"Round up everyone in the country" - thrilling reading!

With this week's Christian Science Bible Lesson on Christ Jesus referencing the work of the prophets, I have opened The Message (by Eugene H. Peterson) to page 1194 entitled IntroductionProphets. 

Peterson tells us that the Hebrew people produced "an extraordinary number" of men and women who "presented the reality of God" to their countrymen over a period of several hundred years.  It was their aim to re-direct thought back to God as the centre and circumference of all.

There are sixteen "writing" prophets.  These can be found in your Bible from Isaiah to Malachi.  These sixteen, says Peterson, remind us that the "ways of the world--its assumptions, its values, its methods of going about its work--are never on the side of God".  Furthermore, he tells us that prophets "train us in discerning the difference between the ways of the world and the ways of the gospel, keeping us present to the Presence of God".

Peterson then infers that if you want to be popular in the everyday sense of the word, then it may be best not to aspire to be a prophet, for they speak plainly and directly, purposefully shaking their listeners awake, while providing hope in God's benevolent working of events, and reminding us that God's hand is with us every day, every place.

Well, look what Joel 1: 14 says in The Message:

Nothing's going on in the place of worship,
no offerings, no prayers--nothing.
Declare a holy fast, call a special meeting,
get the leaders together,
Round up everyone in the country.
Get them into God's Sanctuary for serious prayer to God.
 
That might be some direction to us regarding our forthcoming Church Alive Summit!

And later in Joel 2: 15 - 17
Call a public meeting.
Get everyone there.  Consecrate the congregation.
Make sure the elders come,
but bring in the children, too, even the nursing babies,
Even men and women on their honeymoon--
interrupt them and get them there.
.......
Don't let the pagans take over and rule them
and sneer, "And so where is this God of theirs?"

And Joel 2: 22 and 25 (approx.)

There trees are bearing fruit again:
a bumper crop of fig trees and vines!
Children of Zion, celebrate!
Be glad in your God.
He's giving you a teacher
to train you how to live right...

"I'll make up for the years of the locust,
the great locust devastation..."

It's all so thrilling to read!

Julie Swannell