Prophets Are A Catalyst For Change

The prophet Isaiah played an important role in the development and expression of Judaism as a dynamic, living religion through the impact of his works. The impact of Isaiah is evident in both the development and expression of Judaism both in his time and in modern society, as his teachings, for the Jewish people, prove to be relevant to the times. Considered among Jews as one of the greatest prophets, Isaiah has contributed to and affected the life of adherents in the Jewish faith through his political and religious influence, his prophetic messages concerning

A prophet speaks exquisitely encouraged words to others. Prophets are willing to give up their life for what they believe in. They bring new ideas to situations, and don’t follow other’s work. They are gifted with the ways of God, and have spiritual insight on certain problems. To be a prophet takes hard work. If you do something so immense, and it helps people around you, doesn’t mean you automatically fall under prophecy. You have to have the full criteria. That is why it’s hard to find a modern day prophet today. Many people in the world today have done something big, but are not viewed as prophetic, because of their power, or personality.

The prophets are difficult to interpret mainly due to misunderstandings about their function and form (Fee/Stuart p182). Most dictionaries define the word “prophecy”as ‘foretelling or prediction of what is to come. Using the prophets in this way is highly discerning, for less than 2% of OT prophecy is messianic; less than 5% describes the new covenant age and less than 1% concerns future events (Fee/Stuart p182). The prophets usually announced the immediate future of Judah, Israel and the surrounding nations, rather than our future. Those events were forthcoming for them but past for us (Fee/Stuart p182). The primary function of prophets as a spokesperson was to speak for God to their own contemporaries. Of the hundreds of prophets in

First, what must be looked at is who is a prophet and what is a prophet’s message. A prophet is an Israelite called on by God to express in poetic form the vision of God, His kingdom, the messianic age of peace, the work of the Holy Spirit, a new community of people, and the transformation of creation and humanity (VanGemeren 16). One example of a prophet is Amos, where the feeling of prophetic sense of an inner compulsion, “Surly the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets. A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?” (Amos 3:7-8).

Several times in the Bible, the Lord commissions a person to serve as a prophet and a leader for his people. While those who are commissioned are elevated by that choice, those commissions are not always positive. On the contrary, the Lord is frequently responding to something that people have done that He finds disappointing or upsetting. As a result, the commissioning often have an ominous tone to them, even though they reflect the Lord's pleasure with one of his servants. Isiaiah 6 and Jeremiah 1 both demonstrate how a commission was both an honor and a burden for the men who received them in the Bible. They also demonstrate that the prophets were tasked to do difficult things.

The First Great Awakening, was a religious revitalization movement that came through the Atlantic region, and even more so in the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, forever impacting American religion & is widely known as the most important event for American religion during the eighteenth century. The First Great Awakening was inspired by an English Methodist known as George Whitefield along with other ministers, when many people in the rural areas rejected the Enlighted and rational religion that came from the Cosmopolitan pulpits and port cities. George Whitefield began this movement with speaking tours through the colonies (“The Great Awakening”).

The role of the prophet changes with the society in which he lives. In modern society, a prophet is a visionary, telling people what they can become; in Biblical times, a prophet was the voice of God, telling his people what they had to become to fulfill their covenant with God.  In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the prophet is a peaceful lad, Simon.  He alone saw that the jungle, which represented freedom and the lack of civilization, was not to be feared but to be understood; he alone knew that the mythical Beast of the island, feared by all the boys, was, in fact, their own inherent savagery. Through these truths Simon represents a Christ figure paralleling Christ's

To fully understand the meaning behind his sermons and predictions we must first look at what a prophet is and what he holds true.

The book of Amos is the earliest preserved example of classic prophetic writings. It consists of nine chapters, but Amos did not write the entirety of them. “A majority of scholars think that not all of the material in Amos goes back to the prophet himself but was added later by ancient editors of the book.” The anthology contains a variation of materials: prophecies, visions and addresses from Amos to the people of Israel. Two major themes of the book are the social injustice in Israel, and the impending doom in Israel’s future.

In the textbook's introductory material (Ch. 1 - 4), Hays presents the central focus of the prophets being the covenant and social justice. The covenant is presented within a three-part formula: "I will be your God; You will be my people; I will dwell in your midst" (p. 35). Hays elaborates on the justice aspect on p. 71: "The Prophets and Social Justice Today".

The prophets are some of the most studied individuals in the bible, but often many people overlook the primary mission of the prophets. According to Bratcher “the prophets’ primary task was to call the people

In the last section of the Bible there are two parts. The two parts are the Major and Minor Prophets. The Major prophets are in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The minor Prophets are in the books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, these books form that last segment of the Old Testament cannon. The authors of these books were the Hebrew prophets, which makes sense because a Hebrew prophet is a spokesperson for God. The twofold aspect of the prophet's ministry included declaring God's message for people of their day and foretelling God's actions in the future (Hindson). Thus, the prophet was also called a "seer" because he could see future events before

In comparison to this, the section of the Hebrew Scriptures known as ‘prophecy’ is a far harder collection from which to discern common threads in the sense of genre or content. Set as a continuation of the greater biblical narrative, the Prophecy section is best understood when divided further into two parts, that of the former prophets and the later prophets . The former prophets consist of the books of Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 kings and are generally referred to as ‘deutero-historical books’, expressing the role the theology of Deuteronomy plays in its

The Old Testament ends with the Minor Prophets. These prophets provided insight on many issues the Jews were facing. All of the prophets had the same ideas of a warning of impending judgment because of the nations’ sinfulness, the coming judgment, a call for repentance, and a promise of future deliverance of God’s grace. Idolatry, social injustice and religious ritualism are three issues that the prophets emphasized on in their teachings and can be inspired in the minds and hearts of believers today. The prophets’ teachings are just as important today as they were in the past. The teachings about God, the way man lived, social issues, and religious rituals are all relevant in the today’s society.

I believe that prophets are still relevant today. Although, society has become more advanced than ever, humans behaviors and thought process have not changed at all. We still allow for our Ego's to dictate our lives. We put our self needs before the well being of others. We focus on only what will benefit us in the moment time and lack empathy for future. We have become so wasteful and destructive . Many people believe that times have got better but in reality they are still the same. Racial tension, poverty, lack of resources, misuse of religion and an injustice economy. I believe that people are no longer seen as people but seen only for the use of consuming. Martin Luther King and Wendell Barry both expressed the greater problems of society in America. Barry cites the system failures and mocks its current goals. King speaks for the oppressed and address the wrong doing of America's justice system.