The Men Chosen By God

Even in the days of Jeroboam I, the man who founded the Kingdom of Israel, God already knew that Israel would be troublesome. It was forewarned that, “…the LORD will strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their forefathers and scatter them beyond the River, because they provoked the LORD to anger by making Asherah poles.” The Israelites’ reason of doubt for God was that they were unsure that they could take over their promised land. God told them that they could remove the current inhabitants, but they were convinced that they could not. Not believing in the word of the Lord led to their exile for forty years of “wilderness wandering.” They had forgotten all of the great things that He had done for them, such as delivering them from Egyptian enslavement. Hope was given up on Him

The Hebrews believed that they had a special unique relationship with God; they called themselves “the chosen People”. Prophets played a dominant role in this history. They believe this because they were rescued from Egypt and God wanted them set the examples of righteousness behavior for all to follow. The Prophets are emergence of spiritually inspired people. The profits cared nothing for money or possessions and feared no one and preached without invitations. The prophet said that is was God’s wish to forgive human sins and to renew his relationship with a contrite Israel. The prophets aided in the modeling of the learning that is part of the Western Tradition. They also additional established the Hebrew idea of “moral individuality”. Rejecting parochialism for universalism, the prophets accomplished a profound alertness of human disposition, a conscious commitment to the Law. The prophets said that individuals are responsible for their own actions and this would be the key component to the Western thought.

In the book of Jonah we see the vast amount of tension between both God and Jonah. He is one of the prophets who also believes in tolerance of non-Jews opposite to Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s stress of an unadulterated blood race of Jews under a restrictive Jewish God. Jonah is one of a vast line of important people in the bible who argues with God. As you see in past books of the bible everyone has stood their own against the Lord. Jonah though decides to try and run from God. The Lord called to Jonah and said “Arise, go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry against it,” but Jonah flees to Joppa, setting sail on a ship duty-bound for Tarshish, assuming he can evade the Lord. Jonah views the Lord as sort of a indigenous God of restrained power that his hand would not reach as

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).

In The Koran, Noah is the first of many important prophets. The Koran gave emphasis to the prophetic aspect of Noah's tasks given to him by God. In short, Noah's mission as a prophet was to inform the wrongdoers, and to convince them to submit to God. If they refused to do so, Noah threatened them with anguish and suffering. Regardless, the wrongdoers rejected his warning and shrugged off his threats. Consequently, it became evident to Noah that his people would never take note of his word of warning. It was then that Noah ordered down God's destruction of all who did not take heed to his forewarning.

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

Therefore, Cain has been given the ability of free will, God has given them the to choice of goodness over evil.

Since each writer uses history as a way to support his argument, but uses a different view of constitutional history Stephens based is understanding on the common laws of nature. It all starts when Stephens says, “this, our new Government, is the first in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth” (Stephens 2). Stephens argues this because the whites are more superior over the blacks; the two groups are not equal. This has a similarity to Hitler since he also said that the Germans were superior over the jews. The Gettysburg Address argues that “all men are created equal” because one should not forget the founding fathers because of what they had to go through for our rights in order to form the

God’s role in the Bible is characterized in several different ways, with dramatically competing attributes. He takes on many functions and, as literary characters are, he is dynamic and changes over time. The portrayal of God is unique in separate books throughout the Bible. This flexibility of role and character is exemplified by the discrepancy in the depiction of God in the book of Genesis in comparison to the depiction of God in the book of Job. On the larger scale, God creates with intention in Genesis in contrast to destroying without reason in Job. However, as the scale gets smaller, God’s creative authority can be seen in both books, yet this creative authority is manifested in entirely distinctive manners. In Genesis, God as

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

Throughout the Book of Genesis, there are cycles of protagonists with whom God interacts. In one such cycle, the Jacob cycle, God interacts with the world in a very unique way. Instead of directly influencing an outcome, He works by using people as conduits. He utilizes people to progress toward the ultimate goal of achieving His Divine Plan. During the Jacob Cycle, God influences Jacob in four significant stages: his childhood, his journey to Haran, his journey from Haran, and a final test of will. Over the course of these stages, God’s increasing trust in Jacob parallels his guidance.

The concept of faith and suffering in the Hebrew Bible has filled worshippers with fraught throughout the ages of its existence. The crux of the matter is that there is no definition of what exactly these things are and what they mean, leading to many different theories to emerge on the concept of whether suffering is necessary for faith in God. This has historically caused strife between many populations of worshippers, and continues to be a point of bitter disagreement between people. Wildly contradicting itself between various books, the Hebrew Bible is at best ambiguous in many of these concepts, but when analyzing small passages, certain themes can be argued for with much more strength. In the Book of Job, loyalty to God is questioned, and ultimately the theme of free will in faith is addressed through the pain and suffering of its characters.

God interacts with the world in a very unique way. He works by using people as conduits with whom He will ultimately achieve His goal of the Divine Plan. Throughout the Book of Genesis, many cycles of protagonists appear with whom God chooses to interact. In one such cycle, the Jacob Cycle, God influences, molds, and guides Jacob in increasingly personal ways. God influences Jacob throughout his childhood, his journey to Haran, his journey from Haran, and finally, with one last test of will. Throughout the guidance, God’s increasing trust in Jacob allows for an eventual transformation of the relationship, where Jacob morphs into God’s Israel.

So we can see that the Bible questions the ability of humans to control their own destiny.