Painting by David Roberts (1850)
Have you ever heard the term “newspaper exegesis”? What exactly is “newspaper exegesis”? Well, it’s reading the news headlines into the Bible in an attempt to understand a prophetic scripture instead of letting the Bible speak for itself. Quite honestly in years past I have been guilty of using “newspaper exegesis” in an attempt to interpret the prophetic word of God.
Olivet Discourse
A starting place for anyone studying prophecy is the Lord’s Olivet Discourse found in Matthew chapter 24. A favorite past time of many Christians is to take verses in Matthew 24 out of context and then run over to newspapers (or the internet) to see which prophecy is being fulfilled that day. A favorite topic is the “abomination of desolation.”. This subject, along with the “Antichrist” and “The Mark of the Beast” is the subject of books that are selling by the millions. So what should we think of all this?
First, the word “abomination” appears more than 100 times in the Old Testament and just a few times in the New Testament. An “abomination” is normally a great sin which is usually (...)