A Parable

A certain man and a certain woman had eight daughters. One day before the man left for work, his wife told him, "Honey I need to you stop and get these things from the supermarket on your way home." She handed him the grocery list which he looked over and noticed something missing. "Who would like some ice cream tonight?" All the girls responded, "Me!" "OK," daddy replied, "What flavor would you like?" "Vanilla," said one. "Chocolate!" countered another. "Strawberry!" shouted a third. Sensing his displeasure with the debate, the others said, "Any flavor is fine with us, Daddy." And so Daddy reasoned, "I tell you what... I'll get Neapolitan so everyone can get their favorite flavor." Off he went to work.
Later that day the man stopped by the supermarket as his wife asked him. He was making his way through the aisles when he came upon ice cream cones. As he placed the box of cones in the cart, his cell phone rang. It was his wife. "Honey, I just want you to know that I called the girls three times to come in from play to do their homework and they did not obey. They finally did come in as it was getting dark.' "I'll take care of it dear."
When he arrived home the girls saw the headlights and shouted, "Daddy's home!" They all ran out to meet him and helped him bring in the grocery bags. They also helped Mom and Dad put away the groceries. Finally, the last item was placed in the pantry, a box of ice cream cones." Daddy then poured the girls some milk and they all drank it. Then they all preceded out of the kitchen and into one of their rooms where they began to discuss among themselves.
One daughter said, "Daddy forgot the ice cream." "No," said the oldest daughter, "Daddy lied to us." Another daughter objected saying, "No daddy would never lie to us. He was actually planning to given us the ice cream this weekend when our cousins come to visit." "That makes no sense," said the middle daughter. "Daddy was planning on getting the ice cream cones tonight and bringing the ice cream home tomorrow." "That can't be, protested still another daughter. "He did say 'tonight' and so what happened was the ice cream melted into the milk we just drank." Another said, "Actually what daddy was trying to tell us was that, we had ice cream last week and so when we drank the milk tonight we could imagine what it tasted like." A very pensive daughter said< "Daddy wanted us to buy our own ice cream."Finally the youngest daughter spoke up, "Daddy found out that we did not obey mommy and so he decided not to give us ice cream tonight."

In understanding the various predictive prophecies of the NT, Christians and non-Christians have reached various conclusions. Post Christians would say that God has forgotten his promises so I am not paying attention any more. Skeptics say these prophecies are pure fiction. Futurists think that all of the predictions of the NT are meant for some future time even those which all to often seem very much like they are referring to the generation of the first disciples. Partial preterists divide the texts so that those things which obviously came true were meant for the first Christians. Those that did not come true were meant for some future time. Full Preterists believe that all of the predictive prophecies including the coming of the Son of man in power and glory came true in the first generation of Christians just as the writers of the NT said they would. Critical scholars tell us that the predictive prophecies that seemed to have come true actually are historical recollections written as if they were predicted in advance of them happening. Process scholars would say that God only provides some inspiration and it is up to us to fulfill those prophecies. Finally, some Christians believe that many predictive prophecies are contingent on human faithfulness to the covenant that God makes with them, even when many of those prophecies are never written with an explicit conditional provision. Which of these views makes the most sense to you. One or more may make a lot of sense. Some may seem totally contrived. All of them are possible even as the explanations of the eight daughters could have correctly interpreted what happened to the ice cream. To me the last explanation seems the most obvious and holds to a high view of scriptural accuracy. God has made promises that he will keep. However, sometimes He decides not to keep certain promises because of the unfaithfulness of His people. Or God may actually delay the time when he plans to fulfill His promises. God may actually decide to replace a good promise like longevity with a better promise like eternal life. Such a God is open to human input. He may or may not respond as we wish. He is all powerful and not unable to keep his promises without predetermining or foreknowing in exact detail all that will happen with human history. Such a God is all knowing and infinitely resourceful in his responsiveness. Such a God is immensely generous in His sovereignty rather than totalitarian. Such a God is worthy of our worship and trust even more so than the words of the Bible. He might even allow for historical fiction to be one of the genres that He inspires some of the biblical writers to create. Such a God is exactly the God that is describe in the beautiful complexity of the Book we so often seek to contain, nail down and limit to a lifeless relic of history in the same way so many did with the eternal Word when he walked this earth. To such temptations let us say, "No!" To those who would cling to the simpleton's hermeneutic of nostalgia with its cowering risk free god, let us shout prayerfully"Get a life! Or better yet worship the Living God with a living faith!"