Tag: prophesy

The Bible in a Year – 22 September

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

22 September. 1 Chronicles chapters 24-25

This passage consists of the rotas of different extended families in the service of the Temple.  The names mean nothing to us now, but clearly it was important at the time that the whole of the tribe of Levi had been set apart centuries earlier as dedicated to leading public worship and administration, and all that went with it.   Nowadays we would call it nepotism or discrimination, but that was their culture.

Just one verse stands out for me: “David and the officers of the army also set apart for the service the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who were to prophesy with lyres, harps, and cymbals.” (25:1).  We tend to think of “prophesy” as inevitably a matter of speaking words: words given by God, either in one’s own language or (in “charismatic” churches) sometimes in a spiritual language that has to be interpreted by others equally but differently gifted.  Words of prophesy might be given to encourage people in faith, to warn them that they are going wrong, or occasionally to foretell the future.

But here, prophesy seems to be equated with playing musical instruments.  Music was clearly a very important part of the worship of the Temple, and we still have the words (though not the tunes) passed down to us in the form of Psalms. Many of the psalms themselves exhort people to praise God with music.  It is well known that singing has many benefits, both in terms of personal health (aiding relaxation and coping with stress, for example), and in uniting people in a sense of belonging together by singing together.

Singing hymns and psalms, in particular, helps people to remember and respond to the scriptures and creeds that the church passes down from one generation to the next: call out to me “O Lord open thou our lips” and I will respond with “and our mouth shall show forth thy praise” to the chant used by Anglicans for nearly 500 years.

But even instrumental music can be of spiritual benefit, as this verse reminds us.  It influences moods to a great extent, and through association helps people to remember places and events, and the words, thoughts or feelings that went with them.  So the playing of music in a pace of worship is “prophecy” to the extent that those hearing it will be reminded of previous times of worship, or of words of scripture. Or it may just be gentle music that calms us and makes us open to meditation and prayer.  Play on, Heman and Jeduthun!

 

The Bible in a Year – 31 May

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

31 May. Ezekiel chapters 4-7

Ezekiel was undoubtedly master of the ‘acted parable’ or ‘acted prophesy’.  Using vivid language as Jesus did was not enough for him.  Such was the import of his message that the exile was God’s punishment for Judah’s sins, and that further destruction of Jerusalem would follow (in 586BC, about eleven years after the first siege and exile), that he felt called to go to extreme lengths to demonstrate the message in action.

 

In chapter 4 it meant the physical suffering of lying, bound in ropes, on his left side for 390 days (over a year) to represent 390 years of rebellion against God.  During this time (in which he was brought only flour and water, and baked bread over cow dung) he had to act out the siege of Jerusalem using a model of the city.  All this presumably took place in public so as to attract the attention of passers-by.  The nearest equivalent to this today would be the Greenpeace activists who chain themselves to military installations or invade whaling vessels, or perhaps Brian Haw who protested in a tent outside the UK Parliament for nearly ten years.  Such people disturb the complacency with which most of us meekly accept the injustices that we see around us, even when we know that people will suffer if they are not challenged.

The Bible in a Year – 14 May

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

14 May. Jeremiah chapters 1-3

Like Isaiah and other prophets, Jeremiah had a clear call from the Lord.  Even more than other spiritual gifts, true prophesy is something that cannot be imitated or made up.   It is different from preaching (which is taking the scriptures along with common sense and a degree of specialist knowledge, and applying them to everyday life) and evangelism (persuading people of the truth of a particular faith).   Prophesy is always something that God puts in someone’s mind and heart and mouth, a message for a specific situation or person or group that applies directly to them.

 

As both Isaiah and Jeremiah found, receiving a prophetic word to speak to one’s contemporaries is very challenging.  Not only is the word likely to be rejected by many of them as too difficult or even offensive to accept, but the prophet himself is made to feel sinful by delivering it.    Both these great prophets had to feel that God had touched their mouth in order to make it clean enough to deliver his message.

 

Jeremiah’s message was, in one sense, nothing new: throughout the history of God’s people he was constantly challenging them about worship of other ‘gods’, spirits or idols.  Unlike other sins such as lust, anger or greed which can afflict even the most faithful of believers, and be repented of, the sin of idolatry – believing that there is something that is more deserving of worship than God – is a fundamental betrayal.

 

That is why the form of Jeremiah’s words is so hard-hitting.  Many times over in different ways he uses the image of Israel and Judah as women who have committed adultery, not just with one lover but as prostitutes with many.  What man would accept his wife back in such circumstances?  Why would God ever accept his people again?

 

Israel and Judah had indeed gone so far from true religion that they would be banished from the land.  But God never gives up completely, and even in these opening chapters (2:11-18) there is the hint of a future restoration.