Our focus is two-fold:
Learning about how God related to people during the time of each prophet, which requires we know about the historical record of the time, and read the message of the prophet during that time. This gives us insight into God’s attributes.
Understanding something of what it was like to live in the time of the prophet. We do this by giving attention to the religious, political, and social climate of the time. By thinking about what our response would be like while living in that time, we get closer to appreciating how our life story fits into God’s Story.
The Bible has more individual books under the heading of prophecy than under any other heading. There are four ‘Major Prophets’ – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. There are twelve ‘Minor Prophets’ – Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The Minor Prophets are categorized like this only because these books are relatively short in length; the Major Prophets are relatively long books. The terms do not imply anything about their importance.
Let us go back in God’s Story to Exodus 20:19: …“You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” This opened the way for the Hebrews to receive false messages that were claimed to come from God. Yahweh protected them by providing three ways to test a prophet and his message (Deuteronomy 13):
Changed life (vs.1-5): A sign that comes to pass is not enough to determine if the prophet is from God. A true message from God passes the test. It leads you into a greater love for God that embraces your entire heart and soul; it brings you into a more obedient and meaningful walk with the Lord you honor; and it never elevates the messenger beyond a servant of the Lord.
No seduction to falsehood (vs.6-11): The closest relationships on earth do not dissolve your obligation to remain faithful to the true and only God.
Proper investigation (vs. 12-18): God requires that sin be eradicated in the community, no matter how many accept the message of a false prophet.
God raised up prophets to call the people back to God and His way. Israel slackened in their worship of Yahweh. Rather than sacrificing because they were sinners, they began to use sacrifices as a provision to sin. Prophets protested when the nation’s worship was corrupted into ritualism.
The word translated ‘prophet’ signifies ‘called’ and more specifically ‘called by God’. God’s call is not an invitation but an appointment (Amos 7:15 gives an example of how God “took” Amos in order to make him a prophet “to My people”).
Another Hebrew word translates a ‘prophet’ as a ‘seer’, meaning ‘one who sees’. By God’s inspiration, the prophets have an altogether unique ability to ‘see’: both into the affairs of men and into the mind of God. A prophetic call enabled the prophet to be unaffected by human bias and criticism. It required that he not be intimidated or threatened by his audience. Prophets spoke with the authority of the Spirit of God upon them. One trait characterized them all: a faithful proclamation of God's word and not their own.
God rules in history. He calls people to repentance. This is best described in the overall message of prophets found in 2 Chronicles 24:19: Yet He sent prophets to them, to bring them back to the Lord; and they testified against them, but they would not listen.
Central to a prophet’s teaching is:
The Lord God is Ruler of all history.
Be right with God.
Live according to God’s requirements.
There is hope after judgment.
God has a bright future for His people.
There is no one who attracts more attention and interest than those who claim to be able to predict the future. It is all too common to make a prediction fit into something we really want to believe about our future that justifies our present decisions and behavior patterns. That is why these kinds of messengers gain more status than any other messenger, until their predictions fail!
Let us receive the admonition from Packer: Now, the mistake that is commonly made is to suppose… that the gift of wisdom consists in a deepened insight into the providential meaning and purpose of events going on around us, an ability to see why God has done what he has done in a particular case, and what he is going to do next.
There are three roles and functions of prophets that help keep their messages in proper perspective:
Uphold God’s Word: The prophet draws attention to God’s word; sins are identified that keep people from obeying the Word; and then a reminder is given of God’s love that leads people to repentance and obedience.
They were known: True prophets are known and confirmed to be true through their appointment by God that is proved over time by their integrity. They remained true to God.
Messages identified: The content of their messages could be confirmed through God’s word. A message is spoken presumptuously if it could not be confirmed as from God.
It helps us to know that the messages of the prophets consist of:
Less than 2% about a coming ‘Anointed One’.
Less than 5% specifically describing the coming ‘New Covenant’ age.
Less than 1% concerning events yet to come.
The prophets were to ‘tell-forth’ much more than to ‘fore-tell’ the future. Separate the messages as you would paragraphs. Although they follow one after another in the text, they may have been delivered at various times and in different places.
When prophets did announce the future, it was usually the immediate future of Israel, Judah, and surrounding nations that they announced. They left it for us to see their prophecies fulfilled. We do this by looking back upon times they still looked forward to.
Sharing:
- Israel had more prophets than Judah, yet they sinned more! They messed things up the most.
- A key theme of the prophets was that God rules in all history, and He will judge fairly!
- The messages of the prophets show that we cannot mess up God’s plans.
- It is easy to memorize how to be holy with the work of actually worshiping the true God.
It seems too hard for some to read God’s Word and be convicted by the message, and then obey. - It is all too common to preach the message people want to hear so that people actually worship the ‘gods’ of their own making.
- We don’t want to think that there will be hard times.
- My father allowed me to fail because he knew I wouldn’t listen to him. I had to face the consequences of personal failure.
- When we fail, we are more likely to listen. God can quite easily prevent failure, but He doesn’t always work that way, since He knows what is best to bring us to repentance and obedience.
