The Message of Joel, Micah and Habakkuk (The Bible Speaks Today | BST)

by David Prior

Publisher:

Inter-Varsity

, 1999

Overview

Where is God in times of disaster? How can God allow suffering? What are God’s people to do about moral decay in society? While people throughout the ages have long pondered these questions, three of the minor prophets—Joel, Micah and Habakkuk—provide insights to these perennial problems.

The people of Joel’s day were devastated by a locust plague, which Joel said warned of the coming Day of the Lord. Micah rebuked a culture of corruption and moral evil. Habakkuk cried out to the Lord on account of a society bent on violence.

David Prior’s exposition of these three books points to a transcendent God who gives hope in times of uncertainty for today’s church.

Key Features

• Applies the truth of Scripture to everyday life in the contemporary world
• Engages a variety of readers with accessible, nontechnical language
• Analyzes the flow of thought in passage-by-passage exposition of Old Testament books
• Provides insightful treatment of key themes

Contents

Top Highlights

“The cup of the Lord, therefore, contains his wrath” (Page 255)

“Beginning with his own situation, he found himself articulating timeless questions—about the problems of evil and the character of God, about the apparent pointlessness of prayer and impotence of God, about the oppressiveness of unrestrained violence and the silence of God.” (Page 204)

“In other words, God wants our very selves, our lives and our love. That is the costliest sacrifice we can bring, a living sacrifice of our souls and bodies.²³ This is the only reasonable response we can make to his redeeming love. It is on the basis of ‘the mercies of God’ that Paul makes his appeal to God’s people at Rome, mercies which he has been expounding in the first eleven chapters of his letter.” (Page 176)

“We do not find it easy to watch or to wait. We are much better at talking and doing” (Page 228)

“In Micah’s time, as in our own, this development led (seemingly inexorably) to a few rich people getting richer, not simply at the same time as the poor becoming poorer, but at the expense of the poor.” (Page 104)

Product Details

• Title: The Message of Joel, Micah and Habakkuk: Listening to the Voice of God
• Author: David Prior
• Series: The Bible Speaks Today
• Publisher: Inter-Varsity
• Print Publication Date: 1999
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Pages: 279
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Bible. O.T. Joel › Commentaries; Bible. O.T. Micah › Commentaries; Bible. O.T. Habakkuk › Commentaries
• ISBNs: 9780851115863, 0851115861
• Resource ID: LLS:BST29JOE
• Resource Type: Bible Commentary
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:22:28Z

About David Prior

David Prior has pastored churches in Cape Town, South Africa, and Oxford, England, and has served as director of The Centre for Marketplace Theology in London. He is the author of The Message of 1 Corinthians.