Pastor Foltz is Pastor Emeritus of Saint James Lutheran Church in Gettysburg, PA and author of the the Frontline Study content.
Biblical scholars typically begin their discussion of “spirit” by cautioning that there is no consistent meaning throughout the Bible. They then most often describe how wind and breath are used at the most basic level. This relatively simple perspective uses the wind to describe the presence of God. The first creation story in Genesis begins, […]
I want to lay a foundation for examining spirituality. Mental activity has broken down to support the competing ideologies in our present social conflict. Although “spirit” has always had a multi-dimensional meaning, I felt it still had the potential to bring together diverse attitudes. The aesthetic seemed able to discuss differences without descending into chaos. […]
I was surprised that the first thing that jumped out at me when I reflected on this series was how much the religious and political authorities resisted the message of the prophets. Admittedly, at the invitation of some of our readers, I was reading their comments, focusing on what they said to our current political […]
Except for a very few small sects, prophecy as an office in which a person received a message directly from God disappeared from Christianity for 2000 years. The institutional Church used canon, creed, educated theologians, and consecrated authority to discern what God was doing and evaluate individual spiritual thoughts and experiences. Then suddenly in the […]
Prophecy moves in a very interesting direction in the New Testament. A good third of the Old Testament, 17 books in all, are records of prophetic visions. There is only one in the New. That seems strange when the main character is portrayed as a prophet. Jesus is executed by the religious and political authorities […]
The one thing all religious people can agree upon about Jesus is that he was a prophet. Even Muslims believe he spoke on behalf of God. Like the Old Testament prophets, Jesus insisted that worship is useless if one does not live according to God’s ways. He went so far that his picture of the […]
Isaiah chapters 56 – 66 were written by a third member of Isaiah’s school to those who returned from the Babylonian Exile. The expectation was that once they’d come home, the nation would unite, the people would prosper, and their suffering would end. When this hope was not fulfilled, the priests and government officials blamed […]
Chapters 40 through 55 contain some of the most beautiful and oft-quoted passages in the Bible. They record how Isaiah’s school interpreted suffering in the sixth century BC. Two hundred years have passed since the Assyrian Empire conquered Israel and besieged Judah. Isaiah had assured them their suffering would end if they began living by […]
The Book of Isaiah records perspectives of a prophetic school over three different periods: the 8th century BC, when the Assyrian Empire invaded, about 200 years later, when Israelite leadership lived in exile under the Babylonian Empire, and at least 50 years later, after the Persian Empire allowed them to return home. People in all […]
Looking at the other prophetic books individually doesn’t help much in trying to figure out what we should be doing in the 21st Century. Jonah is obviously another fictional story like those in Daniel, written to encourage people to obey God even when the situation seems hopeless. We get the point, but are hardly inspired […]
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