What Is the Purpose of Bible Prophecy?

God gives us prophecy so that we can learn how to live.

Revelation reveals the sequence and magnitude of the future, but the New Testament tells us how prophecy can be a dynamic school for self-improvement. Here are a few courses offered:

• Problem-Solving. I don’t know of a university that offers this course, but the Bible says that understanding the future will put our everyday problems into better perspective (Colossians 3:2).
• Advanced Loving. We will be more loving people, because our love will “increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else” as the impact of His coming soon penetrates our beings (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13, NIV).
• Church Growth. There’s not a pastor of a large or small church who wouldn’t be interested in this course. The best place to be as that important day approaches is in church worshiping or in the world serving (Hebrews 10:25).
• Goal-Setting. If we really believed He would come back today, we would change many of our habits. “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3, NIV).
• Cheerleading. In the big games, the cheerleaders encourage the crowd. How about a course in encouragement? After Paul had written to the church at Thessalonica and the last events on the time chart had become clearer, he said to those believers, “encourage one another” (1 Thessalonians 4:18). We do not need to be doomsayers but cheerleaders.
• Life-Saving. Even those who can’t swim can take this course, for it is the most important one to be offered. Prophecy provides us an urgency to reach others for Jesus Christ—to “save others by snatching them from the fire” (Jude 23).

Bible prophecy is not just about predicting the future—it helps us live with purpose and confidence today. God gives us a glimpse of what’s coming so that we can trust in His plan and remain faithful, no matter what happens.

This excerpt was taken from Dr. Jeremiah’s study of revelation, Escape the Coming Night. Learn more here.