Quotes & Sayings About Prophets From The Bible

All through the Bible, especially in the Prophets, we see a conflict raging within God. On the one hand God passionately loved the people he had made; on the other hand, God had a terrible urge to destroy the evil that enslaved them. On the cross, God resolved that inner conflict, for there God's Son absorbed the destructive force and transformed it into love. Disappointment with God — Philip Yancey

Atheists are not the enemy; the real enemy knows Jesus Christ. Satan and all false prophets know very well that Jesus came from heaven, but still reject him. Matthew 10:36 — Felix Wantang

Prophets do not bring new truth. Revelation is simply a revealing of what is already true and bringing it to bear upon our heart and soul. Revelation is based upon insight into the written Word of God, not into visions and dreams and prophecies. These other things are simply tools for expressing the Word, they are not the Word; no more than the water hose is water, it simply delivers the water. — Chip Brogden

There have been prophets and students who handle the Bible like a child's box of bricks; they explain to us the design and structure and purpose; but as time goes on things do not work out in their way at all. They have mistaken the scaffolding for the structure, while all the time God is working out His purpose with a great and undeterred patience. — Oswald Chambers

The books called "Law" (or Pentateuch) have carried the account of God's actions from creation to the borders of the promised land. That story is continued in the second main division of the Hebrew Bible: the "Prophets," which is subdivided into "Former Prophets" and "Latter Prophets." The Former Prophets consist of four books: Joshua, Judges, Samuel (later divided into 1-2 Samuel), and Kings (later divided into 1-2 Kings). Their record of divine activity spans nearly seven centuries from Joshua's call to Jehoiachin's release. — William Sanford Lasor

An especially powerful type of historical evidence [for the Bible and Christianity] is that of fulfilled prophecy - historical events written down long before they actually happen. Hundreds of prophecies in the Bible have been remarkably fulfilled exactly as fortold but often hundreds of years later. This type of evidence is unique to the Bible and can be explained only by divine inspiration. God, the Creator of time, is outside of time. He is the One who controls the future and, therefore, is the only One who knows the future.
Bible prophecies are not vague and rambling, such as those of Nostradamus and other supposed extrabiblical prophets. Prophecies in the Bible deal with specific places, people, and events, and their fulfillments can be checked by reference to subsequent history. — Henry Morris

The church as a whole has strayed quite far from biblical evangelism; that is, sharing the Gospel in the way that Jesus did, the way the Apostle Paul did, and the rest of the disciples and prophets in Scripture. — Kirk Cameron

It seems to me that those who claim to be 'true' and 'bible believing' Christians and yet spend all their time and energy spreading unhappiness and hatred for others - and are themselves consumed by it - are by the very definition of the term - false prophets. — Christina Engela

In the same way, metrics can record the frequency of our church attendance, the regularity of our Bible reading and the exact amount of our tithing, but they can never gauge the genuineness of any of them, or whether they are any better than "the noise of the solemn assemblies" against which the prophets fulminated. — Os Guinness

The greatest miracle of the Bible is that the prophets of Israel could keep a religion as clean as a hounds tooth amid all the corruption and idolatry of the nations surrounding them. — Billy Graham

I like a tranquil, even-keeled, self-controlled God. A God who doesn't fly off the handle at the least provocation. A God who lives one step above the fray. A God who has that British stiff upper lip even when disaster is looming. When I read my Bible, though, I keep running into a different God, and I'm not pleased. This God says he "hates" sin. Well, he usually yells it. Read the prophets. It's just one harangue after another, all in loud decibels. And when the shouting is over, then comes the pouting ... When all else fails, he throws himself in front of the car. — Mark Galli

The Bible is full of warnings about false prophets and false messiahs. These satanically inspired people have appeared in almost every generation of history. — Billy Graham

We don't exhaust the Bible even after reading it hundreds of times. Each time we read it we see it in a new light. That is the greatness of the holy scriptures. They are that way because they were created by holy prophets who experienced the truth. Each time we read these works we elevate ourselves to see a little more. (81) — Swami Satchidananda

This spiritual light is not the suggesting of any new truths or propositions not contained in the word of God. This suggesting of new truths or doctrines to the mind, independent of any antecedent revelation of those propositions, either in word or writing, is inspiration; such as the prophets and apostles had, and such as some enthusiasts pretend to. But this spiritual light that I am speaking of, is quite a different thing from inspiration: it reveals no new doctrine, it suggests no new proposition to the mind, it teaches no new thing of God, or Christ, or another world, not taught in the Bible, — Jonathan Edwards

The most horrible wickedness and cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have troubled the human race began with this thing called revelation, or revealed religion ... It would be far, far better for us to let a thousand devils roam the world, and publicly preach the doctrine of devils (if there were such a thing, which there isn't), than to let one impostor and monster such a Moses, Joshua, Samuel or the Bible prophets come speaking the so-called word of God, and causing men to believe it. — Thomas Paine

