “Application” section at the end of each prophesy. His application was a single sentence principle derived from the prophesy rather than an actual application. In other words the application was just a single truth to remember about the prophesy and not anything about how the prophesy actually applies to us. “Key principle” would have been a better label for those. The last thing I wasn’t as impressed with is that his presupposition, stated in the beginning of the book, is that every prophesy of scripture ultimately points back to Christ. I don’t really agree with that. There are many prophesies about many other things that don’t find fulfillment in Christ.
The best part of the book are his illustrations to help you wrap your mind about the prophesy. Other than that, I don’t think this book offered up too much that was unique that you couldn’t get anywhere else. It was more about putting these prophesies all in one place than anything else. I would rather study them in context. Just my two cents. His book (also in this series) “All That Jesus Asks” appears to me to be far superior to this one.
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So why do we so often go astray when handling prophecy? Because we don’t know the how. First and foremost, we take prophecy out of its biblical context. Ignorant of biblical history, we assume that nearly every prophecy speaks to our modern situation. We need to study the principles of biblical interpretation and grasp what the prophecies meant to their original audiences before we mine them for current applications. My book can help you get started.
So why do we so often go astray when handling prophecy? Because we don’t know the how. First and foremost, we take prophecy out of its biblical context. Ignorant of biblical history, we assume that nearly every prophecy speaks to our modern situation. We need to study the principles of biblical interpretation and grasp what the prophecies meant to their original audiences before we mine them for current applications. My book can help you get started.