PROPHETIC MINISTRY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS RELEVANCE TO CHRISTIAN MINISTRY TODAY

Introduction

The prophets were the divine philosophers, the instructors, and the guides of the Hebrews in piety and virtue. They generally lived retired being seen in public mainly when they had some message of God to deliver. Their habitations and mode of life were plain, simple, and consistent. Sons of the prophets were pupils of the prophets being trained in religion and habits of devotion and piety. They were not a monastic order but a group of theological students studying the law and history of God’s people, together with sacred poetry and music. They were several schools of the prophets from the days of Samuel to the N.T. times when Israel was a nation.

The Prophetic Call - What is Prophetic Ministry?

Here is the thing to which the prophetic ministry all-inclusively relates: the original and ultimate purposes of God in and through His people. We need to have something come into our consciousness as to the meaning of the words, ultimate and God's ultimate purposes and even the church in its ultimate configuration because whatever is ultimate is God's intention.[1] To bring, therefore, the ultimate requirement of God in a world that is temporal, expedient and compromising, is to find ourselves in opposition to the whole spirit and tenor of the world.[2] That same spirit has unhappily come even into the church. There are not so many in the church who wants to hear about the ultimate purposes of God. If we will not, however, embrace the ultimate purposes of God, then neither, ironically, will we have any relevance in His immediate purposes. It is only in the investment of the ultimate that we have any practical significance. It is a paradox and yet it is true. That is why we are more or less of no value, because we have circumvented or not known the things that are ultimate.[3]

The connection between ultimate and immediate is precisely the same as the connection between the past and the future. We have no immediate significance, until we have embraced the things that are ultimate. The ultimate purposes of God have very little to do with our self-gratification, in fact, they have nothing to do with it, and who has a heart for embracing something that has no particular relevance for oneself? When we do, however, embrace them, then all Hell will howl, and we will have made ourselves candidates for such fierce opposition, which never would have been our portion if we had only contented ourselves with the things that are at hand. The moment we embrace the ultimate purposes of God, we become marked people before the powers of darkness.[4]

We presently have little or no understanding of the ultimate and full purposes of God in and through His people. The church is bored stiff, lacking an orbit, a line of thought and a direction because it lacks this understanding. We condemn ourselves, therefore, to programs and services whose forms are unhappily predictable. To embrace that which is ultimate and full is what makes church the true church. It is at the heart of the very purpose for our being.[5]

To interpret the mind of God in all matters concerning the purpose of God, to bring all details into line with that purpose, and to make that purpose govern everything.

He is fanatical! It is not just to announce the purpose, but to demand that everything else be related to it. That is prophetic intensity and prophetic insistence. We are not only to understand the ultimate and full purposes of God, but everything else that constitutes our life and being is to be related to that. That will require a radical adjustment, and that is why prophets are not popular. That requirement is painful and that is why people do not want to hear it.[6]

A prophet shows the unbroken continuum of things past, with the imminence of the eschatological (end-time) future, that culminates in the theocratic glory.[7] In other words, he is so aware of the invisible cloud of witnesses that make up the saints of past times as being present; in order to prod us on to the fulfilment of the thing that is future. This prophetic way of seeing the continuity and relevance of things past and future is also God's way of seeing, and it is the way that God would have the whole church to see. The absence of that seeing is to be rooted in mere time or mere culture itself, which is the product of time.[8] We break the bondage of culture and tradition that is so fixed in time by breaking out of the orbit of time itself. We do not need to wait to die to come into eternity, but we can already be in that eternal place. We are already seated in heavenly places with Christ. That is the prophet's seeing and he has the responsibility to communicate that seeing in such a way as to engage the hearer and bring him into that very reality.

The prophet sees the sweep and the purpose of God, the larger picture, the panoramic view. He is not one for the 'nuts and bolts', for the details: 'how do you do this and that'. He sees the arching overview, and that is what the church needs to see if that is the framework of its life. Without that overview, fellowships will be fixed entirely in the present moment. They will remain in the things that are really so narrow and so petty because they cannot see what they are doing and what they are about in this moment in the context of something much larger of which they are in connection and moving toward. Without the prophetic overview, they are caught up in the immediate program, which very likely has been birthed out of their flesh or out of a necessity to 'do something', and is not consciously in the continuum of things apostolic and prophetic.[9] The prophet communicates the eternal perspective, which also includes the past. One has no more apprehension of the future then one has of the past. Our ability to perceive the things that are yet future is altogether relative to the appropriation of the things past.

If we are going to be the one who turns aside to see the 'burning bush' as it pertains to God's purpose for Israel, then we need to have already turned aside to see the flaming issues of our own life and not pass them by. We will not turn aside to see the 'burning bush' of God in which the Lord Himself is in the midst, in the revelation of Himself that waits on that moment of a particular kind, if we have not already 'turned aside to see' the 'burning bushes' of the issues of our own life.[10] Most of us look away and our past is the wreckage of failed marriages, failed relationships, failed church situations, where we go on to something else and sweep the past under the proverbial rug and have not turned aside to see. It is painful and that is why people do not turn aside, and we look to the next situation to remove the memory of the past. That is the human propensity and it is a propensity that the prophet cannot indulge. He has got to have the guts to face up to his own past and his own failures. In fact, those failures have very likely been given him by God to fit him that he might not miss the 'burning bush' when it comes in the moment of his final calling.

