Pastor Foltz is Pastor Emeritus of Saint James Lutheran Church in Gettysburg, PA and author of the the Frontline Study content.
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 […]
The Old Testament prophets try to explain how their God can be supreme while other nations, who worship different gods, continually defeat and control the Israelites. Their attempts sometimes produce inconsistent pictures of God. In one paragraph, he brings judgment on all the people because everyone sins; in the next, he is saves them because […]
When I started this series exploring what Old Testament prophets have to say about the present political situation, I was afraid that I might force the issue. It turns out there’s no danger of that as the current administration does something every week that the prophet I’m studying directly attacks. For instance, this week I […]
Although Hosea proclaimed judgment against God’s people at around the same time as Amos, he certainly offered more hope. In fact, his ideas lay the groundwork for Jesus’ ministry. Hosea links divine judgment much more to Israel’s seeking security from alliances with the political empires of the day. One of his images is of her […]
Let’s start with Amos. We know very little about his life. He shows up at Bethel in the northern kingdom of Israel, proclaiming God‘s judgment right before Assyria crushes her. Because he is from Judah, the king’s priest tells him to go home where he belongs. Amos responds that he is just an ordinary shepherd […]
In this series, I plan to examine the teachings of individual prophets, paying special attention to what they say about our present political situation. I think it’s safe to say that few of us know much about the prophets. I often even forget the names of all the minor ones. Yet 16 of the 39 […]
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