Forty Prophecies in Forty Days: #9 Opening their understanding to understand the scripture

Luke 24:45  “Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,”

This is one of the most important considerations as the church faces this fork in the road. I really believe that the Spirit of God is actively wooing many new covenant prophets. It is imperative that we listen. The question to ask is, can one properly hear, and believe if they are clinging to the old paradigm, especially when it comes to scripture understanding? This is precisely why Jesus and His first century followers changed the paradigm back then. The problem that we face is that the early church fathers of the second through fourth centuries ignored Jesus paradigm, and returned to the Pharisees paradigm. The early church fathers greatly influenced church dogma and doctrine and it has moved forward through the centuries and still affects us today. Didn’t Jesus warn about the leaven of the Pharisees? Didn’t He say that the leaven was the doctrine/teaching of the Pharisees and could it be possible that the last two thousand years of evangelical orthodox doctrine was in fact the *strong delusion* of 2Thess 2:11?

Of course I am referring to the legal constitutional view of scripture which was the Pharisees old covenant model. It is important to see that Pharisees did not understand the scripture. Jesus had to open the understanding of His followers to understand the scriptures in the above passage from Luke’s gospel. Look at the fifth chapter of Revelation. It was the Lion of the tribe of Judah that was able to unseal the scroll (understand the scripture.) There is a direct correlation between Luke 24:45 and Revelation 5:9. He alone was the only one worthy to open the book and He alone was able to open the understanding to understand the scripture. Look at Isaiah: Isa 29:11-13  “And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:  (12)  And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.  (13)  Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:” It was prophesied in Isaiah that the scribes and Pharisees would not understand the scripture at all.

And yet, we adopt the method of the scribes and Pharisees to understand the scripture. It is little wonder that we are in such a state as we face today. We MUST adopt the redemptive view of scripture. We must use it as the story of redemption and not a legal constitutional document. It saddens me when I hear apostles and prophets claim to be so sure of what they are saying when they are in reality adopting a legal constitutional view of scripture.

Isn’t it obvious that we would be able to accept the prophecies that are currently given if we have had our paradigm shifted to view the scripture as Jesus did and as he taught his first century followers to do… More to come tomorrow!