Why Study Prophecy? A 6-Day Study by Dr. Tony EvansSample

PROPHECY HELPS AUTHENTICATE THE BIBLE

One of the questions people often ask is how we Christians can claim that the Bible is true as opposed to any other holy book. What makes the Bible distinct from other writings that claim to be from God?

The Bible’s Prophetic Accuracy

There are many answers to that question, but one thing that sets the Bible apart is its prophetic accuracy. A large portion of biblical prophecy has already been fulfilled with flawless exactness. Events that one author wrote about were fulfilled precisely hundreds of years later.

One of the classic examples is the prophecy of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem by the prophet Micah more than seven hundred years before the event (Mic. 5:2; Matt. 2:1–6). If Bethlehem had been a major metropolis in Israel, someone could argue it was a good guess. But Micah pinpointed an obscure village because he spoke the mind of God. The fulfillment of prophecies like this helps to validate the truth of the Bible.

Of course, Micah’s prophecy is just one of several hundred biblical prophecies that were fulfilled in Christ’s first coming alone. This validation of the Bible by prophecy is a strong argument to believe the many prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled.

The Divine Origin of Prophecy

In 2 Peter 1:20–21, the apostle wrote, “Know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” The accuracy of the Bible’s predictions should not surprise us, because this was not human writers doing guesswork. Prophetic Scripture is accurate in all of its details because God moved the authors to record what was said.

Someone who was good with numbers and probabilities figured out that it would require 100 billion earths populated with 8 billion people each to come up with one person who could achieve 100 prophecies accurately without any errors in sequence. In other words, it would be impossible. But the Bible contains hundreds of prophecies that have already come true. That’s because it’s not based on chance, but on the eternal knowledge of God.

Studying biblical prophecy is like riding a spacecraft far out into space. Ever since we launched our space program in the US, we’ve learned more about earth, because when you get that high, you can learn new information about things like weather patterns and natural resources.

That’s what prophecy is like. It takes you above the limitations of time and space so you can get outside your immediate circumstances and see things from the standpoint of the bigger picture.