The Prophetic Books: Essential and Edifying
I remember a professor telling me that he can tell when a group of people only hear teaching from one genre.
Time spent primarily in the didactive epistles shapes the group to be very black and white. A focus on the narratives made the people seem to understand the nuances in life and God’s hand in them. Teaching heavily from the wisdom literature shepherded the group to understand that life was complicated, but we can pursue good choices before the Lord.
Even if all of these are taught in a gospel-centered manner, they tend to lead us one way or another.
To be fully-formed followers of Jesus, we need teachings from all the genres.
Today we will spend time equipping you to better engage with a neglected genre: the prophets. It’s understandable that we are easily confused when we open our Bibles to these books. Today we’ll take one step forward in being able to understand and teach them more confidently.
What do the prophetic books offer us as a genre?
They confront, exhort, call out our sins that we need to see.
They comfort and encourage us. They teach us what we should have our hope in and what we shouldn’t. They lift our eyes to the beautiful work of redemption and restoration God is doing and will do.
They are emotional. They help us in seasons when we need to grieve and rebuke (Hab. 2:20).
They are there for us when we need sweet lifelines of hope with poetry that expresses our innermost struggles (Hab 3:17-19).
They point us to Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate bringer of redemption and restoration the prophets speak of.
Jesus Himself is the consummative prophet, the one Moses promised would come (Deut 18:15).
So let’s dive in and give you two tools for understanding the Bible’s prophetic books.
Understanding the Broader Context
First, let’s place the fifteen Old Testament prophetic books in the storyline of the Bible. Israel had been rescued out of Egypt, given the Promised Land, given a king. The height of Israel’s covenant obedience and joy was under King David. They enjoyed prosperity under David’s son, Solomon, but his disobedience to the Lord caused consequences for the nation. The country split into Northern and Southern kingdoms, and idolatry replaced the temple worship in the Northern Kingdom.
Next we see a series of mostly evil kings in the North, and a mixture of better kings and evil kings in the South. This culminates at long last with judgment: first, Assyria conquers the Northern Kingdom, then Babylon destroys the Southern Kingdom.
The prophetic books in the Old Testament help us to understand what God’s heart was toward His people during their progressively worsening idolatry, resulting moral corruption, and subsequent judgment. He was not silent, and today we get to see his words that were delivered to Israel and Judah during this period.
Understanding Types of Prophecy
In prophecy there are patterns we look for just like in any other genre. In narratives we look for the climax of the story and where the rising tension hits its peak and then resolves. In epistles we look for the classic structure of a letter and didactic arguments that build to a main point.
In Prophecy we are looking at oracles, which are truth proclamations from God himself. Remember, the essence of prophetism is speaking forth the words of God.
The message of the prophets revealed information about what God wanted people to do and what God was going to do. These oracles were designed not just for information but for transformation–messages of truth spoken to change the people’s worldview and their behavior.
Prophecies required their hearers to embrace a new way of understanding life from God’s point of view. It meant they had to give up a frame of reference that their friends and family accepted as self-evident truth. Taking the hope that God offered required transformation and a willingness to resist conforming to the pressures of the day. It was a choice of faith to orient themselves to God’s way of thinking. It’s the same for us today, as we believe what the prophets write.
Two main types of prophecy, which can be contained within any prophetic book, are oracles of judgment and oracles of salvation.
Oracles of judgment spoke against Israel and Judah for their covenant unfaithfulness and also against foreign nations for their corruption and arrogance. In the midst of these judgments, the prophets uttered what is connected to the Law given to Israel in the Torah. The Law and the covenant laid the foundation for the ministry of the prophets. None of these judgments fell outside what God had outlined as consequences for unfaithfulness and corruption as found in passages such as Deuteronomy 27-28. God’s response to unfaithfulness was to do exactly what he said he would do.
Oracles of salvation speak of exile and restoration. What could be more shocking to Israel than being exiled from the Promised Land? The prophets had to prepare them for this shock. They had seen the Lord bring them through the Exodus, make a covenant with them, give them the land. Surely exile wouldn’t actually happen, many Israelites thought. But the prophets were tasked to confirm this reality to them (even though Moses had told them it would happen) and to simultaneously remind them of the hope of the Lord’s long-term redemptive purposes to return them from exile. Prophecies of salvation emphasize Jerusalem and the Messiah, tied to the Davidic Covenant. God would keep His promises about Jerusalem and about the continuance of David’s kingly line. Often we see a typological fulfillment of the prophesies about the Messiah along with historical ones. Hope for foreign nations, even the same ones who are condemned, are offered, for our God is one who is going to redeem the nations. His grace is global.
Knowing the context into which the prophets spoke and grasping the two most basic types of prophecy lay a foundation for understanding them. With these tools in hand, we see the prophetic books beautifully show God’s heart in vivid and tangible metaphors. When we skip reading them, we miss God’s call to humility, generosity, just treatment of the vulnerable, and right worship. They speak to us in this broken world, confirming the grief we may feel while convicting us of our own part in a corrupt society. Further, in the midst of a dark world, they lead us to understand God’s redemptive plan and the provision of Jesus Christ.
For Further Reading:
The Lord Roars by Danny Carrol
Lydia Brownback’s Bible Study on Habakkuk
The Prophets by Abrabham J. Heschel
Interpreting the Prophets by Aaron Chalmers
Interpreting the Prophetic Books by Gary V. Smith
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