The Zone Gathering

Today, we are going to talk about Joel. No, not Pastor Joel Schmidgall…the Old Testament minor prophet Joel. Just as a reminder, there are 16 prophets in the OT: 4 major and 12 minor. The minor prophets are not minor because the guys were smaller or less important than the major. They are minor because their books are relatively short in length.

Here’s the background: Joel prophesied in Judah sometime around 825 B.C. We aren’t exactly certain of the date. The name Joel literally means “Yahweh is God.” The purpose of his book was to issue a warning and a call to repentance. It’s a theme that seems to run throughout the writings of many of our other minor prophet friends.

The book is divided into two sections. The first section focuses on the locusts that swarmed Judah from the North (which was unusual because most locust invasions were blown from the South). There are chewing locusts, swarming locusts, crawling locusts, and consuming locusts. Many scholars believe Joel is referring to a literal swarm of locusts. Some believe it is metaphorical. The second section focuses on the end of history, when a vast human army will invade Judah. Only this time, God himself will intervene.

The real theme of the book is repentance. Joel 1:13-15 and Joel 2:12-17 describe how the people of Judah repented, and Joel 2:18-27 descibes God’s promise to bless and protect those who obey him. We read about an entire community coming together for fasting and prayer and mourning over their sin and crying out for revival.

For us charismatics, the book of Joel contains an important prophecy concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all the people. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. In those days, I will pour out my Spirit even on servants, men and women alike.” During the OT times, the Holy Spirit filled particular people at particular times for particular reasons. But Joel foretells a day when the Holy Spirit will fill all of those who follow God.

Like the other prophets, Joel prophesies a lot of doom and gloom. But he doesn’t end there. He stresses that God’s grace remains in the face of judgment and destruction and that He is always ready to pour that grace out on those who want to be in right relationship with Him. The main point of this book is that God will be merciful to all who seek Him.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 at 8:56 am and is filed under Bible Drills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.