Prophets and Pharisees

I started reading the bible from page one in January and I’m coming up on halfway now so I have some fresh thoughts about prophets.

Most seem hesitant to carry out what God tells them to do… probably because at various times they were sawed in half or killed some other way. Half the time they were making the king extremely angry.

This is very different from today’s “prophets” who strut and command as if they ARE kings.. There is a humility in the OT prophets that you don’t see today… they understood how great God is and how depraved their own hearts were.

I think the difference between a prophet and a pharisee is that one hears from the living God and reluctantly – or at least with a proper fear – delivers God’s word to its target. The other, the Pharisee, always lives according to where God was in ages past. He does not want God to speak to him personally, that would be too much of a challenge. He wants everything in black and white so he can have a checklist and by that checklist determine how holy he is.

I certainly bend towards that. I am an organizational freak! I love to know exactly what I’m supposed to and when I accomplish it I want everyone to know that I did. That’s why the last 8 months have been the most challenging for me while also being very hard, not knowing exactly what God has in store for me. But this has grown my faith because I’ve given up a lot of control and everything has worked out for good… just like the Good Book says.

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