Tradition must give way to the clear statements of the Scripture

  “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— Matthew 24:15 TNIV The abomination of desolation. These words relate to that passage of Daniel 9:27,  which I would render thus; “In the middle of that week,” namely, the last of the seventy, “he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, even until the wing or army of abomination shall make desolate,”; or, even by the wing of abominations making desolate. wing is an army , Isa. 8:8: and in that sense Luke 21:20 rendered these words, “when you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with an army,” Let him that reads understand.   This is not spoken so much for the obscurity as for the certainty of the prophecy : as if he should say, “He that reads those words in Daniel, let him mind well that when the army of the prince which is to come, that army of abominations, shall compass round Jerusalem with a siege, then most cer...

  Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this: “HE WAS LED LIKE A SHEEP TO SLAUGHTER; AND LIKE A LAMB THAT IS SILENT BEFORE ITS SHEARER, SO HE DOES NOT OPEN HIS MOUTH. “IN HUMILIATION HIS JUSTICE WAS TAKEN AWAY; WHO WILL DESCRIBE HIS GENERATION? FOR HIS LIFE IS TAKEN AWAY FROM THE EARTH.” The eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself, or of someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him. Acts 8:30–35 The rhetorical question suggests the insensitivity of this generation for its act against God’s servant, who was slain unjustly as he was silent. Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible, Second Edition (Denmark: Thomas Nelson, 2019). Th...