All fanaticism is false, because it is a contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth. Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran, or in a single religion. The Divine Being is eternal and universal and infinite and cannot be the sole property of the Mussulmans or of the Semitic religions only, - those that happened to be in a line from the Bible and to have Jewish or Arabian prophets for their founders. — Sri Aurobindo

Back in Bible days, there were these famous schools of the prophets, but some of the ones Jesus chose didn't come through that route - and not to say that they weren't good, but I'm comfortable. — Joel Osteen

Let the systematic theologian spell it out. Let the artists throw out thoughts and slants, maybe even slants no one else has thought of. They should give another view of something familiar to help us learn more about it. They should deal with love, life, good, evil, God, the world and faith. Many of the biblical writers were poets more than they were theologians. Poets and prophets ranted and raved, and storytellers wrote great yarns that all had different slants on God and life and faith. Perhaps the poet's absence from the Church for many centuries has left it deprived of much insight. — Steve Stockman

It is far better that we admitted a thousand devils to roam at large than that we permitted one such imposter and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God and have credit among us. — Thomas Paine

I can't see why anybody - unless he was a child, or an angel, or a lucky simpleton like the pilgrim - would even want to say a prayer to a Jesus who was the least bit different from the way he looks and sounds in the New Testament. My God! He's only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that's all! Who isn't he head and shoulders over? Who? Both Testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls - but, my God, who besides Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don't tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that - but that's exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God. — J.D. Salinger

The Divine Law was revealed to Moses, not only through the Commands that were found written in the Bible, but also through all the later rules and regulations of post-exilic days. These additional laws it was presumed were handed down orally from Moses to Joshua, thence to the Prophets, and later still transmitted to the Scribes, and eventually to the Rabbis. — Maurice H. Harris

The Bible is not religion; it is a history of those who had religion. The religion of those who live within the covers of the Bible centered in living oracles and the ordinances of salvation. Theirs was a religion of prophets and apostles — Brad Wilcox

God does not reveal Himself; he only reveals His way. Judaism does not speak of God's self-revelation, but of the revelation of His teaching for man. The Bible reflects God's revelation of His relation to history, rather than of a revelation of His very Self. Even His will or His wisdom is not completely expressed through the prophets. Prophecy is superior to human wisdom, and God's love is superior to prophecy. This spiritual hierarchy is explicitly stated by the Rabbis. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

We need words from heaven. Too many words come from the human heart and not from heaven. God wants prophets who will bring words from heaven that will change things on earth. — Terry Collins

As world events develop, prophecy becomes more and more exciting...This writer doesn't believe that we have prophets today who are getting direct revelations from God, but we do have prophets today who are being given special insight into the prophetic word. God is opening the book of the prophets to many men. This is one reason you will find on Christian bookshelves an increasing number of books on the subject of Bible prophecy. — Hal Lindsey

O guide my judgment and my taste,
Sweet Spirit, author of the book
Of wonders, told in language chaste
And plainness, not to be mistook.

O let me muse, and yet at sight
The page admire, the page believe;
"Let there be light, and there was light,
Let there be Paradise and Eve!"

Who his soul's rapture can refrain?
At Joseph's ever pleasing tale
Of marvels, the prodigious train,
To Sinai's hill from Goshen's vale.

The psalmist and proverbial seer,
And all the prophets sons of song,
Make all things precious, all things dear,
And bear the brilliant word along.

O take the book from off the shelf,
And con it meekly on thy knees;
Best panegyric on itself,
And self-avouch'd to teach and please.

Respect, adore it heart and mind.
How greatly sweet, how sweetly grand,
Who reads the most, is most refind'd,
And polish'd by the Master's hand. — Christopher Smart

We can always be sure of one thing - that the messengers of discomfort and sacrifice will be stoned and pelted by those who wish to preserve at all costs their own contentment. This is not a lesson that is confined to the Testaments. — Christopher Hitchens

Dignity is never silent. It has a voice, heart and soul. Truth and courage is its foundation. It will stand against the masses and speak the truth. Because every great person has always done what others found fear in doing. — Shannon L. Alder

Jim devoted ten days largely to prayer to make sure that this was indeed what God intended for him. He was given new assurance, and wrote to his parents of his intention to go to Ecuador. Understandably, they, with others who knew Jim well, wondered if perhaps his ministry might not be more effective in the United States, where so many know so little of the Bible's really message He replied: I dare not stay home while Quiches perish. What if the well-filled church in the homeland needs stirring? They have the Scriptures Moses, and the prophets, and a whole lot more. Their condemnation is written on their bank books and in the dust on their Bible covers. — Elisabeth Elliot

The people who were honored in the Bible were the false prophets. It was the ones we call the prophets who were jailed and driven into the desert. — Noam Chomsky

