The Bible Study Podcast, episode 746.

Today, the Bible Study podcast continues with the study of the minor prophets with the book of Joel.

Welcome to the Bible study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

We move away from trying to be a prophet last week to going back into the minor prophets, and we'll talk about Joel. We're going to focus on Joel for three weeks. There are only three chapters in Joel and move on into Amos and Obadiah. And that is my plan for the future, at least for now. We'll see whether we work our way through

all of the minor prophets or not. As we go into this, last time we talked about the situation

that Israel found itself in, in particular, and Judah, where they were being called to repentance,

especially Israel that had been unfaithful since they split off from the son of Solomon.

But I also want to think about what it's like for the prophets.

You may remember when we were studying the book of kings,

they talked about the prophets Elijah and Elisha,

and they spent some time giving us a little glimpse at what was it like to be a prophet at the time.

And of course,

as a prophet, you're someone who's not that popular because the word that you were bringing

feels like judgment. And it feels like judgment because it is. They're speaking what God told

them to do, but the people are not going to hear that as good news. And they're also going to hear, and we see this particularly in the prophet Elijah, that

this is one voice calling out, and there are all sorts of other voices calling out with a

different message.

And so it can feel like that voice crying in the wilderness as we get that in one of the

minor prophets.

In fact,

that lone voice. And Elijah at one point is lamenting to God that he is the only one who is left.

He's the only one faithful. And he's not, but it can sure feel that way. And so think about that

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