Martin Luther King, Jr., is often called a \u201cprophet\u201d because, like those Old Testament figures, he endeavored to inspire change in an entire nation through moral appeal. All the prophets followed a two-pronged approach.<\/p>\n
First, they gave a short-range view of what God requires immediately. This usually consisted of an exhortation to simple acts of faithfulness: Rebuild the temple. Purify your marriages. Destroy your idols.<\/p>\n
Second, they also gave a long-range view to answer the people\u2019s deepest questions: How can we believe that God loves us in the face of so much suffering? How can we believe in a just God when the world seems ruled by a sovereignty of evil? The prophets answered such questions by reminding their audience of who God is, and by painting a picture of a future kingdom of righteousness.<\/p>\n
Martin Luther King used that same two-pronged approach. His short-range view called for non-violence. King did many things wrong (like many of the \u201cheroes\u201d in Hebrews 11), but one thing he did right. Against all odds, against all instincts of self-preservation, he stayed true to the short view. He did not strike back. Where others called for revenge, he called for love.<\/p>\n
King also reminded his people of the long view, that God is in control and the coming of His righteousness will not be long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Martin Luther King, Jr., is often called a \u201cprophet\u201d because, like those Old Testament figures, he endeavored to inspire change in an entire nation through moral appeal. All the prophets followed a two-pronged approach. First, they gave a short-range view of what God requires immediately. This usually consisted of an exhortation to simple acts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[200,12,709,1537,159,481],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}