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I have used many different bibles to study from over the years, I even have a German bible from my time spent working with young people in Austria. Although I do not use the Message bible to study from, every now I read something from there that really sums things up in modern day terms. Im just loving this introduction to the prophets, I couldn't have worded it better myself and it still stands so very true today.Prophets were never excepted back in them days, only years after did people realise who they were.But their message is still very much the same today.
" Over a period of several hundred years, the Hebrew people gave birth to an extraordinary number of prophets- men and women distinguished by the power and skill with which they presented the reality of God. They delivered Gods commands and promises and living presence to communities and nations who had been living on god-fantasies and god-lies.
Everyone more or less believes in God. But most of us do our best to keep God on the margins of our lives or. failing that, refashion God to suit our conveniences. Prophets insist that God is sovereign center, not off in the wings awaiting our beck and call. And the prophets insist we deal with God as God reveals himself. not as we imagine Him to be.
These men and women woke people up to the sovereign presence of god in their lives. They yelled, they wept, they rebuked, they soothed, they challenged, they comforted. They used words with power and imagination, whether blunt or subtle.
Prophets train us in the discerning the difference between the ways of this world and the ways of the gospel, keeping us present IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD.
We dont read very many pages into the Prophets before realizing that there was nothing easy going about them. Prophets were not popular figures. They never achieved celebrity status. They were decidedly uncongenial to the temperaments and dispositions of the people with whom they lived. And the centuries have not mellowed them. Its understandable that we should have a difficult time coming to terms with them. They are not particularly sensitive to our feelings. They have very modest, should we say, relationship skills. We like leaders, especially religious leaders, who understand our problems, leaders with a touch of glamour, leaders who look good on TV. The hard rock reality is that prophets don't fit into our way of life. For a people who are accustomed to "fitting God" into THEIR lives or as we like to say, "making room for God", the Prophets are hard to take or easy to dismiss. The God of whom the prophet speaks is far too large to fit into our lives. If we want anything to do with God, we have to fit into Him.
The Prophets are not "reasonable" accommodating themselves to what makes sense to us. They are not diplomatic, tactfully negotiating an agreement that allows us a "say" in the outcome. What they do is haul us unceremoniously into reality far too large to be accounted for but our explanations and expectations. They plunge us into mystery, immense and staggering.
Their words and visions penetrate the illusions with which we cocoon ourselves from reality. We humans have an enormous capacity for denial and for self-deceit. We incapacitate ourselves from dealing with the consequences of sin, for facing judgement, for embracing truth. Then the prophets step in and help us to first recognise and then enter the new life God has for us, the life that hole in God opens up.
They dont explain God. They shake us out of the old conventional habits and small-mindedness, of trivializing god-gossip, and set us on our feet in wonder and obedience and worship. If we insist on understanding them before we live into them , we will NEVER GET IT.
Basically, the prophets did 2 things. They worked to get people to accept the worst as Gods judgement-not religious catastrophe or a political disaster, but judgement. If what seems like the worst turns out to be Gods judgement, it can be embraced, not denied or avoided, for Gods good and intends our salvation.So. judgement, while certainly not what we human beings anticipate in our planned future, can never be the worst that can happen. It is the best, for it is the work of God to set the world, and us, right.
And the Prophets worked to get people who were beaten down to open themselves up to hope in God's future. In the wreckage of exile and death and humiliation and sin, the prophet ignited hope, opening up lives to the new work of salvation that God is about at all times and ever where.
One of the bad habits that we pick up early in our lives is separating things and people into secular and sacred. We assume that the secular is what we are more or less in charge of our jobs, our time, our entertainment, our government, our social relations. The sacred is what God has charge of: worship and the bible, heaven and hell, church and prayers.
We then contrive to set aside a sacred place for God, designed, we say, to honer God but really intended to keep God in His place, leaving us free to have the final say about everything else that goes on.
Prophets will have none of this.They contend that EVERYTHING, absolutely EVERYTHING, takes place on sacred ground. God has something to say about EVERY aspect of our lives. The way we feel and act in this so-called privacy of our own hearts and homes, the way we make our money and the way we spend it, the politics we embrace, the wars we fight, the catastrophes we endure, the people we hurt and the people we help. NOTHING is hidden from the scrutiny of God, nothing is exempt from the rule of God, nothing escapes the purposes of God. Holy, Holy, Holy.
Prophets make it IMPOSSIBLE to evade God or make detours around God. Prophets insists on receiving God in every nook and cranny of life.
