Turning Jordan

This week’s study focused in on introducing to biblical prophecy:

• What is prophecy?
• Who are the prophets?
• What did they prophesy about?
• Do we need to adjust our views of the Old Testament to better understand prophecy?

It was a great study to put together and really helped focus me in again on what to expect over the next ten weeks.  A few ideas struck me as I prepared the lesson, and would like to share them with you.

First, the idea that what sets biblical prophecy apart from other kinds of cultural prophecy (e.g. fortune telling, tarot cards, astrology, etc.) is its moral and theological purpose.  Whether we have a prophet like Nathan, who was given insight into the secret things of David’s life, or like Moses, who was given a privileged perspective on early history of the world, or like Isaiah, who’s vision painted grand strokes across the last days, all wrote to communicate something about God’s ways, purposes, and/or plans for the purpose of encouraging our faith.  No text of Nostradamus or ancient Mayan prophecy about 2012 is going to do that.  They are not concerned with us in the least.  Scripture, on the other hand, is for us – for our benefit – for our good.

Earlier this evening I was reading a weblog post of one of my friends, Pete Link, who shared some of his own insights on Isaiah just about a year ago.  He commented about the opening chapter of Isaiah that we’re immediately faced with a question about what is going to happen with the sons of Israel.  It reads,

“Sons I have reared and brought up,
But they have revolted against Me.
“An ox knows its owner,
And a donkey its master’s manger,
But Israel does not know,
My people do not understand.” Isaiah 1:2b-3 (NASB)

Pete is right.  The book which follows this opening passage is written to answer that question – and others that are bound up in it.  What is God going to do with his sons?  What does this mean for the covenants?  What does this mean for the people? The temple?  The promised land?  Jerusalem?  Will God abandon them forever, or is there yet a future for Israel?

Notice, the book is about the future —- but not the future as we’re used to thinking about it.  The book is really about answering a crucial question about mankind, and in that answer we will find some statements about the future.  God isn’t interesting in us reading Isaiah so that we can make a timeline of future – He wants us to read this book to understand His actions in this world better, and also to understand who we are and how we fit into his plans.  In other words, he wants us to participate.  He wants us to be involved and to learn to trust him.  This book, then, has moral and theological resolve.

A second thing I learned from the introduction to prophecy is that we need to be careful, careful readers.  We do this by asking questions to the text.  And we get answers by continuing to read, and continuing to meditate on things of Scripture.  We have been invited into a great dialogue with biblical prophecy.  We’re dealing with figures, with images, and rarely do we read any straight, literal passages.  We wrestle with unfamiliar images, but are intrigued to see how the artwork all comes together.  We expect the text to reveal to us something profound – and we do our best to patiently pay attention to it.  And we will be rewarded.  There’s more going on here than God telling us about the end times.  Those events will pan out, and I do think there is an element of our discussion with text where we begin to see and understand how the last things will unfold.  But let’s allow our careful reading to lead us there.

I’m looking forward to sharing more in the weeks to come.  If you cannot make it out to PCBC, I invite you to check out the class resources found on the “Book of Isaiah” page above.

Andy