Rethinking Prophecy: The Spirit of Christ, Not the Spectacle of Conflict
In recent weeks, as tensions flared between Israel and Iran, a wave of speculation swept through some corners of the Christian world. A number of Bible commentators rushed to interpret the conflict as a definitive sign of the end times. With headlines ablaze and fear stirred, voices proclaimed that the Second Coming of Christ and the rapture were imminent, based on a historical-literal application of biblical prophecy—particularly the book of Revelation. But now, as a ceasefire has taken hold, those sweeping proclamations once again fall silent. This pattern of interpreting current events as a direct fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecy is not new. History has seen many such interpretations come and go—wars, earthquakes, political shifts—all used to support elaborate end-times timelines that ultimately fail the test of time. Such approaches, while often sincere, miss the deeper message of the book of Revelation. The last book of the Bible was not given to us to fuel sensational predic...