Monday, December 15, 2003
Deut 18 the prophet among us
Our hunger is to hear the living word of God. If God does not speak directly, or if being in God's presence is too terrible for us to stand as was the experience of the Israelites in Moses' day, we long for a prophet. To meet this longing, God made this promise:
Deuteronomy 18:18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19 Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable.
Peter quoted this verse in the great sermon he gave after he and John had healed the lame beggar at Solomon's Portico. In applying this word to Jesus, he adds the admonition, "You must listen to whatever he tells you."
Acts 3:22 Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people1 a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you. 23 And it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be utterly rooted out of the people.'
These were key words for George Fox, who taught Quakers to apply them not only to Jesus in his ministry before his death, but even more to Jesus in his resurrection, in his continuing role as our Inward Teacher and the living head of the church. In Moses we have the proto-type: here is the law-giver who is empowered and authorized by God to speak forth the law. In Jesus we have the continuing presence of the one who can alone speak the law with grace and truth.
The difficulty, of course, is that we don't all hear the Inward Teacher with clarity, and when it comes to our life together we depend on God still to raise up prophets to speak the word to us today. Because of this understanding of authority for our personal lives and for the life of our faith community, Quakers have to exalt the gift of prophecy. We depend on one another to be the prophetic instrument who may be called upon to speak out of the silence to give forth the word of God today.
And, we have to discern, "Is this prophet speaking with Divine unction?" Indeed, and more terribly yet, "Am I speaking with Divine unction?"
20 But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak -- that prophet shall die."
From the time of Deuteronomy to now, the community that relies for its life on the living word of God that comes to it through the mouth of prophets has to take this question seriously. It is death for us to reject the word of God. But woe to that man or woman who dares to speak a word as if from God when it God has not given that word to be spoken.
In this chapter Deuteronomy gives as a test, that if what the prophet says does not take place the Lord has not spoken it. Unfortunately, in an earlier chapter (Deut 13:1-3) it is acknowledged that a false prophet could foretell something that does come true, and still be false. The only safe test is whether the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord -- and that only the deepest sense of "the name of the Lord" meaning that whatever the prophet speaks must cohere with the essence of God's character. To discern rightly the authenticity of a prophetic word, then, we must know intimately the timber of God's voice in our own experience and in the rich record of Scripture.
Click "comments" to respond or add your thoughts.
Deuteronomy 18:18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19 Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable.
Peter quoted this verse in the great sermon he gave after he and John had healed the lame beggar at Solomon's Portico. In applying this word to Jesus, he adds the admonition, "You must listen to whatever he tells you."
Acts 3:22 Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people1 a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you. 23 And it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be utterly rooted out of the people.'
These were key words for George Fox, who taught Quakers to apply them not only to Jesus in his ministry before his death, but even more to Jesus in his resurrection, in his continuing role as our Inward Teacher and the living head of the church. In Moses we have the proto-type: here is the law-giver who is empowered and authorized by God to speak forth the law. In Jesus we have the continuing presence of the one who can alone speak the law with grace and truth.
The difficulty, of course, is that we don't all hear the Inward Teacher with clarity, and when it comes to our life together we depend on God still to raise up prophets to speak the word to us today. Because of this understanding of authority for our personal lives and for the life of our faith community, Quakers have to exalt the gift of prophecy. We depend on one another to be the prophetic instrument who may be called upon to speak out of the silence to give forth the word of God today.
And, we have to discern, "Is this prophet speaking with Divine unction?" Indeed, and more terribly yet, "Am I speaking with Divine unction?"
20 But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak -- that prophet shall die."
From the time of Deuteronomy to now, the community that relies for its life on the living word of God that comes to it through the mouth of prophets has to take this question seriously. It is death for us to reject the word of God. But woe to that man or woman who dares to speak a word as if from God when it God has not given that word to be spoken.
In this chapter Deuteronomy gives as a test, that if what the prophet says does not take place the Lord has not spoken it. Unfortunately, in an earlier chapter (Deut 13:1-3) it is acknowledged that a false prophet could foretell something that does come true, and still be false. The only safe test is whether the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord -- and that only the deepest sense of "the name of the Lord" meaning that whatever the prophet speaks must cohere with the essence of God's character. To discern rightly the authenticity of a prophetic word, then, we must know intimately the timber of God's voice in our own experience and in the rich record of Scripture.
Click "comments" to respond or add your thoughts.