For a Prophet, God....is more real.......than the next door neighbour."
There is defiantly a misunderstanding of prophets when people think all they are there for is to "foretell the future"
" Over a period of several hundred years, the Hebrew people gave birth to an extraordinary number of prophets- men and women distinguished by the power and skill with which they presented the reality of God. They delivered Gods commands and promises and living presence to communities and nations who had been living on god-fantasies and god-lies.
Everyone more or less believes in God. But most of us do our best to keep God on the margins of our lives or. failing that, refashion God to suit our conveniences. Prophets insist that God is sovereign center, not off in the wings awaiting our beck and call. And the prophets insist we deal with God as God reveals himself. not as we imagine Him to be.
These men and women woke people up to the sovereign presence of god in their lives. They yelled, they wept, they rebuked, they soothed, they challenged, they comforted. They used words with power and imagination, whether blunt or subtle.
Prophets train us in the discerning the difference between the ways of this world and the ways of the gospel, keeping us present IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD.
We dont read very many pages into the Prophets before realizing that there was nothing easy going about them. Prophets were not popular figures. They never achieved celebrity status. They were decidedly uncongenial to the temperaments and dispositions of the people with whom they lived. And the centuries have not mellowed them. Its understandable that we should have a difficult time coming to terms with them. They are not particularly sensitive to our feelings. They have very modest, should we say, relationship skills. We like leaders, especially religious leaders, who understand our problems, leaders with a touch of glamour, leaders who look good on TV. The hard rock reality is that prophets don't fit into our way of life. For a people who are accustomed to "fitting God" into THEIR lives or as we like to say, "making room for God", the Prophets are hard to take or easy to dismiss. The God of whom the prophet speaks is far too large to fit into our lives. If we want anything to do with God, we have to fit into Him.
The Prophets are not "reasonable" accommodating themselves to what makes sense to us. They are not diplomatic, tactfully negotiating an agreement that allows us a "say" in the outcome. What they do is haul us unceremoniously into reality far too large to be accounted for but our explanations and expectations. They plunge us into mystery, immense and staggering.
Their words and visions penetrate the illusions with which we cocoon ourselves from reality. We humans have an enormous capacity for denial and for self-deceit. We incapacitate ourselves from dealing with the consequences of sin, for facing judgement, for embracing truth. Then the prophets step in and help us to first recognise and then enter the new life God has for us, the life that hole in God opens up.
They dont explain God. They shake us out of the old conventional habits and small-mindedness, of trivializing god-gossip, and set us on our feet in wonder and obedience and worship. If we insist on understanding them before we live into them , we will NEVER GET IT.
Basically, the prophets did 2 things. They worked to get people to accept the worst as Gods judgement-not religious catastrophe or a political disaster, but judgement. If what seems like the worst turns out to be Gods judgement, it can be embraced, not denied or avoided, for Gods good and intends our salvation.So. judgement, while certainly not what we human beings anticipate in our planned future, can never be the worst that can happen. It is the best, for it is the work of God to set the world, and us, right.
And the Prophets worked to get people who were beaten down to open themselves up to hope in God's future. In the wreckage of exile and death and humiliation and sin, the prophet ignited hope, opening up lives to the new work of salvation that God is about at all times and ever where.
One of the bad habits that we pick up early in our lives is separating things and people into secular and sacred. We assume that the secular is what we are more or less in charge of our jobs, our time, our entertainment, our government, our social relations. The sacred is what God has charge of: worship and the bible, heaven and hell, church and prayers.
We then contrive to set aside a sacred place for God, designed, we say, to honer God but really intended to keep God in His place, leaving us free to have the final say about everything else that goes on.
Prophets will have none of this.They contend that EVERYTHING, absolutely EVERYTHING, takes place on sacred ground. God has something to say about EVERY aspect of our lives. The way we feel and act in this so-called privacy of our own hearts and homes, the way we make our money and the way we spend it, the politics we embrace, the wars we fight, the catastrophes we endure, the people we hurt and the people we help. NOTHING is hidden from the scrutiny of God, nothing is exempt from the rule of God, nothing escapes the purposes of God. Holy, Holy, Holy.
Prophets make it IMPOSSIBLE to evade God or make detours around God. Prophets insists on receiving God in every nook and cranny of life.
For a Prophet, God....is more real.......than the next door neighbour."
There is defiantly a misunderstanding of prophets when people think all they are there for is to "foretell the future"
