Annoying People

It is impossible to be both prophetic and politically correct. The prophet is by nature countercultural and provocative. But of course it goes without saying that mere provocation of any sort is not necessarily prophetic, though the prophetic is necessarily provocative.  If the prophet’s job were to encourage the culture to continue on its current path, which is what a false prophet does, then his job would be superfluous because the culture needs no aid to continue on its current path. In this way, it is precisely the prophet’s job to step on people’s toes, knock their heads together, and poke their eyes. The prophet belongs to a class of unpopular annoying people: the prophet is like a person’s conscience. It might then be said that, yes, that gadfly Socrates was a bit of prophet.

Prophets get put in jail and do not have mega churches. Think of Jeremiah. He was imprisoned because people did not like what he had to say, among other things, and at the beginning of his career God told him that his career would not be a success. Not to mention, the prophet Nathan had the uncanny audacity to rebuke a king. In America we would say, “the life of a prophet is a bad career choice.”

I wonder what would happen to churches if pastors spoke a bit more like the prophets. Many people would probably leave and go to a different church.

It has been said, “prophets comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” (my paraphrase).