Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1
So Johanna is asking what qualifies the prophetic books to be prophetic and why do we have major and minor prophets?
Speaker 2
So it’s a good question. And by the way, if you’re liking the answers of questions, please like subscribe share, give us your feedback. We want to hear from you. So this next question, what qualifies the books as prophetic and what are major minor profits? Bear in mind that these might be at times artificial distinctions that we have made, not necessarily biblical, but in terms of what are prophetic books? That one’s more interesting, but let’s start with Second Timothy 316. And it says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for correction and instruction and righteousness. It’s not like no scripture or there are certain scriptures that are not inspired. They’re all inspired by the Holy Spirit. And if we go to John 539, it says Jesus says, search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life, but these are they that testify of me. All of the scriptures, I would say, even Proverbs, even Psalms, even some of these writings that people might think are not prophetic, you could still find prophecies in them. The writers are still inspired by the Holy Spirit. But there is a categorization in the Bible.
Speaker 2
We look in Luke 1616 and Jesus talks about the law, and the prophets were proclaimed until John talk about John the Baptist. So before we get to the New Testament, you have the law and you have the prophets. The law is what we often hear as the Torah or the people, the Jewish religion say the law, the Torah, the five books of Moses or the Pentateuch is another name for it. Then you have the prophets. That was another major category of books. They had. They put a lot of things together in the prophets, including the books of Kings, everything from Jeremiah, Daniel, sorry, not Daniel, Ezekiel. And you go through it. They were all put together in the book of the prophets. I’m not even going to try to pronounce the Jewish word for it. And then they had a third category that they called the writings in which you’d have Psalms, Proverbs, Job, these books, but there’s no indication that, again, they weren’t inspired, that there’s less of a Holy Spirit influence in them. And then what about the New Testament? You read Revelation 22, nine, and in there you have an angel. Basically, it says to John, he talks about your brothers, the prophets, putting John in the same group as the prophets and same thing in James 5:10.
Speaker 2
James is talking about my brethren, the prophets. So it’s not this separate category really, that then died or whatever. I would say Old Testament, do Testament, they’re all in sense prophetic books.
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Speaker 2
So why do we have major and minor profits? Interesting question, as I mentioned, did you want to add something there?
Speaker 3
I’m sorry.
Speaker 2
No problem. Before we move on.
Speaker 3
Everything is saying is spot on. It just reminded me of a verse in second Peter 120 and 21, which just kind of supporting what you’re saying, where it says, knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. And verse 21 says, for the prophecy came not an old time by the will of man, but Holy men of God Spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Yeah, the Bible, the Holy Spirit inspired the entire Bible. And like you’re saying, like Psalms, there’s prophecies in there, there’s messianic prophecies, like in Psalm 22 that Jesus talks about the crucifixion and Psalms, that’s a poetic book, but it has prophecies in it. Same thing with Zephaniah, same thing. So much of what happened even in the story of Joseph, it points to Christ. All the sanctuary in the books of the law point to Jesus. They’re prophetic in essence. So anyways.
Speaker 2
By the way, that’s interesting that Psalm 22 is the Psalm where it predicted Jesus saying, God, my God, right.
Speaker 3
Yeah, that’s right.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So that was even prophesized that he’ll be saying that way back.
Speaker 3
Exactly. And it talks about his crucifixion and those details. Just crazy.
Speaker 2
Absolutely crazy. Yeah. So to just write that off as writings, that’s not a prophetic book. It’s just an arbitrary distinction. And talking about arbitrary distinctions, this minor versus major prophets thing, as I mentioned, the Jews had three categories and they put the profits into one big group, the prophets. So whether you’re Zechariah, Jonah or Jeremiah, you’re in that book and they don’t look at you as, oh, this is just a minor profits. Echoes just a little guy. And then you got these bigger prophets. No, they didn’t do that. That distinction comes more later on with the Christian Church and the Christian Bible, where we decided to lump the twelve minor prophets together and call them that. And they’re just minor because of the length of the writings we have of theirs that we still have today.
Speaker 1
They’re not any less prophetic.
Speaker 2
Yeah. They’re not less prophetic. It’s not that there are lesser profit. Jonah was a major profit. He was well known. When he shows up in NITVA, they pay attention because he was a famous guy.
Speaker 1
What a powerful story is, even for short as it is.