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son. — Hebrews 1 12

There are no songs comparable to the songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of the prophets, and no politics like those which the Scriptures teach. — John Milton

the causes of poverty as put forth in the Bible are remarkably balanced. The Bible gives us a matrix of causes. One factor is oppression, which includes a judicial system weighted in favor of the powerful (Leviticus 19:15), or loans with excessive interest (Exodus 22:25-27), or unjustly low wages (Jeremiah 22:13; James 5:1-6). Ultimately, however, the prophets blame the rich when extremes of wealth and poverty in society appear (Amos 5:11-12; Ezekiel 22:29; Micah 2:2; Isaiah 5:8). As we have seen, a great deal of the Mosaic legislation was designed to keep the ordinary disparities between the wealthy and the poor from becoming aggravated and extreme. Therefore, whenever great disparities arose, the prophets assumed that to some degree it was the result of selfish individualism rather than concern with the common good. — Timothy J. Keller

There now remain only a few books, which they call books of the lesser prophets; and as I have already shown that the greater are impostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the little ones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, the priests, and both be forgotten together.
I have now gone through the Bible, as a man would go through a wood with an axe on his shoulder, and fell trees. Here they lie; and the priests, if they can, may replant them. They may, perhaps, stick them in the ground, but they will never make them grow. — Thomas Paine

The "Word of God" is not simply the Christian Bible but exists in a threefold form: "The Word" incarnate (Jesus Followers' King), the word prophesied and proclaimed (Prophets), and the word in scripture (Bible). All three are the self-disclosure of God, The One & Only ... in three, distinct & unique Persons, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. — Gary Patton

But caveat lector: we do not read the Bible in order to reduce our lives to what is convenient to us or manageable by us - we want to get in on the great invisibles of the Trinity, the soaring adorations of the angels, the quirky cragginess of the prophets, and ... Jesus. — Eugene H. Peterson

This is not a matter of subjective theory, but of plain, historical fact. If there had never been a nation of Israel, there would have been no patriarchs, no prophets, no apostles, no Bible and no Saviour. In John 4:22, Jesus Himself summed all this up in one simple statement: "Salvation is from the Jews." Christians from all other racial backgrounds owe to the Jewish people a spiritual debt which can never be calculated. — Derek Prince

We can now say with considerable confidence that the Bible is not a history of anyone's past ... The Bible's "Israel" is a literary fiction ... Not only have Adam and Eve and the flood story passed over to mythology, but we can no longer talk about a time of the patriarchs. There never was a "United Monarchy" in history and it is meaningless to speak of pre-exilic prophets and their writings ... The Bible deals with the origin traditions of a people who never existed as such — Thomas L. Thompson

When we begin to reflect Christ, the Bible, when more understood as being centered around Christ, seems to be potentially every man's biography regarding God's promised experiences and truth for him - his individual, unique path of humbling oneself before the Lord and then being exalted by the Lord back into his true and righteous personhood. Many followers may speak of it merely to try to change other people (before changing themselves), but the prophets speak of it as a living word which miraculously tells their very own experiences. — Criss Jami

Prophets (must) humbly accept the truth that they see through a glass darkly, that they know only in part. In other words, they make mistakes. Mature prophets urge everyone to who they prophesy to judge, test and compare with scripture everything they say. They are not offended when people are careful. — Stephen Mansfield

The whole inspiration of our civilization springs from the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the prophets. To read the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of American life. — Herbert Hoover

Prophets often foretold destruction and sometimes the destruction did not come, yet this did not disprove their divine mission, as in the case of Jonah. For God is gracious, and ready to turn away his wrath from those who turn away from their sins. But the prophet who prophesied peace and prosperity absolutely and unconditionally without adding the necessary proviso, that they do not by willful sin put a bar in their own door and stop the coming of God's favors, will be proved a true prophet only by the accomplishment of his prediction. — Matthew Henry

The Saviour who flitted before the patriarchs through the fog of the old dispensation, and who spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets, articulate but unseen, is the same Saviour who, on the open heights of the Gospel, and in the abundant daylight of this New Testament, speaks to us. Still all along it is the same Jesus, and that Bible is from beginning to end all of it, the word of Christ. — John Milton

Surely those who know the great passionate heart of Jehovah must deny their own loves to share in the expression of His. Consider the call from the Throne above, "Go ye," and from round about, "Come over and help us," and even the call from the damned souls below, "Send Lazarus to my brothers, that they come not to this place." Impelled, then, by these voices, I dare not stay home while Quichuas perish. So what if the well-fed church in the homeland needs stirring? They have the Scriptures, Moses, and the Prophets, and a whole lot more. Their condemnation is written on their bank books and in the dust on their Bible covers. American believers have sold their lives to the service of Mammon, and God has His rightful way of dealing with those who succumb to the spirit of Laodicea. — Jim Elliot

In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism. — Elie Wiesel