Israel was supposed to be God's chosen people to show God's goodness to the world. Israel had a few moments of faithfulness, but generally they were about as corrupt as the rest of the world. They oppressed foreigners and their own people. They failed to carry out justice. They set up systems to prop up the elite at the expense of the ordinary people. They worshiped other gods.
The prophets noted all these
failures and called the kings to account. They called out the failures of
diplomacy, failures of leadership, failures of worship. They criticized the
government relentlessly. And this did not improve the popularity of the prophets.
The prophets stood up to the
powerful, often at great cost. They were often hated. Their reports in the
Bible were actually a minority report. They would have lost all the opinion
polls in their day.
Their main job was to criticize
and call God's people back to faith. They usually failed. But they did it
anyway.
We need some prophets today.
Not that we are God's chosen people. But there is so much to criticize in
government and society today. Somebody needs to speak the truth.
People who should know better
are falling under the spell of loud politicians. Somebody needs to call this
out.
Bring on the prophets.
