April 11th, 2019

Dear Friends,
 
            What is a prophet?  What is a false prophet?  Who are the false prophets today?  Who are today’s prophets?  What are the criteria which distinguish false prophets and prophets?  Relevant clues are in the Bible.  Jesus, in Matthew 25.31-46 is one place to look.  Isaiah and Jeremiah are good places to start.

Here, Micah gives us clues in 2.1-2, 7c-9, and 6.6-8.
“Alas for those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds!  When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in their power.  They covet fields and seize them; houses and take them away; they oppress the householder and the house, people and their inheritance. …  Do not my words do good to one who walks uprightly?  But you rise up against my people as an enemy; you strip the robe from the peaceful, from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war.  The women of my people you drive out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away my glory forever. …  ‘With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before my God on high?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the Lord be please with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?  Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’  He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

                I wonder how each of us would answer these questions and fill in these blanks. What would I write if I were to put Micah’s message in my own words?
            What is not good?  What is good?
Doing justice is not ___________.  Doing justice is ___________.
                        Kindness is not _________.  Kindness is ______.
Walking humbly with your God is not _____  Walking humbly with your God is ________
 
                                                                        Blessings,
 
                                                                                    Jim