Removing, Adding, And Twisting: Three Incorrect Approaches To Biblical Prophecy With Disastrous Consequ

...Considering that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10) and Christ frequently urged the church to “watch” for the season of His return (Matt. 24:42), the position of rejecting Biblical prophecy is an untenable position for any believer to take. It is also deeply damaging, leaving us with an incomplete picture of God’s plan of redemption, and having a ripple effect through our understanding of Scripture....

...The apostles not only used Bible prophecy as a witnessing tool to showcase the authenticity of Jesus Christ, but they also considered the topic to be essential to a Christian’s understanding from the very beginning of their walk with the Lord. Equipped with knowledge about the future from Scripture, Christians are encouraged (1 Thess. 4:18, Luke 21:28, 2 Peter 1:19), filled with hope (Titus 2:13, Phil. 3:20), receive special blessings (Rev. 1:3), and are promised rewards in eternity (2 Tim. 4:8)...

Good article. The writer brings out good points that we should all heed. Adding to the scriptures is probably the most common thing I've seen in the past several years, especially date setting.

David Wilkerson's book "The Vision" had many parts come true already, but he tended to shift to date setting in some parts, especially when he prophesied about a natural calamity taking place somewhere in US. I believe he said it would happen within 5-10 years but it never did. IMO, if he would have left that out his prediction would be more credible cuz I believe that prediction will come true, just not when we expect it.

Bottom line, I read an article many years back that says we will not understand everything spoken of in the Bible, especially concerning prophesy, until we get to the other side, and I believe that. So while, yes, we need to study it, we won't totally understand it all until Jesus opens our eyes. Ref Luke 24:31. God bless you all.

What biblical translation says “WATCH for the SEASON of his return?” This seems to be a complete invention, of mischeif-making false prophets. The text (I’ll use King James here since I believe I’m talking to Protestants mostly) says “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming” which pretty much says the opposite message:

You DON’T know when he’s coming, where your butchering of the text implies that you SHOULD know when he’s coming, if you’re being faithful and watching for the SEASON. “Watch” (the false text) suggests you should be looking for something beforehand, whereas “Be alert” (the actual text) means merely that you should be ready in case it happens. “The season” implies that there will be indicators to look out for, but that’s a pure invention since the text says, “you do not know which day” which suggests, as it does other places in the bible, that you can’t know until the day arrives.

Talk about twisting prophecy!!!!

No need for anything else or anyone else. God, the Bible, and me

I empathetie with your intent, but it goes against the command the Risen Lord Jesus Messiah gave to His primary disciple.Apostles just before His ascension to His rightful position in Heaven.

Matthew 28:18-20 (AV):

¹⁸And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
¹⁹Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
²⁰Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

God has appointed spiritually mature men to go about, declaring the Scripture Truth, helping a person to become fully persuaded that Jesus Saves humans from Satan's grasp, protects them, inducts the rescued person into a local regular company of professing allegiance to the Jesus of the Bible, and congregating the for instruction of how to be fit for their own service to Him as He did the person who faithfully abd correctly brought the redeeming news to that person.

The truly mature herald and teacher of the Gospel will share what he/she has learned from the inspired Holy Scriptures or a relible translation of God's Word, and guide you, as you desire, to check the Word for yourself to see if what he/she has said be so.

Acts 17:10-12 (AV):

¹⁰And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.
^:11These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
¹²herefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.

Please do not convince yourself that there is not someone superior to you in what the Holy Spirit has said in a certain passage of the Scripture. You need to find such people in a local assembly and associate with them. And perhaps the Spirit is continually showing truths that you might share. The purpose of a Christ-led gathering is exactly formed by His command for that purpose.

2 Timothy 3:14-16 (AV):

¹⁴But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
¹⁵And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
¹⁶All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
¹⁷That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

the Spielberg movie is just a bad movie - no need to even consider it. it isn't belief-shattering - for that to have been the case the movie would have to have been released in 1957. The story has been done to death and is badly written in any case - boring.

Now to the article - this is such a timely and sober reminder. The author is spot on: when we anchor our faith in shifting cultural headlines, political speculations, or Hollywood disclosures, we naturally end up twisting or adding to the truth to comfort our own anxieties.

The remedy to this isn't to look harder at the sky or try to decode current events; it is to look at the consistent, beautiful reality of the Incarnation. God didn't leave us alone with a checklist of future predictions or a message hidden in code. The grand arc of biblical prophecy has always pointed to one magnificent reality: Emmanuel, God physically with us.

