In class today, we talked about the prophets and we tried to come up with our own definition of a prophet. The class defined a prophet as someone sent by God to preach his word or someone who predicts the future. This seems to be a pretty good definition based on the readings for today’s class. “How Capitalism Echoes the Bible,” said that the prophet Samuel warned people about the consequences of demanding for a king to rule over them, he predicted the future and tried to convince them to not ask God for a king, and yet they did anyway. The kings that Samuel tried to convince them not to get ended up expropriating the men, imposing heavy taxes on harvests, and breaking up the tribal structure of Israel. “Walking with Justice” brought up an idea I had never thought about prophets despite learning about them for so long. I never thought about the dangers of the job of a prophet. Many prophets told of controversial topics that could have made powerful people very angry. For example, Isaiah and Micah stood up to rich people who stole inheritance from the poor and Elijah prophesized that Jezebel and Ahab would die because of their treatment of Naboth. I think in defining a prophet our class should have recognized the danger of their job, as it takes a lot of courage to stand up to the powerful people and follow God’s word despite the worldly repercussions.
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