{I have never heard a sermon series on Isaiah, but I think one could be awesome for the life of a church. So, today’s comments take the form of an imaginary sermon.}
Introduction to a sermon series on Isaiah: an Expanded Outline
Or, How I would start a series on the book of Isaiah, if given the chance.
Tell me a little about the nature of prophesies…
If you grew up, as I did, in a small conservative “bible church,” then you probably have a deep seated expectation that prophesies have to do with the future. Some prophesies in the bible had already happened, like Daniel’s for-telling of the Greek empire, and some - more interesting - prophesies had not happened, like the John seeing helicopters and calling them locust in Revelation. The scariest prophesies had to do with Russia, naturally. These were my expectations, at least.
Imagine, then, my shock, upon first reading the Bible all the way through. I learned that not much of the content of the books in the “prophesy” section of the Bible (Isaiah-Malichi: I hadn’t heard of the Tanach yet) could even remotely be considered prophesy, as I understood it. At the time, I didn’t really respond to this discovery, preferring to hurry along to the “real scripture;” namely, the New Testament.
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