Introduction
Towards the end of the Gospel according to John, when the risen Messiah Jesus commissions his friends for the next stage of their service, he says to them, ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you’ (John 20.21). These words were spoken centuries ago but we believe they are also addressed to us and that we too are caught up in God’s own sending. More than that, we are sent as Jesus was sent, suggesting that our calling as communities of his followers, is a reflection of his and even a continuation of his. This leaves us with the question of how best to talk about this calling, this mission, this purpose that we share with our king.
Christians have chosen to express our calling in lots of different ways. In this series of blogs, I will try, without any claims to having got this wholly right or to being original, to set out one way of understanding the missional activity of Jesus. But before I say anything else I should clarify that Jesus’ achievements in accomplishing atonement are not ones in which any of us can share. We can enjoy them and proclaim them, but we recognize that he is the Saviour, and we are not. That said, we are called to follow him and, as the Holy Spirit empowers us, to model our activities on his.
I find it helpful to think of Jesus’ activities as three overlapping concentric circles. At the point where the three overlap we find the Kingdom of God, the reality that inspires all three. The first is evangelism, the second is social action and the third is prophecy. As individuals we may not be gifted in all three of these areas, but as churches and communities we may want to consider how we can be sure we are engaging effectively in each of them. The divisions between them are not hard and fast but I’ve distinguished then to allow us to reflect on each in turn. A couple of months ago we thought about evangelism, and last month our theme was social action. This month, in the final post of this series, we’ll be looking at prophecy.
Prophecy
There is, of course, a form of prophecy spoken primarily to the church. The letters to the seven churches in Revelation are an obvious example. However, there is also a kind of prophecy that is spoken to the world, in the public sphere, and this is the subject of this reflection.
In the Bible we find that prophets are often taken into the presence of God. This happens to John, the author of Revelation, to Jeremiah, who insists that he has stood in the council of YHWH (23.18), and that this is the mark of the true prophet, and to Moses, among others. This experience seems to give the prophets the ability to see the world as God sees it and to understand the actions that God believes people should take. The prophet has a ‘heaven’s eye view’ of the world.
The great privilege of God’s New Testament people is that all share aspects of this experience. As the writer to the Hebrews puts it, we can all approach the throne of grace with boldness (4.16, 10.19). For some this privilege leads to a calling to see things as God sees them, and to tell others what they see. It’s a bit like the thing that some Christian songwriters have said about approaching the Light of the World: you can look ahead of you and write songs about the Light, or you can look back to write about the things that are revealed by the Light.
The prophets knows the Scriptures and know their teaching about God’s kingdom. Their heavenly perspective means they can see the things that are kingdom-shaped and the things that are not. They can see the way that policies and activities may be designed to have one effect but actually have others. They observe the effect of laws on the poor, the forgotten and the marginalized. Indeed, they may often be called from among such groups.
It's a bit of a generalization, but this leads to two kinds of prophetic statements; those that announce and those that denounce. The former talk about the things that are in line with God’s kingdom purposes. The latter speak of God’s judgement on those things that work against those purposes.
It might be fair to say that when they communicate God’s perspective, prophets may do three things; they retell, foretell, and forthtell.
In retelling, they remind people of the things that God has done. They speak of creation, of the Exodus liberation, of the teaching of Jesus and his death, resurrection, ascension and return. This offers a context for delivering God’s announcements. Anything that is said needs to be consistent with the story so far.
In foretelling, prophets announce the consequences of current actions. Sometimes the prophet will have an insight into the future, and what God says should be done, that is the result of particular revelation. At other times, the insight might come through what you might call ‘sanctified common sense’. There are things that you can know by reading a good newspaper and being aware of the world. Your understanding of the Scriptures will help you understand what God says about it. In Jeremiah’s time it was plain that the Babylonians would be victorious and that it made no sense to resist them, even if this sounded like treason to the king of Judah and his courtiers. Jeremiah’s task was to speak the unpalatable truth. In our own time we need no exceptional insight to see the future impact of climate change and the measures that need to be taken to avert the worst aspects of its potential effects. Today’s prophets also need to speak unpalatable truths about this and other issues.
Finally, and significantly, there is the related question of forthtelling. The prophet tells us what is demanded by the justice and righteousness of God in the present, in our own lives.
In these ways, the missional work of prophecy emerges from our experience of the kingdom of God, and it does so alongside the expressions of mission we have already discussed, evangelism and social action.
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