Speaker 2
Exactly. And so if we look at I saw that happen, something disappeared. So if you look at Romans 920, it says, actually, no, that was going to go in a totally different direction. But if we look at one Corinthians 1011, it says talk about what happened in the Old Testament. It says all these things happen to them as examples, that they were written for our admission upon whom the ends of the age have come. And one Peter, one verse ten, it talks about how the prophets of old inquired and searched carefully and they prophesized for Grace. And while they’re searching, it was real to them by the Spirit of Christ who was in them that was saying what they were seeing was for us today. So Jeremiah, Isaiah, a lot of these guys were giving prophecies and then they want to know what’s going on. But a lot of these prophecies were for us. And based on what I just said earlier too, they’re for people in the end times, a lot of it. So much of the Bible is really for us today. In these end times, there’s probably a lot of scriptures, a lot of prophecies that weren’t relevant for us and they’re not in the Bible anymore or they’re just not.
Speaker 2
I mean, they weren’t included because it’s not relevant to us. Why do we care about some little prophecy that may have been given by Gad or Nathan to Daniel or sorry, to David while he was King? We have some of that recorded for us because it’s important to the narrative we need to know. But we’re not going to have everything because it’s not relevant for us today. What’s in the Bible is there for reason and it’s for us. And so the whole Bible, right, Jesus said all the scriptures are testifying for him and they’re all good for doctrine. They’re all good for us.
Speaker 1
I have a question about that. Then if all of that is for us, then what relevance did it have to them 600 years ago?
Speaker 3
Sorry.
Speaker 2
I’m talking.
Speaker 3
There’s so many prophecies that have a dual application and you might have already thought of this, Jay, so I’m sorry if I’m stealing your Thunder, but if you look at Matthew 24, his disciples come to him. You see at the beginning of the chapter and they’re like, tell us what will be the signs of your coming and of the end of the age. So Jesus gives a prophecy that’s for Jerusalem, the destruction of Jerusalem 40 years from when he spoke it, and then also for the end of time. And so that is a dual prophecy. And so it was very relevant for the people in Israel at that time to understand when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Prophet Daniel stand in the Holy place and flee the mountains. And every Christian that knew what it meant when the Romans came and they saw, hey, this is the abomination of desolation, they fled the mountains and they were the only ones that survived the destruction of Jerusalem of 70 Ad. When it says the temple will be destroyed, not 1 St will be left upon another. That’s exactly what happened. And that happened almost 20 years ago.
Speaker 3
But yet that prophecy in Matthew 24, like I said, has a dual application. Jesus says, before I come, there’ll be earthquakes, there’ll be all these signs and pestilences. We see that today with covet wars, rules of wars, all this stuff is going to happen before Jesus second coming. And so on a small scale, it happened in Jerusalem But on a much greater scale. It’s going to happen in the last days as a worldwide event of Jesus Christ second coming And I mean even those minor prophets Like Psalm 22 Like I mentioned before of course that was for Jesus. I almost feel like that was written for Jesus in a special way, Maybe a connection between him and his father that he would remember. Like this is a prophecy for me that I am the Messiah And I’m going to go through his crucifixion but if you look at the end of the chapter It says there will be a generation that will declare what happened and so Jesus the author and finisher of our faith for the joy set before him he endured the cross and despised the shame Because he wanted to see his people saved anyways.
Speaker 3
And so us looking back now maybe we can relate to Jesus In times of that we’re sorrowful we’re going through a hard time but also that we can trust the Bible Because we see that the prophecy came to fulfillment Because it was written about 1500 years before Jesus was crucified and it came to pass exactly as it was written. Yes the Bible never gets old. It’s never outdated. It’s always applicable to us today And I really do believe that everything in the Bible is helps us from when it was written to the end of time. There’s no prophecy, there’s no story that doesn’t have some application to our lives at this time yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2
And I think the word for that is present truth I think every single story, Everything in the Bible has a present truth that can apply to us today yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1
Just how when you keep reading it you keep finding more and more things that you get a growing perspective the more you read it.
Speaker 2
It’s fascinating yes, when people say, oh, read the Bible But it doesn’t really apply to me today in my province that’s because they’ve just not really dug into it yeah so many issues that we face today Are talked about there and the solutions to that amazing.
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READ MORE: According to the Bible, are frogs considered to be evil?
https://bibleask.org/according-to-the-bible-are-frogs-considered-to-be-evil/
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