That message is going to be resisted, because it is not convenient to be lifted out of time. The prophet must make that view, which is a lost view, the first priority for the hearer. It is not another option it is the way. The eternal view is the view, and he has registered it with such forcefulness in his speaking that it has become now the priority of the person who hears him. That is what the prophetic word is: the 'event'. It is not information or inspiration, it is the word as 'event' that creates what was not there before, namely, the eternal perspective, where God's own seeing now becomes that of the believer. To be apprehended by that perspective will alienate that believer from the world and from those who are still seeing conventionally, including his own family.[11]

The prophet absolutizes those things that the world has made trivial, and he makes trivial and relative what the world has sought to make absolute and ultimate.[12] He stands the world on its head and he turns it inside-out. He says, "What you are celebrating is self-delusion, and what you are ignoring is of eternal moment and significance." He not only says it, but he establishes it. That seeing will change and affect everything: the way that you see your family, your daily life, what you do, how you order your time, your resources, your money, your future. The power of that word, and it requires power, is altogether relative to the authentic sending and the intercession that goes forth behind the one that brings the word. He is not some virtuoso in himself who is operating independent of the sending body. He is coming against the whole weight of a moral order that has not its origin from above but below, but has become so normative that no one thinks that there is any alternative to it and even thinks that this is valid. The prophet brings another view of the eternal kind that is calculated not only to compete with, but to demolish the other. It has, therefore, got to be expressed in power in order to win the willingness of the hearer.

The prophet announces or projects the impending end of the world in apocalyptic fury and judgment in a way to birth the longing for the new heaven and new earth in which dwells righteousness. If we have any investment in this present world, the prophet demolishes it and makes clear that God is bringing a judgment in which everything that is not sanctified and separated unto Him, will go up in the conflagration. We are willing for that because we are won over to the view of a new heaven and a new earth in which dwells righteousness. If this is what it takes for God to be glorified in His own creation, then let it come. [13]

Conclusion

Prophecy has it’s origins in God, it is divinely inspired, and when God chooses a vessel, it is not for the vessel’s glory, or net worth, it is not so the vessel is lauded among his peers, or perceived to be spiritually gifted. He is simply one of the brethren, who now has a greater responsibility toward God, one of whom God requires more sacrifice, and obedience.[14]

The sad truth, is that self appointed, and self anointed prophets today, have made a business out of prophecy, and in their own lust for glory and power, lift themselves up, revel in their own pride, and consider themselves above reproach even when time after time their ‘words of knowledge’ fail miserably, because they did not originate from God, but from their own gut.[15]

A prophetic ministry is not supposed to compete with the local news for the breaking story, but by the unction of God, foretell future events before they are probable, plausible or possible.

We live in an age where educated guesses, are labelled as prophecy, and the men who make them are lauded as prophets. We have become so used to this, it is so prevalent, that when God does give a true word of knowledge, when a true event is foretold by the power of God, and it does not happen within a week, men quickly start to roll their eyes, and whisper among themselves, ‘I guess he missed that one.’

We have been conditioned in this nation with the expectation of instant gratification. We want it now, rather than later, and the cunning wolves that roam freely among the children of God are more than happy to accommodate. They pander to our ever growing need to know more than the next man, and are shameless in coming up with suitable theories for the current situations.

They compromise the truth at the drop of a coin in the offering plate, for their primary concern is not to forewarn, admonish, correct and chasten as God leads, but rather to appease, placate, and lull back to sleep those who would stir from their slumber seeing the ever growing need for greater closeness to God.

False prophets are popular, and have always been, because they tell the people what the people want to hear, rather than what they need to hear, and anyone starting out in a prophetic ministry quickly realizes that the road to financial success is paved with the suppression of truth.

Tell a nation that judgment is at its doorstep, and the best you can hope for is to be mocked and ridiculed. Tell a nation that for some as yet unexplained reason God will continue to overlook its evil and rejection of Him, and it will continue to prosper, and you will be loved and adored, called prophet and embraced by all.

True prophetic ministries are unpopular, they are uncompromising they strive to do the work of God, even to their own discomfort and personal sacrifice. True prophetic ministries are unconcerned with men’s opinions about them, they often times speak the words given them, hoping in their hearts they do not come to pass, they are mocked, rejected and misunderstood, yet they do the work nonetheless, for it is their calling, their duty, and their reasonable service to God.

Bibliography:

Blenkinsopp, Joseph. “Prophetism and Prophets”. In The International Bible Commentary. Edited by William R. Farmer .Bangalore: TPI, 1998.

Brueggemann, W.A., "Next Steps in Jeremiah Studies?" in Troubling Jeremiah. JSOTSup 260; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999.

Bultmann, C., "A Prophet in Desperation? The Confessions of Jeremiah," in J.C. de Moor, ed. The Elusive Prophet: The Prophet as a Historical Person, Literary Character and Anonymous Artist. OTS 45; Leiden: Brill, 2001.

