This lesson introduces the Old Testament prophets and corrects many common misunderstandings about them. While people often think prophets primarily predicted the coming of Jesus or spoke about the distant future, the majority of their message was directed to their own time. They were God’s messengers, calling His people back to obedience and warning them of the consequences of disobedience.
A prophet is simply “one who speaks for God,” and prophecy is more about forth-telling—declaring God’s truth—than foretelling the future. The prophets served as “covenant enforcers,” reminding Israel of the promises they made to God and the blessings or consequences that would follow.
This lesson emphasizes that God does not act arbitrarily. From the beginning, He clearly told His people what would happen if they obeyed or disobeyed. The prophets were sent repeatedly, often over centuries, as an expression of God’s patience, love, and desire for restoration—not punishment.
For us today, the message is just as relevant. We are now God’s representatives, called to both right belief (orthodoxy) and right living (orthopraxy). The prophets remind us that following God is serious, that our choices have consequences, and that God continually calls His people back to Himself with both warning and hope.
Following is the podcast and then the PowerPoint video of the lesson, below them the Notes and Discussion Guide.
If you’d like downloadable, free and editable resources for this lesson from the Bible805 Academy, go to: https://bible805academy.com/b/8LADk


This lesson completes Genesis by showing how God narrowed His focus from all humanity to one family that would become the nation of Israel. It reviews Genesis as four major events (creation, the fall, the flood, Babel) followed by four major people (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph). The lesson explains that God’s focus on Israel does not mean He stopped caring about the rest of humanity, but that through Israel God would preserve His Word, model worship, and serve as witnesses so that all nations would ultimately be blessed through the coming Savior, Jesus.