Theology for Everyone

Of all the Minor Prophets, perhaps Jonah is the most read and beloved, and certainly not for its brevity but for its extraordinary story – a story of a prophet running from God, of being thrown overboard in the midst of a storm, of being swallowed alive by a whale of a fish, and upon being spit out...

Martin Luther began his 95 Theses emphasizing the need for repentance. “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Luther also understood that Jesus’ instruction “does not mean solely inner repentance; such inner...

As we survey the twelve so-called Minor Prophets, Micah seems to be the prophet most obviously oriented on Christ the coming Messiah. More clearly and directly than the other eleven books that make up this canonical collection, the book of Micah predicts the advent of Christ Jesus. But thou,...

Perhaps you’ve passed over Obadiah more times when flipping through your Bible than any other book in Scripture. It’s a third of the way through the Minor Prophets and it’s only one chapter consisting of only 21 verses. But if you have not read it, pause now and read through it before continuing...

About one hundred years before the northern kingdom was carried into exile by Assyrian armies, and just two years before the earthquake, the Lion roared from Zion. Yahweh raised up and sent his prophet, Amos of Tekoa, into the northern kingdom to announce a coming inescapable judgment. Exile. Amos...

At the start of his ministry the Lord Jesus used just two verbs to summarize the good news of his kingdom: “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Paul condensed his ministry in a similar way: I testified “both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus...

In reading the Minor Prophets, you might at first be overwhelmed by the sheer proportion of material concerning judgment: judgment against Israel, judgment upon neighboring nations, and judgment condemning the unrighteous. How should conscientious readers navigate the many passages of doom and...

God frequently called the prophets to physically demonstrate the truth that God had for his covenant people to learn. Hosea was no exception. When God told Hosea to marry “a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom” he did so because “the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord” (1:...

As a believer, if I always entertained thoughts and engaged in deeds that are suitable to one who enjoys life in Christ, then self-control would not be an activity with which I would need to be concerned. However, undergoing regeneration does not mean that all my sinful thoughts and desires have...

What is it to be gentle? Everyone has an image in their mind’s eye or an idea. But it’s probably best to start with the One we ought to model and so ask, what did gentle look like on Jesus? Perhaps the first place we might go is Matthew 11:28-29. There Jesus tells us that he is “gentle and lowly in...