Castellino, G.R., "Observations on the Literary Structure of Some Passages in Jeremiah," VT 30, 1980.

Clements, R.E., "Jeremiah 1--25 and the Deuteronomistic History," in A. Auld, ed. Understanding Poets and Prophets. Sheffield, 1993.

Clements, Ronald E. Old Testament Prophecy- from oracles to canon .Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.

Crenshaw, J.L., "A Living Tradition: The Book of Jeremiah in Current Research," Int 37 1983.

Culley, R.C., "The Confessions of Jeremiah and Traditional Discourse," in S. Olyan and R. Culley, eds. "A Wise and Discerning Mind." Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2000.

Haran, M., "The Place of the Prophecies Against the Nations in the Book of Jeremiah," in S.M. Paul, et al, eds. Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls. VTSup 94; Leident: Brill, 2003.

Heaton, E.W. The Old Testament Prophets .London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977.

Heschel, Abraham J. The Prophets. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1962.

Hobbs, T.R., "Some Remarks on the Composition and Structure of the Book of Jeremiah," CBQ 34, 1972.

Holladay, William L. Jeremiah-A fresh reading .New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1990.

Jones, H.Cunliffe. Jeremiah-God in history .London: SCM Press LTD, 1960.

Leene, H., "Blowing the Same Shofar: An Intertextual Comparison of Representations of the Prophetic Role in Jeremiah and Ezekiel," in J.C. de Moor, ed. The Elusive Prophet: The Prophet as a Historical Person, Literary Character and Anonymous Artist. OTS 45; Leiden: Brill, 2001.

Lindblom, J. Prophecy in Ancient Israel .Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963.

McConville, G., "Divine Speech and the Book of Jeremiah," in P. Helm and C.R. Trueman, eds. The Trustworthiness of God: Perspectives on the Nature of Scripture. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002.

Rad, Gerhard Von. The Message of the Prophets. London: Harper & Row, 1967.

Robinson, Theodor H. Prophecy and the prophets in ancient Israel .London: Gerald Duckworth &Co.LTD, 1950.

Scott, R.B.Y. The Relevance of the Prophets .New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947.

Smith, J.M. Powis. The prophets and their times. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1935.

Wood, Leon J. The Prophets of Israel .Michigan: Baker Book House, 1979.

Zimmerli, W., "Visionary Experience in Jeremiah," in Israel's Prophetic Tradition, ed. R. Coggins: Cambridge U. Press, 1982.

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[1] Leene, H., "Blowing the Same Shofar: An Intertextual Comparison of Representations of the Prophetic Role in Jeremiah and Ezekiel," in J.C. de Moor, ed. The Elusive Prophet: The Prophet as a Historical Person, Literary Character and Anonymous Artist. OTS 45; Leiden: Brill, 2001: 175-98.

[2] Haran, M., "The Place of the Prophecies Against the Nations in the Book of Jeremiah," in S.M. Paul, et al, eds. Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls. VTSup 94; Leident: Brill, 2003: 699-706.

[3] Clements, R.E., "Jeremiah 1--25 and the Deuteronomistic History," in A. Auld, ed. Understanding Poets and Prophets. Sheffield, 1993: 93-113.

[4] Bultmann, C., "A Prophet in Desperation? The Confessions of Jeremiah," in J.C. de Moor, ed. The Elusive Prophet: The Prophet as a Historical Person, Literary Character and Anonymous Artist. OTS 45; Leiden: Brill, 2001: 83-93.

[5] Brueggemann, W.A., "Next Steps in Jeremiah Studies?" in Troubling Jeremiah. JSOTSup 260; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999: 404-22.

[6] Blenkinsopp, Joseph. “Prophetism and Prophets”. In The International Bible Commentary. Edited by William R. Farmer .Bangalore: TPI, 1998.

[7] Smith, J.M. Powis. The prophets and their times. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1935.

[8] Scott, R.B.Y. The Relevance of the Prophets .New York: The Macmillan Company, 1947.

[9] Castellino, G.R., "Observations on the Literary Structure of Some Passages in Jeremiah," VT 30 (1980), 398-408.

[10] McConville, G., "Divine Speech and the Book of Jeremiah," in P. Helm and C.R. Trueman, eds. The Trustworthiness of God: Perspectives on the Nature of Scripture. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002: 19-38.

[11] Zimmerli, W., "Visionary Experience in Jeremiah," in Israel's Prophetic Tradition, ed. R. Coggins (Cambridge U. Press, 1982), 95-118.

[12] Hobbs, T.R., "Some Remarks on the Composition and Structure of the Book of Jeremiah," CBQ 34 (1972), 257-275.

[13] Crenshaw, J.L., "A Living Tradition: The Book of Jeremiah in Current Research," Int 37 (1983), 117-129.

[14] Heaton, E.W. The Old Testament Prophets .London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1977.

[15] Culley, R.C., "The Confessions of Jeremiah and Traditional Discourse," in S. Olyan and R. Culley, eds. "A Wise and Discerning Mind." Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2000: 69-81.