Minor prophets, major impact!

An introduction to the Minor Prophets

2 Tim 3v16 says “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”

All scripture!

But let’s be honest - some parts of the scriptures are much easier to understand than others!

We don’t have much difficulty standing beside Jesus as he says to Peter “Come, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men”. It’s easy for us to see the meaning there.

When we venture into the Old Testament things often become harder. We are familiar with some passages like David and Goliath or Abraham taking his son Isaac to sacrifice him on mount Moriah. We can see in the latter case how God was testing Abraham, and at the last minute provided a ram for the sacrifice in place of Isaac, a divinely appointed substitute in his place.

Yet there are some parts of the Old Testament that are particularly hard to get to grips with, aren’t there? Perhaps the most formidable bunch are the group of short books gathered at the end of the Old Testament – the ones which we call the “minor prophets”, but which the Israelites called the “writing prophets”.

Over the next seven weeks we are going to be looking at two of these prophets in detail – at Habakkuk and then at Joel. These books make much more sense when we realise how they fit into the unfolding story of salvation history – Gods revelation of his plans to us through the history recorded in the bible.

So what is a prophet for?

Although it is common to think of prophecy as predicting the future, the Bible prophets actually do very little of this kind of prediction. What we normally see is the prophets bringing warnings to Gods people, warning them when they are straying from their covenant with God, and the are consequences they face. They don’t get any pleasure from their predictions coming true. God’s most earnest desire is that the people would heed the warning, and turn from their self-destructive path and back to him (even when prophets such as Jonah would rather anything but happened!)

It is much like this – if you were walking along the street and saw someone about to step out in front of an oncoming car, you would shout out “Stop! Don’t step out or you’ll be hurt!”. You wouldn’t be satisfied to see them ignore your warning and get hit just like you foresaw, would you? The aim of shouting out the warning is that they might be saved from harm.

That is one of the chief roles of the prophet. Sadly, all too often their warning was not heeded and a prophet was used to proclaim Gods judgement on a faithless people who would not repent.

The prophets in history

Do you remember a TV advert by the guardian a few years ago? It starts by showing a skinhead starting to run. Then it shows a different camera angle and you see the skinhead run up to a commuter and wrestle with him for his briefcase. Finally we get a long camera shot: the skinhead spots some crates on a crane come loose – he runs across to the man who is under the crates, grabs him and pushes him out of the way just in time.

Context is vital, to make sure that we really understand what is going on.

The key point at which we see the writing prophets first appear is after the Division of the Kingdom 930BC

Rehoboam, grandson of King David forms the Southern Kingdom with the tribe of Judah. Jeroboam splits off with the ten tribes of Israel to form the Northern kingdom.

Over the next 209 years, the Northern kingdom is ruled by a succession of wicked and ungodly kings. They ignore the prophets that God sends to them, Amos & Hosea, and in the end God brings judgement through the Assyrian nation, who wipe out the Northern Kingdom in 722BC.

The Southern kingdom lasts for 345 years and has a succession of kings in the line of David, some good and some bad. Prophets including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Micah, Habakkuk & Zephaniah are sent to them also, to warn them that they are straying from the covenant which they had made with God. They last longer than the Northern kingdom, but even here God’s patience has a limit and he warns that because of their rebellion they will be taken into exile for 70 years.

136 years after the Northern kingdom is destroyed, God sends the Babylonians first making Judah a vassal in about 606 BC and then destroying Jerusalem and the temple in 586 BC.

In 538 BC the pagan king Cyrus decrees that they can return home (just as was prophesied by Isaiah). Over a period of years groups of people came back and the temple is gradually rebuilt, being finally dedicated in 515 BC, thus bringing to a close the 70 years of exile.

We then have the last 85 years of old testament history where we hear the voices of Haggai, Zechariah and finally Malachi, who closes the old testament in 432 BC,

Then there is a 400 year silence, until John the Baptist bursts onto the scene and we are in the New Testament.

So as we read any of the minor prophets, we can ask ourselves a few questions – who were they talking to? Northern Israel that was going to be destroyed by Assyria? Judah before the exile (or after the return)? Some other nation? It is also useful for us to know a little bit about the regional superpowers too… the fact that Assyria were the top dog nation for a long while, then Babylon became the top dog nation. What was the condition of Gods people at that time?

Why is this important for us today?

The big question is – what do these writing prophets have to say to us today? They tell us about God, and about the things which he considers important. They tell us about the relationships which people can have with God, they show us unfathomable glimpses of the majesty of God in language where the prophets clearly struggle to place into words the things they have seen.

Moreover, the prophets were bringing to the attention of Gods people the words that God has left them for their guidance and instruction. Reminding them of Gods promises and warnings.

And you know – we hear some of these things each week, don’t we? Though the preaching of the scriptures, Sunday by Sunday we have the chance to find out what the Bible says and how it relates to our lives. We don’t come to hear trite blessed thoughts or collections of funny stories; we come to have an encounter with God. He spoke through his prophets then and he speaks still through them today.

And that brings me right back where we started:
2 Tim 3v16 says “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”

Alex White