ADVENT; Promised through Prophets

Jeremiah 33:14-16
New International Version (NIV)
“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.“‘In those days and at that time    I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
    he will do what is just and right in the land.In those days Judah will be saved    and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it will be called:    The Lord Our Righteous Savior.’

'Prophet, Priest, and Pirate' is the name of this blog. Jesus is out prophet (John 12:50), our high priest (Heb.4:14-16), and our king (John 18:36). He calls us all (John 20:21), if we follow Him to also be prophets (Joel 2:28-29) in the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:4-9) and heirs and participants in His kingdom (1 John 3:1-3).

The first candle on the Advent wreath is the Prophets' candle. One thing that followers of this blog may know bugs the heck outta me is that Americans seem to think that prophets magically predict the future. That's not prophecy, its divination, which God strictly prohibits in Leviticus 19:26. Seeking out signs and omens to predict the future is a sin because God wants us to trust Him and know that He will be with us in the future and take care of us.

Prophecy, on the other hand, is delivering God's Word, His message. Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Joel, Malachi, Micah, and Zechariah- they all announced and declared the coming messiah- not by divination, but because God gave them His promise, and they repeated them.

When we share that God promises to love us, and He sent his Son Jesus as a sacrifice for us, to save us, forgive us, and stay with us, we are being prophets.

Misinterpretations

Here are just few church-words that I feel are woefully misinterpreted. It seems to me that if we used and understood these terms correctly, we would be less likely to be misled by mis-perceptions and/or false teachings.

• An "Apostle" is one who is sent out on a mission, not just 11 of the 12 guys in Jesus inner circle. If you believe and accept the Great Commission (Matt 28:16-20), then you too are, like the Blues Brothers, "on a mission from God."
• A "Prophet" is NOT somebody who foresees or predicts the future, that's something that sorcerers and soothsayers do (or pretend to do) and that's a form of divination, which God prohibits (Leviticus 19:26). REAL prophecy, simply put, is speaking God's Word or what He has revealed to you. Often, prophetic speaking is unpopular because God is having the prophets say something that people would rather not hear. When you look at the Old Testament prophets from Jonah to Jeremiah, Elijah to Zechariah,  many of them faced opposition but all of them spoke truth to power.
  
  You might've noticed that this one is part of the name of this website. I don't post malarkey about "the end-times" here, and many's the time when I've tried to challenge the popular assumptions in our culture and things I feel aren't authentically based on Scripture but are often presented as presumably "Christian." Mind you, I'm not great prophet and I don't pretend that every one of my opinions are God-breathed, but I am of the opinion that just as Jesus is out Prophet, Priest, and King- we too, His followers (disciples) have been given the mission (apostolic) to share His Word and His truths (prophets), intercede on behalf of others (priest), and set a positive example and/or step-up as servant-leaders (kings).
• Most people don't realize that "apocalypse" is a Greek word ( ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis) that means "lifting of the veil" or "revelation." That meant that it is a disclosure or revelation of something hidden from us by falsehood and misconception. So a prophet brings an apocalypse. Sure, eventually the ultimate apocalypse will be at Jesus' second coming, but I think it's a word that gets thrown around carelessly by people who either don't know what it means ("snow-pocalypse") or who want to scare people into accepting their version of Christianity (the apocalypse, armageddon, the rapture, the tribulation, etc.) Usually this comes from a tradition of special-dispensationalism which is a late 19th/early 20th century misinterpretation of Scripture that developed here in America but more often than not, it's a desperate tactic used by zealous believers who don't seem to have enough faith themselves to rely on grace and love, so they turn to fear and guilt for the leverage they think they need to convince people to become Christian.

I hope that this brief vocabulary lesson in religious jargon was apocalyptic for you!