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One of the gifts of the Revised Common Lectionary is that it draws our attention to things that we might not think about otherwise. For example, the last two weeks’ readings have shown us that prophets aren’t all cut from the same cloth: Samuel was earnest in his desire to serve God beginning in his childhood, while Jonah threw prophetic temper tantrums. Then this week, we get this informative flashback in Deuteronomy that provides helpful insight as to why God gave prophets to the Hebrew people in the first place. While we do tend to talk about prophecies often enough—especially around Advent—it’s less common to talk about the mechanics, characteristics, and criteria of prophet-dom. So I’m really glad to have this opportunity to dig into it, especially given a recent conversation I had.