Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up. The primary, central purpose of New Testament prophecy is to build up and encourage the church. This is in distinct contrast to Old Testament prophecy in which the prophets would call down divine judgment upon the people of Israel and the surrounding nations. The teaching of the Apostles along with the testimony of the New Testament make it clear that New Testament prophecy serves a very different function.
New Testament prophecy and modern day prophets are intended to build up, edify, and encourage the people of God. If a dude stands up and starts foaming at the mouth, prophesying judgment and hellfire and brimstone, I immediately tune him out. Prophecy is intended to build up and encourage the church. Prophecy is never, ever, ever new revelation about God.
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Once the canon was completed, all revelation about God ceased. The fullest revelation of God is Jesus Christ. The teaching of the apostles fills out and explains who Christ is and what he accomplished.
The Lord Reveals His Secrets to His Servants the Prophets
So what exactly is prophecy? Let me give an example of what I mean. During the service, a woman came up to the front and shared what she believed was a prophetic picture from the Lord. She saw a picture of the someone laying train tracks out in front of a person one small piece at a time. She believed this picture was a reminder that God will lead us one step at a time exactly where we need to go.
Now, there was nothing weird about this experience. The images are all chosen to express the same thing: God, has foreknowledge of all calamities see vv. Prophecy comes by direct revelation. God has knowledge of all His children and their doings and justly warns and threatens with His judgments.
The fact that the prophets prophesy correctly is an indication that they are in communion with God and that they do indeed walk together. If therefore such heathen as these are called to behold the unrighteous and dissolute conduct to be seen in the places, it must have been great indeed.
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Amos used vivid imagery to show that scarcely any would escape and those who did would do so with extreme difficulty. It is like a shepherd who can recover no more of a sheep carried away by a lion than two of its legs or a piece of its ear, just enough to prove that they belonged to his sheep. This prophecy saw fulfillment when Sargon took Samaria, part of the Northern Kingdom, captive about B. In the East the corner is the most honorable place, and a couch in the corner of a room is the place of greatest distinction.
These words were used to mean that even in the cities which were in the most honorable part of the land, whether Samaria in Israel, or Damascus in Syria, none would escape the judgments. In that day the Lord would remove His power from among Israel, as symbolized by the cutting off of the horns of the altar see Old Testament Student Manual: The prophet was saying that not only the poor habitations of the villages and the country would be smitten but also those of the nobility, those who had summer and winter homes adorned with ivory vessels and carvings.
The quality of life in any community is largely what its women make it. If they are cruel and covetous, their children will likely be the same. Here Amos compared the women of Samaria with the cows kine which fed upon the rich pastures east of the Sea of Galilee, caring for little but eating and drinking. Their sin consisted of urging their husbands to bring them food bought with money squeezed from the poor.
See Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary, The sacrifices of Israel had degenerated into heartless ritual. It did no good to go to religious centers, to Bethel or Gilgal, and offer sacrifice in a sinful state. The outward sacrifices should have symbolized repentance, an inward change; but outward sacrifice without inward change is a mockery, and God will not be mocked. In an endeavor to bring His people to their senses the Lord, said Amos, had sent upon them seven natural calamities.
Cleanness of teeth [hunger], drought, blasting and mildew, insect pests, pestilence, death by the sword, and burning were brought in succession, but all to no avail. He could do nothing but warn the nation of the final blow which God would send and for which the people must prepare themselves.
The God of hosts see Amos 4: Here the Lord appealed to fallen Israel to repent and mend her evil ways: The Lord wants to be a personal God to His faithful, obedient children. It was not too late for Israel to repent. Failure to do so, however, would result in a situation like that of a man running from a lion only to meet a bear see v. Neither would various sacrificial offerings help unless true repentance followed: All of this outward display was unavailing, and Amos cries out for justice in two lines that have become famous: Moloch and Chiun were heathen gods that the Israelite women had adopted.
So grievously addicted to idolatry were those in Samaria that they carried miniature replicas of these gods everywhere they went. The Lord enlarged here on the captivity that He foresaw for degenerate Israel. But first He invited them to visit other places of destruction—Calneh in Mesopotamia, Hamath in Syria, and Gath in Philistia—and observe what happened to the people there. Were the Israelites any better than they? They had been punished, and so would Israel. Moreover, the wealthy—those who lay on ivory beds and ate sumptuous food—would be the first to suffer see Amos 6: These persons are absolutely indifferent to the threatened ruin of their people.
The prophet indicates 6: Horses cannot run on rocks without slipping, nor can a man plough rocks in order to plant see v. By the same token, rebellious Israel could not expect to prosper in her state of evil. What Amos had predicted came to pass within thirty years.
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The last three chapters of Amos deal with five visions Amos had. The first four visions show the various judgments of the Lord upon Israel, while the fifth vision portends the overthrow of their apostate theocracy and the restoration of fallen Israel. The visions are 1 a swarm of locusts Amos 7: Each has a symbolic meaning that clearly shows that the Lord intended to bring the kingdom of Israel to an end if His people did not repent.
The meaning of each vision will be considered individually. A swarm of locusts Amos 7: The growing of the second crop is a figurative representation of the prosperity which flourished again after those judgments; in actual fact, therefore, it denotes the time when the dawn had risen again for Israel ch. Can there realistically be power without oppression? But the prophets are relevant not because they are realistic but because they taught that the test of justice in a nation is how the weakest are treated.
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This teaching repeatedly emerges in Jewish and Christian writing ever since. The rabbis could not think of a worse sin for the people of Sodom than to issue a decree that no one was to help the poor. Houston, "Social Justice and the Prophets", n.
Are Modern Day Prophets Real?
Houston has retired after many years of teaching Hebrew Bible in seminaries and universities in England, and he now holds an honorary research fellowship at the University of Manchester. He helps maintain the Society for Old Testament Study wiki.
Amos contains some of the most moving poetry in the Hebrew Bible and strongly denounces religious hypocrisy and economic inequality. Passages in the prophets that say that ritual behavior is unnecessary as long as people act ethically are exaggerations. The prophets, charismatic voices of judgment and hope, are rooted in the tradition yet innovative about the possibilities for the future. The unjust generation of wealth in the 8th century B. We will make the ephah small and the s It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
Social Injustice Denounced 8Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in t