When Jesus walked the earth, He didn't offer His followers abstract theories or wild metaphors; He physically touched the sick, healed the broken, and gave Himself completely to satisfy the deepest existential hunger of the human heart. The ultimate defense against deception isn't an internet education on the end times, but a lived intimacy with the Creator who promised never to abandon us to mere symbols. The ancient, historical path of faith has always kept its eyes fixed on the Lord God Jesus Christ—the living threshold where the transcendent God steps into our physical reality, transforming ordinary things into an overflowing well of divine life. When we are physically anchored in Him, the noise of the world loses its power to deceive.

Disambiguator - you give the movie too much credit.

Spielberg made his noises to generate “buzz” for a stinker of a movie.

Think of it “aliens come and message a person” - how many times have you seen that movie plot line? I can think of independence day, ET, plan 9 from outer space, any number of twilight zone episodes, Guardians of the galaxy etc.

the storyline is boring - been there, done that.

the acting, with the exception of Emily Blunt, are not believable. And the pacing is poor.

Don’t protest it - that’s the ‘buzz’ that the movie is looking for. just ignore it. Don’t pay money to watch it, and don’t give free advertising to it

governer D 'All I know is God gave us his Words in the Bible. The Holy Spirit helps us in our reading of His Word. No need for anything else or anyone else. God, the Bible, and me'

And how did:

God write those words in the Biblical books (the bible consists of multiple books)? -- hint, it was the Holy spirit guiding human authors
God tell us which books are to be included in this collection of books called the Bible (it is a plural word, the singular is Biblion)? - hint, it was the Holy Spirit guiding the Church that Jesus set up at Pentecost in 33 AD

The idea of "God, the Bible, and me" sounds deeply pious, but "only the Bible and me" is actually profoundly unbiblical. The Bible itself never teaches that an individual with a Bible is completely self-sufficient.

In fact, Scripture explicitly warns against private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20) and states that the church—not an isolated individual—is the "pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15).

God loved us too much to leave us completely isolated as an island—just "the Bible and me." From the very beginning of the New Testament, faith was never meant to be a solo journey in a vacuum. >When the Ethiopian eunuch was reading the scriptures in the Book of Acts, God didn't just tell him to figure it out alone; He sent Philip to walk alongside him and guide him into the full truth.

Christianity is fundamentally a family. The same Holy Spirit who breathes life into the text of the Bible has been guiding a continuous, living community of believers for two thousand years, passing down the fire of faith from generation to generation without a break. When we cut ourselves off from that deep, historic stream of Christian history, we lose the incredible wealth of how the earliest Christians lived, worshipped, and died for Christ.

The written Word is a magnificent gift, but the grand climax of God’s love wasn't a book sent down from heaven—it was the Word becoming Flesh.

Jesus came to establish a real, living, visible kingdom on earth where we can not only read about Him, but physically gather around His table, enter into His supernatural life, and receive His literal embrace through the tools of grace He left behind.

True intimacy with God doesn't mean being alone with a text; it means stepping into the full, breathtaking inheritance of the entire household of faith.

If you look at the earliest history of that family, the historical record is beautifully clear:

those first Christians didn't just read together;

they immediately gathered around a visible structure of bishops and priests who had been directly ordained by the Apostles themselves.

When St. Ignatius of Antioch was being led to the Roman Colosseum to face the lions in 107 AD—Ignatius was a man who literally learned the faith from the Apostle John—he wrote to the churches telling them to prize their bishops, because it was through this direct, physical chain of apostolic succession that the true, physical presence of Christ in the bread and wine was protected from division.
The deep, historic stream of the Christian family isn't an abstract concept; it is a real, traceable family tree that connects our modern altars directly back to the Upper Room.

God’s covenants are never purely invisible or abstract; they are always physical, historical, and structural.

Just as God established a visible, structured kingdom for Israel with a literal priesthood, a literal temple, and physical sacrifices, Christ did not downgrade the New Covenant into a purely invisible, disorganized cloud of individual believers wandering alone with a text.

He established a visible, global Kingdom—His Church—that literally fulfills the Old Testament prophecies. On the Altar, the physical reality of the New Covenant is realized every single day. We don't have to wait for a future dispensation to experience the physical, kingly presence of Christ; He reigns tangibly among us right now, transforming ordinary bread and wine into the true bread of heaven, exactly as he promised.

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