The prophet’s ability to predict events decades if not centuries into the future can seem mysterious and appear as if they have psychic powers or a crystal ball. But when we read Jesus’ words closely - and the words of other prophetic voices - we discover that Jesus and other prophets understood how their time and place was really functioning - regardless of how others said it was functioning. In other words the prophets had a far more intimate knowledge of their own contemporary situation than anyone else around them and it is this deep understanding of their contemporary situation that gives them such predictive powers. 

But this too is mysterious - why do the prophets understand their contemporary situation more deeply than the people around them? 

We can explore this mystery by considering the question that Jesus often asks his listeners ‘Have you not read?’      

Given that the vast majority of people were illiterate in Jesus day this may seem like an odd question to ask. It seems the obvious answer is ‘no of course they haven’t read, because they can’t read or write!’

But when Jesus asks this question he is addressing the literate Pharisees and the educated Sadducees and the cultured Herodians; in other words, Jesus’ sharpest confrontations are with the educated cultured class.

And every time Jesus asks the question ‘have you not read?’, followed by a well-known passage of scripture, he is showing these self appointed guardians of Israel that they do not really know these scriptures in any meaningful way and are in fact at odds with their own texts.

They had co-opted the language of scripture to tell the story in such a way that essentially pushed God out of the way and allowed them to seize control and maintain their own power. By asking have you not read, Jesus wanted to rescue them as he want to rescue us from a self-serving language that leads us astray and disconnects us from the realities of our own contemporary situation.


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