When many people hear the word “prophetic,” they typically imagine a sage explicating future events. Although prophets of old offered such prognostications, they were first and foremost “forth-tellers.” Prophets spoke on behalf of God.
Throughout the Old Testament, prophets called God’s people to repentance and the nations to act justly. Whether it was Nathan confronting David with the truth of adultery, murder, and theft, or Jeremiah detailing the sins of Judah that inevitably led to exile, Hebrew Scripture recounts the lives of many prophets whose voices rose above the sins of God’s people and the depravity of the nations to communicate the word of God.
In the New Testament, Christ in His office as Prophet was the model for the apostles who likewise called the Church to obedient living and made clear to the ruling authorities that the Church “must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). In this spirit, and without fear, Paul preached “righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment” (Acts 24:25) to the Judean governor Felix and his wife Drusilla, even as he also instructed the Christians in Rome to respect civil government by regarding Caesar as the very “servant of God” (Rom. 13:4). Pointed, timely, and courageous application was in this sense “prophetic.”
Similarly, gospel ministers throughout Church history considered it their God-ordained responsibility to speak the truth to power in the times in which they lived. Figures such as Augustine, Chrysostom, and Jerome refused to shrink from forthrightly addressing the great moral issues of their day. Lesser known pastors like Jean-Baptiste Massillon, who personally confronted the decadence of King Louis XIV, made certain the word of God received a hearing in the public square.
Against this backdrop, you are welcome to attend our new preaching series on 1 Peter, Resurrection Life: Living in the Land of Exile. In this historical moment, when human volition adorns itself as supreme, we will listen to the Apostle Peter concerning the supremacy of Christ and consider his portrait of what it looks like to live as chosen exiles in this world. Sunday morning services begin at 10:30am. New Covenant Church in Naperville is located at 1 Bunting Lane, at the corner of S. Washington and 75th Street.
