How hard can it be to read and understand personal correspondence?

This definition is one of the best available to deal with the very aspects that are raised here.

The Alleged Double Sense of Prophecy

• The Alleged Double Sense of Prophecy

• The key to all this is an idea derived from our ancient heritage that has been newly rediscovered in this century (from the Antiochian school of interpretation, with its view of theoria, from the fifth to seventh centuries A.D.).

• That crucial idea is that there are three aspects to prophecy, not two.

• These three parts are

• 1. The predicted word that preceded the event toward which it pointed;

The Alleged Double Sense of Prophecy

• The Alleged Double Sense of Prophecy

• 2. The historic means by which God kept that predicted word alive for each succeeding generation, by giving what amounts to down payments that connected the first announcement of the word with its climactic fulfillment; and

• 3. The ultimate fulfillment of that word in the NT era of the First Advent, or in the days of the Second Advent.

• Each fulfillment is thus at once a partial realization of what had been promised and a continuation of the word pointing to the future climactic fulfillment.

The Characteristics of Biblical Prophecy

• The Characteristics of Biblical Prophecy

The art and discipline of using the Bible in one’s devotional life is fast becoming a lost habit of the heart, mind, and soul.

• The art and discipline of using the Bible in one’s devotional life is fast becoming a lost habit of the heart, mind, and soul.

• For those who still do attempt to maintain a regular daily devotional practice, it frequently may involve reading a half page of heavily illustrated comments in a devotional guide printed on very small pages, easily digested in a matter of minutes, and ostensibly centered on a verse, clause, or phrase of Scripture.

• Unfortunately, the biblical portions, meager as they are, are frequently detached from their scriptural contexts and often reflect little or no connection with the purpose that they originally held in their canonical settings.

If this problem is more acute in recent years than before, it certainly is not a new issue for the body of Christ.

• If this problem is more acute in recent years than before, it certainly is not a new issue for the body of Christ.

• The problem is not new; near the beginning of the 20th c. Wilbert W. White, founder of a seminary in New York, spotted this same weakness in the Bible reading and study habits of that day.

• In an attempt to meet that need, he developed what has become known as the inductive method of Bible study.

• Dr. White’s principal goal was to train readers of the Bible in developing for themselves a way that they could independently gather from the text of Scripture original ideas that would help them to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Moreover, it was his hope that those who had discovered this new method of systematically and inductively gathering from the text of Scripture its teachings would go out and teach others also, thereby causing the benefits of this new devotional use of the Bible to expand.

• Moreover, it was his hope that those who had discovered this new method of systematically and inductively gathering from the text of Scripture its teachings would go out and teach others also, thereby causing the benefits of this new devotional use of the Bible to expand.

• In time, this inductive method became quite famous, so that today there are a host of users of this approach.

• Without it being called the inductive method today, it is especially noticeable in the parachurch ministries of the last four or five decades and in several Bible study guides.

This method has honed the special patience of the reader, who carefully sits with a text and steadily observes it until the text has mastered the observer, rather than the observer mastering the text.

• This method has honed the special patience of the reader, who carefully sits with a text and steadily observes it until the text has mastered the observer, rather than the observer mastering the text.

• Whether a strict inductive method is followed or not, believers ought to give serious attention to their devotional use of the Scripture.

Definition

• Definition

• The devotional method of studying the Bible is rooted in a strong desire to find in the scriptural texts solid applications to one’s everyday life.

• Such study is not motivated by intellectual, historical, or critical curiosities; instead, it involves a strong commitment to seeing changes in one’s own attitudes, values, and actions.

• The terms devotion and devotional method are linked with the verb to devote, which in Webster’s Dictionary is defined as a solemn act of dedication involving the giving of one’s self wholly, as the focus of one’s attention is centered completely on the other.

Definition

• Definition

• Thus the major goal in the exercise of the devotional reading of Scripture is not the mastery of God but God’s mastery of the reader, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, as each reader uses the Word of God as a challenge to making progress in Christian growth and fruit.

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