GREENEVILLE – Many people think of the biblical prophets as predictors of future actions, but those were not their primary messages, an Old Testament professor shared Wednesday, Feb. 5, during a presentation at Tusculum University.
Dr. Jason Bembry speaks during the first of four sessions in the 2020 Theologian-In-Residence series.
Dr. Jason Bembry, who teaches at Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan College, kicked off the 29th annual Theologian-In-Residence series with a lecture “What is Prophecy and Where to Begin?” on the Tusculum campus. This was the first of four presentations he will make on Wednesdays in February as part of the 2020 series.
When Dr. Bembry talks to audiences and asks them how they would define prophecy and the role of prophets, typical answers focus on the future. Another common and correct answer Dr. Bembry receives is that prophets point to Jesus and the end of time, he said.
“It is certainly true that prophets do predict the future,” Dr. Bembry said, citing Daniel 7, Isaiah 7, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 52-53, Jeremiah 7 and Micah 5 as examples. “We could probably come up with a list of 10 or 12, maybe as many as 15, that do, in fact, seem to point to something about the ministry of Jesus or perhaps the end times.”
Regardless of the number, if people only focus on those chapters, they do not capture the whole story about prophets, Dr. Bembry said. Prophets spend considerable time in other chapters speaking words of correction to people in authority.
Dr. Bembry summarized the theology of the prophets as having multiple components and said they take tremendous risk in holding these tenets.
- They speak truth to power.
- They remind us of our past – good and bad.
- They indict empty worship.
- They express concern for the poor.
- They express concern for working people.
- They seek justice.
In his talk, Dr. Bembry said the perspective and purpose of biblical prophets has shifted.
“The prophets, in some ways, have been domesticated,” he said. “They can be circumscribed and narrowed in their focus. When we do that, we don’t appreciate all that they’re doing. That’s what I would like to suggest to you has happened in the Christian tradition of reading the prophets. We have not appreciated their full impact on us.”
Dr. Bembry describes a major shift with the Roman emperor Constantine. Until the year 312, Christians were a persecuted minority in the Roman Empire, and people were forced to practice their faith clandestinely out of fear of being caught. But as Constantine prepared for his troops to engage in the Battle of Milvian Bridge, he has a dream in which he sees the Chi Rho symbol – the first two letters of Christ in Greek – and hears a message about conquering. He has his troops paint this symbol on their equipment and shields, and they win the battle.
As a result of this victory, Constantine recognizes the value of Christianity and ends the persecution of Christians, Dr. Bembry said. This starts a 180-degree turn in the way Christianity was treated under the Roman Empire, ushering in an era in which Christianity was embraced. By the end of the century, Christianity became a must for anyone to advance or succeed in the empire. Priests qualified for tax breaks, leading to an influx of people seeking to join the ministry, Dr. Bembry said.
This leads to massive growth in church congregations, which includes government officials and others of prominence. While that is a cause to rejoice, people discover that not everyone has the same motivation to come to church, Dr. Bembry said.
“Once the Constantinian shift takes place, it becomes harder to preach and teach and exhort the Christians to be like the prophets,” Dr. Bembry said. “How do you do that when the mayor and the families of the governor are sitting on the front row in your church? It’s not just an Old Testament problem. It’s a New Testament problem. How do you tell Caesar to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you while Rome is facing an onslaught? How does the Roman emperor love his enemies as Jesus plainly says in the gospels?”
Dr. Bembry said the church wrestled with the best way to respond and, in some cases, decided not to talk about those chapters and verses in the Bible.
“That’s kind of the easiest thing to do when the Bible has some pretty harsh words for people in power,” he said. “When you have powerful people in your church, that becomes hard to communicate without courting some disfavor among people. That was one step in the way the prophets were domesticated. We stopped thinking about them as correctives to power primarily. We started thinking about them in a different way.”
He said the alternative was to connect the prophets to Jesus because that is any easier way to preach the messages from them.
“I would suggest that’s what fed the impulse to think of the prophets differently, and we have inherited that tradition today,” Dr. Bembry said. “So when I go into churches today or I talk to my students, they say prophets are primarily predictors of Christ, the church and the end time.”
Another reason for the changing view of prophets occurs in early Christianity when those who began following Jesus did not completely abandon all elements of Judaism, Dr. Bembry said. As these early Christians shared their belief in Jesus in synagogues, many people there were skeptical of the message. That caused a split in some synagogues, and early Christians used the books in the Bible from the prophets to talk about how the chapters foreshadow Jesus.
“You have this impulse within synagogues and a debate within the cultural matrix of early Christianity, and Christians are using the Old Testament to point to Jesus,” Dr. Bembry said. “So you can see how these two things connect. They dovetail to make the case that Jesus is the fulfillment of all things in the Old Testament.”
Dr. Bembry will return Wednesday, Feb. 12, with the lecture “Speaking Truth to Power and a Transparent History” in Chalmers Conference Center of the Scott M. Niswonger Commons on Tusculum’s Greeneville campus. His presentation lasts from 10-11:45 a.m., and attendees are invited afterward for lunch in the Tusculum cafeteria. The lecture and lunch are free, but Tusculum appreciates donations.