- God’s attributes are clearly seen in the messages of the prophets.
- God allowed repentance from evil.
- God is all-knowing and He loves us. We can be certain that He is there for us.
- Sin is disrespect for God. The messages of the prophets show how God views and feels about sin.
Our purpose in Thinking through the Bible is to view the prophets and their messages in the context of when they lived in Old Testament history. Read and think as though you are hearing their message at the time of its first delivery. The chart on the next pages helps us put the prophets in chronological order along with the kings at the times of their messages. There are prophets to the divided kingdom of Israel and Judah; prophets to Judah in Babylonian exile; and prophets to Judah after the return to their homeland. The prophets can also be divided between pre-exilic Israel and Judah, exilic Judah, and post-exilic Judah in their homeland.
| PROPHETS TO ISRAEL | KINGS OF ISRAEL | DATES B.C. | PROPHETS TO JUDAH | KINGS OF JUDAH | DATES B.C. |
| Ahijah 1Ki.11:29-30; 12:15; 14:4-6 | (1) Jeroboam 1Ki.14:20 | 933-912 | Shemaiah 1Ki.12:22 | (1) Rehoboam 1Ki.14:21 | 933-917 |
| | | | | (2) Abijah (Abijam) 1Ki.15:2 | 917-915 |
| | (2) Nadab 1Ki.15:25-26 | 912-911 | Azariah 2Chr.15:1 | (3) Asa 1Ki.15:9,10 | 914-874 |
| Jehu son of Hanani 1Ki.16:1,7,12 | (3) Baasha 1Ki.15:33-34 | 911-888 | | | |
| | (4) Elah 1Ki.16:8 | 888-887 | | | |
| | (5) Zimri 1Ki.16:15 | 887 | | | |
| | Tibni 1Kin.16:21 | | | | |
| | (6) Omri 1Ki.16:23 | 887-876 | | | |
| | | | | | |
| Elijah 1Ki.17-19 | (7) Ahab 1Ki.16:29-33 | 876-854 | | (4) Jehoshaphat 1Ki.22:42 | 874-850 |
| | (8) Ahaziah – 1Ki.22:51-53 | 854-853 | | | |
| Elisha 1Ki.19:19-21; 2Ki.3:13-15 | (9) Jehoram (Joram) 2Ki.3:1-2 | 853-842 | Obadiah (?) 2Kin.8:20-22 | (5) Jehoram 2Ki.8:16-17 | 850-843 |
| Elisha 2Ki.9:1 | (10) Jehu 2Ki.10:36 | 843-816 | | (6) Ahaziah 2Ki.8:26 | 843-842 |
| | | | | (7) Athaliah 2Ki.11:3 | 842-837 |
| Elisha, Jonah | (11) Jehoahaz 2Ki.13:1 | 816-800 | Joel (?) | (8) Joash 2Kin.12:1 | 837-798 |
| Elisha 2Ki.13:14 | (12) Jehoash 2Ki.13:10 | 800-785 | | (9) Amaziah 2Ki.14:2 | 798-770 |
| Amos | (13) Jeroboam II 2Ki.14:23 | 785-745 | Isaiah | (10) Uzziah (Azariah) 2Ki.15:1-2 | 792-740 |
| Hosea | (14) Zechariah 2Ki.15:8 | 744 | Isaiah Micah | (11) Jotham 2Ki.15:33 | 740-735 |
| PROPHETS TO ISRAEL | KINGS OF ISRAEL | DATES B.C. | PROPHETS TO JUDAH | KINGS OF JUDAH | DATES B.C. |
| | (15) Shallum 2Ki.15:13 | 744 | | | |
| | (16) Menahem 2Ki.15:17 | 743-735 | | | |
| | (17) Pekahiah 2Ki.15:23 | 735-734 | | (12) Ahaz 2Ki.16:2 | 735-720 |
| | (18) Pekah 2Ki.15:27 | 734-730 | | | |
| | (19) Hoshea 2Ki.17:1 | 730-722 | | (13) Hezekiah 2Ki.18:2 | 720-692 |
| | | | | (14) Manasseh 2Ki.21:1 | 692-638 |
| | | | Nahum Zephaniah | (15) Amon 2Ki.21:19 | 638 |
| | | | Jeremiah Zephaniah Prophetess Huldah (2 Ki.22:14) | (16) Josiah 2Ki.22:1 | 638-608 |
| | | | Jeremiah | (17) Joahaz (Jehoahaz) 2Ki.23:31 | 608 |
| | | | Jeremiah Habakkuk Zephaniah | (18) Jehoiakim (Eliakim; Eliahim) 2Ki.23:36 | 608-597 |
| | | | | (19) Jehoiachin 2Ki.24:8 | 597 |
| | | | Ezekiel | (20) Zedekiah (Mattaniah) 2Ki.24:18 | 597-586 |
As we read and think through the prophets, give consideration to the attributes of God through the messages of the prophets. Also think about how you would respond when you heard the message of each prophet. Our next session will cover Isaiah.
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