A special blessing is attached to the reading and hearing of God's Word. What a blessing to have it! Thanks be to the Most High, the Speaking God!
A question: Given this great blessing, what has happened to the public reading of God's Word in our Evangelical Churches?
See Poole's Synopsis on this Verse.
Dear Mrs. Smith,
I am glad that the study is proving helpful. Praise the Lord.
With respect to your question, although God has revealed future things in Revelation, they are best assessed in light of their fulfillments and after the fact, especially the prophecies concerning concerning "times and seasons". Some of this will become clearer when we get into the prophetic portion of the Book, but in the meantime, think of it as being like unto a man walking backwards. Looking over the trail already traveled, he can see quite clearly (things already fulfilled), but his peripheral vision is less clear (things present). However, what is yet behind him (future things) are still very much in the dark. This dawned on me the first time I read through Elliott's Horae: The further back in the past he was looking, the more persuasive his interpretation; he is less persuasive concerning things being fulfilled in his own time; he is not at all persuasive about things yet future to him (except in the most general way).
If this explanation is not particularly helpful, keep the question in mind; we will get into some of this in detail later, especially concerning the interpretation of the 1260 days, and when that period starts and ends.
--Dr. Dilday
We are being blessed by the convenience, and thus, the accessibility of this study on the Book of Revelation! The hyperlinks to scripture, the words translated into Greek, and the translation of Matthew Poole's Synopsis from Latin into Greek--by these tools, we enjoy the commentary of several 16th-century (and earlier) Bible scholars, all in one convenient place, giving ready access to their thoughts on the many questions which we may have raised in our past attempts to read through the Scriptures, apart from the use of commentaries.
Please comment on Acts 1:7, which was referenced in Poole's Synopsis on Revelation 1:3. Jesus told his disciples it was not for them to know the times or the seasons which the Father had put in his own power. Here the words of our LORD sounded final; he did not use the word yet. How do these words conjoin with the Father's desire to give revelation to his servants in the Book of Revelation?