Isaiah's Call and Ministry

September 7, 2025 Background Scripture: Isaiah 6:1 – 13; 7:1 – 7; 20:1 – 6; 38:1 -22 Lesson Passage: Isaiah 6:1 - 8; 38: 1 - 5 Isaiah is considered the greatest of the writing prophets. The volume of his writing is more than the others. The timespan covered by his writing is greater than the others. The Book of Isaiah is sometimes considered a miniature version of the bible. The bible contains sixty-six books, thirty-nine in the Old Testament and twenty-seven in the New Testament. The Book of Isaiah contains sixty-six chapters. The first thirty-nine chapters seem distinctly different from the last twenty-seven chapters. Some have even referred to this as First and Second Isaiah. The fortieth book of the bible is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The fortieth chapter of Isaiah introduces the reader to the Suffering Servant of God. The bible closes with the Book of Revelation declaring the unveiling of a new heaven and a new earth. As the Book of Isaiah closes, he wrote about a new heaven and a new earth. In the Background Scripture, Isaiah shares with the reader the year and the circumstances surrounding his calling of God to be a prophet. His calling consisted of two things as with other biblical callings, he reported what he saw and what he heard. Isaiah was given a heavenly vision of God's throne room. The vision convicted him because of his own unholiness. One of the seraphim used a live coal from the altar to purge Isaiah of his sin. It was then that Isaiah heard and accepted the call of the Lord to be His messenger. With that commission, God sent Isaiah to the king of Judah to assure him that God would protect His people. Throughout his ministry God used Isaiah to make bold proclamations of things that only God could do. In some cases, God used Isaiah as a visible example to His people of the message God sent that was not always received by His people. Some of those examples required great humility on Isaiah's part. On one occasion, Isaiah was required by God to walk around in public naked and barefoot for three years. It is true that we can see a person's glory but not know their story. Some of the assignments God gave Isaiah would be quite challenging even today. We don't always respond as we should to God's assignments. Even when God is clear, our decisions are not always firm. We vacillate between apprehension and rebellion. We are apprehensive because we recognize the awesomeness of God communicating directly with a sinful person. We rebel because rebellion is easy. Our flesh naturally rebels against the Spirit of God. Isaiah was used mightily by God even after being apprehensive about God's calling on his life. God gave Isaiah some bold proclamations to proclaim to the political powers of his day. Some of those proclamations spoke of healing to the hopeless. Some proclaimed doom to the proud and irreverent. Isaiah' s greatness as a prophet of God has nothing to do with glorying in human ability and intellect. It was Isaiah's humility and submission to God that caused God to elevate him to such a status. Isaiah's call and ministry is a reminder for us that God is always faithful to His word. What God speaks will come to pass. Our worthiness has nothing to do with God's faithfulness. Our humility and submission to the will of God allows us to be used by God to accomplish His will on earth. There are many today who wear the title of prophet; I don't question their calling of God. I do question whether they would submit to the type of assignments God gave Isaiah. Again, Isaiah's calling was more than vocal proclamation. Sometimes Isaiah had to visibly live the message God sent to His people. Oftentimes, the message God sends involves more than giving a speech. We see this in Isaiah's call and ministry. Robert C. Hudson August 29, 2025

Living Stones in a Spiritual Temple

August 31, 2025 Background Scripture: I Peter 2:1 -17 Lesson Passage: I Peter 2:1 - 12 The Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul had very different backgrounds prior to following Christ. Peter was a fisherman and Paul was a tentmaker. From a religious perspective, Paul was a leader of Pharisees. The bible does not reveal Peter's religious background prior to being called into ministry, other than being a Jewish layman. Both men were called into ministry by Jesus. Jesus called Peter to follow Him and become His disciple prior to His crucifixion. Paul was confronted by the risen Jesus after His crucifixion while Paul was attempting to persecute followers of Christ. Paul believed that the followers of Christ were a threat to Judaism. It seems that Christ would have communicated differently with a spiritual leader of the Jews than He would a layperson. Yet, despite their different backgrounds, Peter and Paul received the same understanding from God as it relates to God's desire for Christians. God has revealed through the Apostles of Jesus Christ His desire to live inside every Christian, and His desire to direct their affairs as they work in unison to accomplish His will in this world. Both Peter and Paul describe Christians as components of the spiritual dwelling place for God in the world. Both apostles admonished believers to live lives worthy of being called children of God. As God lives in each of us and directs our activities to accomplish His will, people in the world who don't know God will be exposed to His presence through Christians. This is one of the things Jesus accomplished through His earthly ministry prior to being crucified. In His teaching and activities, Jesus allowed others to see the work of God through Him. Jesus said to His disciples, "The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the work." Jesus kept insisting that God, the Father, was doing the miracles through Him. Jesus made Himself available through submissive prayer and obedience to God. He allowed God to accomplish His will through Him. And this is the promise Jesus made to His disciples before and after His crucifixion concerning what would happen as they yielded to the Holy Spirit who Jesus was sending to them. As they allowed the Holy Spirit to work through them, they would do greater works than Jesus! Of course they would not actually do the works, or miracles, The Holy Spirit living in them would do the works as they yielded themselves to His lordship. The entire Christian community would become the apparatus for God to work through in this world. Although we are alive, each Christian is like a single shaped stone that is used in building an earthly temple. The stones are shaped to prepare them to be used in construction rather than natural stones. Through the process of sanctification, God works in each believer to shape us and prepare us for His use. We collectively become God' s earthly, or physical, temple. This earthly temple is the body of Christ in this world. Christians are set apart by God and placed in the body of Christ to work with other Christians. As individual parts of this unique and holy entity in the world, we indeed are the physical building materials used by God. Each Christian should understand that God's temple is incomplete without us. As individual living stones, none is greater than others. The body depends on all living stones functioning to the glory of God, As the chief cornerstone of this temple, Jesus connects us with each other and to God. Knowing these things should encourage us to live out our faith in this corrupt world. By doing so, we silence the critics who don't know the Lord and glorify God in the process. This was the apostles' message. Robert C. Hudson August 7, 2025