Sunday School Lesson
(Continued from Paxe 3)
ethical Ideals and in the quality
o 1 their literary style.
What Is Prophecy?
Put in its simplest terms,
prophecy is speaking for God;
the prophet is God's spokesman
(we might even say, God's
"mouthpiece" ? Exodus 4:16).
The prophet is a forth-teller, a
preacher; he is not one whose
main task is to predict the fu
ture.
As a spokesman for God, the
prophet had rather clearly de
fined tasks. He was to speak the
words God gave to him. These
were words about his time, but
nearly always they had some
reference to what would happen
in the immediate future if the
people did not respond tto God's
call to responsible action in the
present.
The prophet warned of im
pending doom in terms of poli
tical or military crisis; and he
called the people to repent, that
is, to turn away from their sin
ful ways in order that the im
pending doom might be avoided.
Like Jack Shea, the prophets
burned a hole in the conscience
of their contemporaries.
Here one might rightly ask
how the prophet came to know
what God intended to do. The
answer comes to us in our mem
ory selection for this lesson.
The Hebrew word translated
in the memory selection as "se
cret" refers to intimate conver
sation ? perhaps even a sitting
in on the deliberation of thr
"heavenly council" to hear wha?
God plans for mankind. The
prophets spoke in the certainty
that God had shared with them
the innermost secrets of his In
tended dealings with man.
Hence the prophet read the
signs of the times with unusual
clarity of vision and warned or
what was to come unless the
chain of cause and effect was
broken by the repentance of the
people.
The "D" Philosophy
The prophets were informed
in their views of historical hap
penings by what is known as the
"Deuteronomic philosophy o f
history." What this means i
simply that the prophets saw ir
historical events the action of
Yahweh (the Hebrew name for
God) to punish a wicked people
or to reward a faithful people.
To put it bluntly, the prophets
felt that when Israel succee e
in an undertaking, it was be
cause she had obeyed the will
of Yahweh. On the other hand,
disobedience to Yahweh's stat
utes brought defeat and disillu
sionment to Israel. This view is
called Deuteronomic because it
dominates the Book of Deuter
onomy (Deuteronomy 4:1) and
in many passages that have
been "touched up" by Deuter
onomic editors. (See 1 Kings
3:14.)
The Deuteronomic formula is
clearly present in the frame
work of the Book of Judges; for
example, in Judges 2:11-12, 14
16, 18-20. This viewpoint is a
"cyclical" view of history (that
is, history is seen as repeating
(Continued on Page rt>
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TO?
(That's why he has
electric comfort heating.)
It's only natural for Bob to have fiameless
electric comfort heating. After all, it's
the simplest heating system you can install.
Since the only moving parts are in standard
1 thermostats, there's less chance of anything
| going wrong. That means less worries.
So take a tip from Bob: switch to electric
comfort heating and stay out of trouble.
Although Duke Power neither sells
nor installs heating equipment, we'll
gladly furnish the facts
Duke Power
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