Prophets and Prophecies
1090 words by desmyth
Lauren Cooper
Brittney Curtis
Danielle Edinburgh-Wilson
Denisa Hancock
Samantha Hicks
Karl Jenkins
Julian Jordan
Eboni Kaglear
Krista Richardson
Brittany Singleton
Biblical Prophets were the messengers of God. The primary duties of prophets were to predict the future, advise leaders, enact change, perform symbolic acts, and declare oracles. Predicting the future gave prophets credibility that they had actually obtained divine wisdom from God. In advising leaders, leaders would be able to receive God’s opinion on the right course of action to take. Prophets were also used to force people to repent and rectify their behaviors and beliefs by returning to God. Prophets also presented messages from God through dramatic gestures. The final obligation of prophets was to deliver God’s messages to the people, which was the main job of a prophet.
The job of being a prophet is similar to the task that is required for the project because the project requisitions one to perform a symbolic act by volunteering one’s services to help the needs of others. The project obligates one to enact change by being the change. Another requirement for the project is that one advises a leader about the problem and a possible resolution, which was accomplished through the letters that were written to someone of power who could massively initiate the change for the better. By the volunteer services of this class, the people of the class are becoming just like the prophets of the Bible. The only difference is that God is working through the class to bring a message of hope to those that are helped by our works. The messages of the prophets of the Bible were usually of doom, condemnation, and pending punishments; however, even through these punishments, there was always a hint of hope and a message that all of one’s suffering will be for one’s good.
Many of the prophets condemn their leaders for forsaking God’s commandments. Many prophets warned of forth coming punishments that God will render because the Israelites had forsaken his commandments. Prophets such as Isaiah , Jeremiah, and Jonah prophesized about pending consequences due to the people turning away from God, worshiping idols, and worshiping other Gods such as Baal.
In the book of Job, Job deals with the idea of innocent suffering and why the righteous seem to undergo such hardships, while others, who do not keep to God’s commandments and seem to exalt wickedness, prosper. Job, a righteous man, goes through some much hardship because he is so faithful to the Lord. All of his children die, he loses all of his wealth, and his wife leaves him. Job suffers physical diseases - soars and boils. Through everything that Job went through, he still remained faithful to the Lord. Job finally asks God why he was subjected to all of these adversities and God says that Job will never be able to understand why because he is not God. This story explains that people go through trials and tribulations in life and sometimes there is not a clear explanation for why.
The story of Job is like what New Orleans is going through after Katrina because all different types of people try to explain why a catastrophe of this magnitude has happened. No one wants to believe that this type of devastation happened without a reason. Some people try to justify the hurricane because of abortion. They say that the hurricane looks like a fetus, which is utterly ridiculous. Some try to explain that the hurricane happened because of the War in Iraq. The truth is that some tribulations happened without justification. People always use Deuteronomistic ideologies to explain such misfortunes, but like God explicates, who are we that we should know the ways of God. Humans did not create the world and should not attempt to understand his ways because humans are incapable of understanding some things. Humans do not have the capacity to comprehend what is divine.
Psalm twenty two is a song about crying to the Lord for help. The song says that one feels as though God has left one’s presence and is no longer with one. This person cries out for help, yet there is no answer - no response. This person feels as though God does not hear his or her ailing. The psalm says that God has made this person trust him from the womb because others who have cried out to God were delivered. Others had put their trust in God and when they cried out, they were not disappointed. Now this person is asking for that same saving grace because here he or she is standing at the edge of trouble. This person uses a metaphor to describe their trouble:
“Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions tearing their prey
Open their mouths wide against me. […] Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil man has
encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.” (Psalm 22:12-3,16).
The person trusts that God will deliver them. At this point in their lives, this person does not believe that they can go on without the Lord’s help because their strength has been drained. They assure themselves that this plea for help will incite God to act on their behalf, saving him or her from the lions, bulls, and dogs. He or she prays that God will deliver him or her just as God had delivered others before him or her from fates similar and worst off than this.
This person then adds a condition; for, if God saves him or her from this predicament, he or she will proclaim that the Lord is the one true God. This person will declare to all generations that God has saved him or her from this fate and that he will be honored and revered because of this act. This person also says that because God saved him or her from this dilemma that he or she will do the works that God has called of him or her such as giving alms to the poor and praising God, so that all will remember what God has done. The psalm ends by saying that everyone will rejoice in the Lord because of his great works, even those who are yet to be born.