Prophecy - early beginnings...

 

Sun Sep 21st 2025

What is a prophet?

Prophets are always called to specific time and place pronouncements, and/or specific time and place acts, both of which happen in order to reveal, destabilize and delegitimize the power of dominant overpowering state entities that want nothing but absolute power over people in order to exploit them.

No one who understands what it means would want to be a prophet in the biblical sense of the word, for it is a dangerous business. Be wary of anyone who identifies themselves as such. The prophets never did so. They were simply recognized as prophets by what they said and did.   

And they always had only one theme, one mission, that drove them. God’s will to show that God is God, and not to be confused with some earthly power that lacked moral goodness but was trying to pass itself off as God.

God called Israel into being, and after Jesus ministry, the people of God became the Christian Church. The Israel that continues is of Judaism, and even then not exactly so. But the people of God are a people of an alternate nature, of alternate values – led by God, inspired by God, protected by God. We have seen thus far that Israel failed in this mission, and so the Old Testament ends sadly in division and a hope that one day, the mission will continue. And as prophesied, it resurfaces in Jesus and finds completion in him. But old ways die hard; hence the Israelites wanted Jesus, at what we celebrate as ‘Palm Sunday’, to enter Jerusalem and smite the Romans good! A Messiah who would trash the enemy and conquer! But as Jesus said, he who lives by the sword will die by the sword. When you follow God truly, it is God who fights for you. No need for armament. But mostly we choose to be worldly, and not godly.

In the early days, when Israel suffered in Egypt and cried out to God for help, God answered, and sent Moses. One man to stand against the dominant power. But empowered by God. And God prevailed. Egypt learned a hard lesson. As in the movie version when Pharoah says to Moses, ‘ Your God…… is God’.

No different when Elijah declared a famine, and food prices had become very expensive and a widow faced death, and Elijah said to her that what little is left, it will not fail. And so the poor woman always had enough. God provides. Note the woman was not an Israelite.

When Jesus came, the same series of events happened, but with final results. The power of evil and wickedness, which seeks always to harm others, is broken for all time. Evil is defeated, but the victory meant paying a price, which God in Jesus paid for us. But we must realize that while defeated, evil will always be there until the end of the age, and will manifest itself again and again, in various lying and deceitful ways.

So we begin to look at what prophets do and what it all means by going back to Moses in Egypt and seeing what happened there. Then we will look at Elijah and Elisha and Israel, and then at Isaiah and Babylon, and finally to Jesus in Roman times. This is a roller coaster ride.

First, think back to what you know of Israel in Egypt. Israel, at the end of the Book of Genesis, prospers, and Joseph is 2^nd only to Pharoah. The Israelites are comfortable. But then a new Pharoah is crowned, and this ruler is different. Comfort becomes a thing of the past! Egyptians are now seen as the only true people, and the Israelites are immigrants, a burden, and a threat even. What do you do with a perceived threat? If you are the power, then, in order to protect your power from a perceived threat, you dismantle it. Oppress these people, treat them as less then human, afflict them, render them powerless. Then you are safe, no? So the Israelites are enslaved, forced to make bricks for no pay and so on.

And this is where the God given identity and mission of the people of God kicks in. God’s people exist to make God known. That’s it. Nothing special about them, compared to anyone else. Except their goal in life! Give up the goal and the specialness dies. And God gives God’s identity to them, so that they are always different, and they are to maintain that differentness. They are, always, the alternative form, the true reality reflecting that which is God – to the sinful powers of this world, the ones who offer a pretend reality.  If the rulers of this world decided to be godly, then there would be alignment. But that never happens because rulers see no other than themselves. But they do love to use God’s ‘name’ in all they do. It gives them such legitimacy, no? It’s true, God wills it! And so on…

God sends Moses to Pharoah. Go, show him, there is only one God. Many lessons are taught, many plagues descend. Step by step, as Moses proceeds, the power of the dominant worldly entity is broken. At the end of it all, Pharoah agrees. Your God….is God. Remember, Moses was not very willing to undertake this mission. No prophet is. It is a high risk burdensome enterprise. You are set against the materialistic power and wealth loving world, and the world will hate you, as Jesus said. 

But that is what we as Christians are called to. We are always to represent the godly alternative to the powers that be. In Jesus, we are all minor prophets, each one in their own way in their own time. Scary idea. But God empowers. This is why Jacob’s Ladder calls us to an empowered life, Not about talking about feeling empowered. But about living it and making a difference.

 

And was Moses about the 10 commandments and manna and not much else? Please read Deuteronomy 15:1-8 to see what else and think hard on it. Therein is a call to a very different type of society. It is all about neighbor and community. Where there is to be no economic exploitation of the poor by the rich; where debts are cancelled every 6 years, so everyone in debt gets a shot at a new beginning; vs 4 & 11 emphasize the necessity of doing this faithfully, so that demeaning poverty can be a thing of the past. We haven’t exactly managed that, have we? Seems like no one listened, no one’s listening. Or that the worldly powers that be are still what they always have been.

Yet this is what it is all about. What are we set free for? A new kind of freedom, one that carries both responsibility, accountability and a very strange God given ability with it. Godly rulers are entirely possible, just that they have to deal with the 3 heavy temptations of money, power, and sex. Well, if you put yourself first you can’t really build community, can you? You take care of No. 1 and expect that the rest can manage, somehow. But community means caring for your neighbor, always. Hence, Jesus says there are only 2 commands – Love God and love thy neighbor as thyself. Treat them as you would be treated! But Solomon had some 30 wives, some 700 concubines. Are we worldly enough yet?

Back in 2000, Walter Brueggemann, most accurate translator and Professor of Biblical Hebrew, spoke about the disestablishment of Western Christianity and the collapse of the social hegemony of the church. You would have to read his Prophetic Imagination and his Testimony to Otherwise to get a sense of how he sees things as the prophets saw.  His Old Testament Theology will remain unsurpassed for a long time. A fellow pastor of mine in New  England said to me, ‘you ought to frame your letters from Brueggemann!’  I smiled.  More recently in 2024, Jim Wallis, a gutsy Christian minister and activist, published his work on the False White Gospel, a very historical journey of how Christian stuff has come about in the US. The good guys are few and far in-between. Their claims are justified and their work is definitive. People, however, tend to hear what they want to hear. And since the rest of the world follows dominant influence, this has easily become the blind leading the blind. People talking about stuff, or preaching about stuff, but unable to do anything about it, without money.

Not Jesus’ style. He teaches his followers differently. That is the challenge of Jacob’s Ladder. We will climb it together. Next week, we begin to look at the incidents in Elijah’s time and what they meant and why they happened. We will figure out what it all means for us and what challenges lie therein as we go along! Peace to you all, and much love in Jesus, G.