This Sunday, we’re heading back into the Old Testament for the next few weeks with a couple of mini series on minor prophets. It means we’re exploring territory in the Bible that is less familiar and we’re encountering names that won’t be appearing on the list of ‘Top-10 Baby Names 2022’!

Nevertheless, it’s really important territory for us to explore. Paul told Timothy that all of Scripture, even the minor prophets like Habakkuk, are God’s word to us. They’re useful for helping us discover salvation through Jesus Christ - the whole Bible points to Him! And all of Scripture is useful for thoroughly equipping us for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17). It’s so important that we don’t just explore our favourite verses but draw from all that God has said to us.

Nevertheless, books of the Bible like this can be a bit more challenging to read. So, as we head into two series on Habakkuk and Micah, here are some pro-tips for reading prophetic books.

Understand the Background
The prophets were people who spoke messages from God in a particular time and place. Most of them are during the reigns of Israel’s kings where most of the kings were awful! Understanding what was going on for them can help us understand what’s written.

Your Bible may have introductions to each book which can be helpful for explaining the background. If not, the short videos from the Bible Project are a great resource.

Understand the Genre
Most of the prophetic books are poetic which is shown by each line being separated in Bibles. It means the books are full of imagery and metaphors to help make the point really memorable. Also, Hebrew poetry doesn’t use rhyme. Rather it uses parallelisms where one line will repeat or develop the thought from another. This means it’s really helpful to try and work out the major message from a whole paragraph rather than worrying too much about exactly what one word means. What is the picture that is being built?

Understand the Purpose
When we hear the word prophet, we often think about future telling. But the prophets were also preachers and a lot of their writing was about calling God’s people back to covenant faithfulness. The prophetic books therefore have a lot to teach us about what God cares about. Given that he doesn’t change, this means these books can be really helpful in discovering what God still cares about for us today.

So with that in mind, let’s lean in together over these coming weeks and discover together what God wants to say to use through prophets like Micah and Habakkuk.

Much love,
Simon

This post is part of the Senior Pastor’s weekly blog. Go to the blog feed >>

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