Interpreting Scripture: the Bible’S Own Guidance 325
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Vol. 88 No. 1,041 September 2018 TESTIMONY For the study and defence of the holy Scripture Interpreting Scripture: The Bible’s own guidance 325 Also in this issue: Your Letters: Gehenna 328 Israel: apartheid state? 337 Reconsidering Samson (review) 350 Contents Our response to the Lord’s sacrifice 351 TESTIMONY Publishing Editor: JEREMY THOMAS. 22 Kingswood Close, Kings Norton, Birmingham, B30 3NX. Tel. 0121 444 6810; Contents email: [email protected] Section Editors: Publishing Editor’s column 317 Bible Workshop DAVID BURGES. 7 Whitehead The healing of the paralysed Miriam of Masada Drive, Wellesbourne, Warwick, man Barbara Booker CV35 9PW. Tel. 01789 842692; 319 David Burges email: [email protected] 336 “In the days when the Science; Archaeology Israel’s nation-state law judges ruled” Shaun Maher EDWARD CARR. 46 New Street, 7. Unity and strife 337 Donisthorpe, DE12 7PG. Peter Forbes 321 Latter-day prophecies Tel. 01530 271522; 3. The controversy of Zion email: [email protected] Insights into the divine mind Eric Marshall 340 Exhortation ‘Authorial comments’ in Tyre, Tarshish and Brexit SHAUN MAHER. 5 Birch Court, Scripture Doune, FK16 6JD. Jamie Whittaker 325 Taking a closer look at Tel. 01786 842996; Isaiah 23 (2) email: [email protected] Your Letters Jeremy Thomas 345 Watchman The story of Gehenna 328 Gehenna and anti- A much-maligned character The Pines, ERIC MARSHALL. Semitism 328 reappraised (Review) Ling Common Road, Castle Geoff Henstock 350 Rising, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, “All things work together PE31 6AE. Tel. 01553 631279; Discerning the body of for good to those who love email: [email protected] the Lord God” Exposition Brian Armour David Nicholls 329 351 JEREMY THOMAS (see above) Give attendance to reading . Genesis in the light of Principles, preaching and in October problems modern discovery Geoff Henstock 354 Paul M. Genders 331 GEOFF HENSTOCK. 13 Alpha York scenes Crescent, Panorama 5041, Elijah—man of prayer 7. Medieval churches S. Australia. Tel. 8277-0730; email: Peter Banyard [email protected] 333 Neil Galilee XVI Australia Editor; Prophecy; Reviews Testimony books Articles for publication Articles to be considered for publication are welcome and should be Testimony website: forwarded to the Publishing Editor (in Australia, the local editor) in the http://testimonymagazine.com first instance. Publication of articles in the Testimony does not presume editorial endorsement except on matters of fundamental doctrine, as defined in the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith. XV “A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a rock garden locked, a spring sealed up. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, henna with nard plants, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, along with all the finest spices” (Song of Solomon 4:12-14, NASB). “The pomegranate tree, punica granatum, is usually small and bush-like, but may occasionally become a large branching shrub or a small tree reaching a height of 20 or 30 feet . The pomegranate . has been cultivated since prehistoric times and is now common in the Holy Land, Egypt, and along both shores of the Mediterranean” (H.N. & A.L. Moldenke, Plants of the Bible, p. 190). Cover picture: Pomegranate Publishing Editor’s column AST MONTH’S Watchman article “Europe To many commentators these growth levels at the crossroads”1 reported a statement, are unrealistic, given that Greece’s working Lmade in June this year, in which European population is contracting by about 1.1% per an- Union Commissioner Pierre Moscovici antici- num—the country cannot grow economically pated the end of the EU’s eight-year debt-relief while its workforce is shrinking. Add to this the deal for Greece in the near future. Following expected increase in interest rates on Greece’s its 2007–8 debt crisis, the Greek government re- remaining loans, and it is not difficult to see the quired colossal loans of almost €300 billion, the country slipping back into deep trouble within biggest ‘bail-out’ in global financial history, for a generation. the country to prevent a default on its commit- In truth, Greece’s troubles may only have been ments to its creditors (effectively, to avoid going ‘kicked into the long grass.’ Professor Charles bankrupt). On 20 August, as predicted, Greece Wyplosz, a consultant to the IMF and to a number officially exited the debt-relief deal. Its govern- of other major international organisations, has ment is again free to borrow on international said that Greece has been “put to sleep under financial markets to fund its spending commit- anaesthesia”—and that the Greeks will one day ments. have to wake up from this sleep and “feel the The end of the deal has been greeted with p a i n .” sighs of relief across the eurozone, which at one stage appeared to be facing an existential threat Counting the personal cost from the crisis. The Greek prime minister, Alexis Perhaps the most distressing aspect of Greece’s Tsipras, optimistically called 20 August “a day financial woes has been the cost in human terms. of liberation.” Yet the difficulties still faced by Up to half-a-million Greeks, most of them young, Greece are considerable. Strict financial controls are thought to have departed the country. This set by the EU will remain in place until 2060, in turn leaves the country short of potential the earliest date by which Greece is expected to taxpayers, central government’s principal source be back to ‘square one.’ Gross domestic product of income. Unemployment is running at forty (the total value of goods and services produced) per cent amongst the young, many of whom is only three-quarters of its pre-crisis figure. despair of ever being able to make a living for Whilst Greece’s economy is now inching in the themselves. For those who still have jobs, wages right direction, the International Monetary Fund are typically thirty-five per cent lower than a (IMF) has observed that her projected return to decade ago. Pension payments to the elderly financial stability requires unprecedented levels of economic growth. 1. Vol. 88, no. 1,040, Aug. 2018, p. 295. Testimony, September 2018 Contents 317 have been cut too. Thirty-five per cent of Greece’s Biblical echoes? population is estimated to be living in abso- Mr Johnson’s comments were made, of course, lute poverty. Levels of depression and suicide in the context of Britain’s ongoing negotiations have increased. Commissioner Moscovici has to leave the EU. Yet the sense of Europe’s leaders described Greece as “a normal country again,” being motivated much more by a ‘sacred’ politi- but this is surely a strange kind of “normal” to cal ideology than by concern for its citizens has those citizens for whom daily life is a constant an interesting resonance with students of Bible struggle. prophecy, particularly in the events which lead To many commentators, the way in which up to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Greece has been ‘helped’ by its fellow-members Revelation 17 depicts the distasteful scene of a of the EU has been significant. A ‘textbook’ re- drunken prostitute, extravagantly attired, being sponse to the financial crisis would have been to carried along by a seven-headed scarlet beast. My allow the government to default on its financial own reading is that this chapter concerns events commitments. International support allowing the prior to the second coming, for the prostitute is country time to get back on its feet would have nowhere to be seen when, in chapter 19, the Lord been forthcoming, and the financial impact on is revealed to the nations and defeats the beast. Greece—although significant—would not have This is because the woman has already been ut- been insurmountable in the long term. A num- terly destroyed by the ten horns on the heads of ber of large economies have survived default the beast (17:16). As the beast is in turn destroyed scenarios and lived to fight another day. Such a by the Lord and his armies in chapter 19, it is decision, however, would have required Greece not logically possible for the prostitute still to to devalue its currency—which in practical terms be in existence at that point in the prophecy. The meant abandoning the euro. Such a policy was “one hour” in which the ten horns receive their therefore unthinkable to the political elite of the power to act (17:12) appears to correspond to the European Union, for whom the credibility of the “one hour” in which the woman (referred to by euro and the survival of the eurozone are nothing the name ‘Babylon’) is judged and overthrown less than articles of faith. (18:10,17,19). The scarlet beast of Revelation 17 is evidently A matter of ideology a later phase of ‘the beast of the sea’ who came There is a general impression amongst many ob- to power in Revelation 13. In that chapter, the servers that Greece has effectively been sacrificed component parts of the beast (v. 2) were very for the sake of European banks (Greece’s principal clearly derived from the four beasts of Daniel 7. creditors) and the euro. IMF representatives from The beast of the sea received his strength to act both India and Brazil protested as much back in from the great red dragon (v. 2), which symbolises 2010, and a similar accusation is made by Britain’s pagan Rome. For these and other reasons, Bible Boris Johnson, a ‘Eurosceptic’ former cabinet students have looked for a fulfilment of Revela- minister, in an article that appeared in a number tion and 13 and 17 within the territory that was of publications recently.