Devotion - Wednesday, October 12

One of the things you worry about as a pastor is repeating yourself.  After a few years (or decades) you notice that there are some themes to which you keep returning.  What a joy to discover there is a subject on which folks haven't already heard it all.

This occurred last night at our Bible Study.  We are reading and discussing the Minor Prophets.  When one of the participants spoke of the prophet's "predictions," we shifted to the subject of what is a prophet.

When we speak of biblical prophets, we should avoid thinking of them as persons who can see and predict the future.  What they say may come to pass, but is not because they are have a vision of the future.  What they have is the ability to see the present with God's eyes.

A biblical prophet is one who carries God's pain - one who knows how it grieves God when those whom God has created and loves do not see the wisdom of God's word.

A biblical prophet speaks for God - perceiving the consequences of our current course of action.  The laws given by God are not abstract and arbitrary - they are laws which make it possible for God's people to live long in the land that the Lord our God has given us.

Much of what the biblical prophets said did come to pass.  But this was not because they could see the future - it was because they could see with clarity the present.  Keep this in mind, when you speak of one of God's prophets.