Defending Scripture. Literally. | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Defending Scripture. Literally. | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

A Profile of Prophets

(Not just about those in the Bible, but about us, today.)

Jack C. Getz

1. Prophets speak truth to power.
2. Prophets are called upon to Forth-tell the truth more than to Fore-tell the future.
3. Prophets have a divine commission, not a self-generated calling.
4. Prophets speak God’s word to move people and/or situations Godward.
5. Prophet’s motives are never about their personal profit. :=) Often they experience great personal losses. (Dealing with truth is always costly!)
6. Prophets are commanded by God to speak to immediate and necessary changes (Some achieve their work in a relative short period of time others take a lifetime).
7. Prophets integrate the values of Honor, Honesty and Humility
8. Prophets ultimately find their courage to obey, through faith alone.
9. Prophets operate according to the “proportion of their faith”. (Romans 12:6)
10. Prophets today must do all in the spirit of love. (I Corinthians 13:1-2)

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Haggai and Zechariah were commissioned by God to stir action in the leaders of post-exilic Jerusalem. The initial rush of joy expressed by the holy celebrations and the laying of the Temple’s foundation by the newly returned exiles (described by Ezra) was replaced by self-indulgence, apathy and possibly sloth. Twenty years after their arrival back home, there was no further progress on the Temple. So, God asked two men to bear His words of instruction and order to the leaders of the nation. (Ezra 5:1; 6:14) 


A brief overview of these two very MAJOR MINOR prophets:

Haggai (lit. "My Feast") made four prophetic statements to Zerubbabel:

A Call to Construct - 1:3

A Call to Courage - 2:1

A Call to Cleanliness - 2:10

A Call to Confidence - 2:20

Zechariah (lit. "Yahweh Remembers") spoke both simple truths (1:3 and 8:9) and shared:

8 visions (1:7 -6:15),

Teachings (7:1 - 8:23)

2 Christological Oracles (9:1 -14:21)

A) 9:1-11:1

B) 11:18- 14:21

Moving Beyond the Boundaries

Moving Beyond the Boundaries
Dr. Colin Harris - Atlanta, GA
May 6, 2012
Acts 8: 26-40

Continuing Luke’s narrative of the expanding Christian community during its first generation, our lesson text for this week provides another snapshot of an experience that pushes the Christian family still further from its familiar moorings.  It is an account that is full of symbolism and no doubt became a memorable part of the Christian story.

After the stoning of Stephen in chapter 7, the apostles scattered into the regions of Samaria, sharing the gospel message with all who would listen; and there were many who embraced it. This expansion sets the stage for the new level of inclusion reflected in our story.

Our text begins with a messenger of the Lord speaking to Philip, one of Stephen’s “deacon” colleagues, telling him to go to the highway that led from Jerusalem down to Gaza, the main artery from Judea to Egypt.  Then the Spirit tells Philip to intercept a chariot traveling south, containing an Ethiopian eunuch, who had been to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh.  He was the CFO of an Egyptian queen, reflecting the particular custom of having a gender-altered man in a position of trust over a queen’s property.

The eunuch is reading from the book of Isaiah one of the “suffering servant” poems (Isaiah 53: 7-8), and is puzzled as to what it means, to which Philip responds with the gospel story, connecting it with what he has been reading.

The features of this story communicate important parts of Luke’s intention in telling it.  First, while the other disciples head back to Jerusalem to share the good news that Samaritans are receiving the gospel, Philip (not one of the original twelve, but one of the seven ordained later to help with the distribution of resources) is told to go farther out and connect with one who is both an “insider” and an “outsider.”  The man he meets in the chariot is evidently a “God-fearer” – one who worshiped Yahweh in the Temple but was not a “proselyte” – one who had officially converted to Judaism.  His “mutilated” state would have prevented him from becoming a Jew.

In several ways, this Ethiopian government official represents the spreading of gospel into new territory – his ethnic difference, his sexual abnormality, and his citizenship of a foreign country were three things that point to the nature of the new community the gospel seeks to create.  Earlier, Paul had written, “In Christ there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, bond nor free” – pointing to the transformation of the human family that comes with the embrace of the gospel.  The gospel of Jesus Christ points toward inclusion rather than exclusion – it’s hard to miss that point.

We don’t know from the text the details of the conversation between Philip and the man from Ethiopia, but from the passage in Isaiah that he is reading, it is reasonable to assume that a connection was made in his mind between the image of the mutilated and humiliated servant of the poem and his own life as something “less than a man.”  Evidently the connection between the powerful poetic image of servant Israel reflected in the poem, and the early church’s embrace of that image as a way of understanding what had happened to Jesus, and the eunuch’s seeing of his own experience reflected in this picture was strong enough to bring him to the place of thinking, “This is who I am , and I want to be a part of this community of people.”  So he asks to be baptized, and Philip baptizes him, no doubt doing something he would not have anticipated earlier in the day.

Luke’s masterful storytelling has put clearly before us that the call of the gospel is to go beyond the boundaries of the distinctions we make among ourselves, and on which we base much of our security, to see and to listen to the stranger who may be an agent of the Lord able to teach us something that we have not thought of.  Philip may have held his tradition’s prejudice toward Ethiopians, and he certainly would have had opinions about eunuchs, but he was willing to follow the guidance of the Spirit to embrace and include this “alien” (racially, nationally, and sexually) into the Christian family.

The question for us from this account is naturally where the call of Christ might be inviting us to go to encounter those who have to this point been outside the boundaries of our lives.  I suppose we could say, “Well, I would certainly be glad to welcome an Ethiopian eunuch if I ran across one;” but that would not really be the point, would it?  If Luke were writing his account of the spread of the gospel in our generation, who would the characters of this part of the story be?

The prelude to the story tells us that there was great rejoicing that the Samaritans were receiving the gospel, but then there was a new boundary to cross.  We have done some great things in sharing the gospel both here and afar – what is  next boundary the Spirit is inviting us to cross?

Always grateful for your companionship in the journey.

Colin Harris
Atlanta, GA