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There are some wonderful stories in the Old Testament of the great prophets of God. They remind us of what God is able to do through the lives of people wholly dedicated to him.
But we need to be careful which ones we choose as a model for our own discipleship, and for the role of the Church in the world today.
Not all the prophets worked in the same way. Hosea taught out of his experience of domestic unhappiness. Isaiah was a statesman, a counsellor to the king. Amos was a shepherd who spoke of his experience as a working man close to the land. Each of them had his or her – usually but not always his – own story.
The trouble is that when we talk today about being “prophetic”, that’s not usually what we think about. We’re inclined to suffer, as a Church, from something called the Elijah Syndrome.
Elijah was one of the greatest of the prophets. He stood up against King Ahab when it was terribly dangerous to do so. He lived in the wilderness on the bread and meat brought to him by the ravens – probably carrion. He stood alone against the prophets of Baal, and prevailed.
Elijah was a loner, an outsider. It was him against the world. And the idea that we can be like him, the only pure ones in a world that’s fallen away from God, can be very tempting. It can lead us to condemn those who dont agree with us or speak the same theological language.
But we need to be careful about talking up the Church’s “prophetic” role. It usually means denouncing someone or something. Sometimes that might be quite right, if something is deeply wrong. Jesus did that too. But he offered other ways of thinking about the relationship between the Christian and the world, as well. He said his disciples were the “salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13) and the “light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). He said the Kingdom of Heaven was like “yeast” (Matthew 13:33).
These pictures aren’t of perpetual opposition, but of perpetual transformation. They invite us to be discerning about when we demonstrate and sign petitions and become outraged on social media. Elijah is just one kind of prophet. We don’t always have to be angry outsiders; sometimes we’re more true to Jesus if we’re alongside sinners with an arm around them, rather than denouncing them for their wickedness.
Mark Woods is the author of Does the Bible really say that? Challenging our assumptions in the light of Scripture (Lion, £8.99). Follow him on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
