The Prophets

This morning I was reading through Peterson's introduction to the Prophets in The Message. Incredible. Here's a taste:

The prophets purge our imaginations of this world’s assumptions on how life is lived and what counts in life. Over and over again. God the Holy Spirit uses these prophets to separate his people from the cultures in which they live, putting them back on the path of simple faith and obedience and worship in defiance of all that the world admires and rewards. Prophets train us in discerning the difference between the ways of the world and the ways of the gospel, keeping us present to the Presence of God.

...

The hard-rock reality is that prophets don’t fit into our way of life.

For a people who are accustomed to “fitting God” into their lives, or, as we like to say, “making room for God,” the prophets are hard to take and easy to dismiss. The God of which the prophets speak is far too large to fit into our lives. If we want anything to do with God, we have to fit into him.

The prophets are not “reasonable,” accommodating themselves to what makes sense to us. They are not diplomatic, tactfully negotiating an agreement that allows us a “say” in the outcome. What they do is haul us unceremoniously into a reality far too large to be accounted for by our explanations and expectations. They plunge us into mystery, immense and staggering.

Their words and visions penetrate the illusions with which we cocoon ourselves from reality. We humans have an enormous capacity for denial and for self-deceit. We incapacitate ourselves from dealing with the consequences of sin, for facing judgment, for embracing truth. Then the prophets step in and help us to first recognize and then enter the new life God has for us, the life that hope in God opens up.

They don’t explain God. They shake us out of old conventional habits of small-mindedness, of trivializing god-gossip, and set us on our feet in wonder and obedience and worship. If we insist on understanding them before we live into them, we will never get it.

Comments

[Wes Roberts]

...and that's why we still are uncomfortable...all the way to hate...current prophets

...during my nose surgeries I read all the intros that Peterson did to all the books of the Bible...exceptional read...as you now know

...what are you learning about you in the above words?

[Gerald]

To Wes:
who are you referring to when you said "and that's why we still are uncomfortable...all the way to hate...current prophets"??

[wilsonian]

Love. This.