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In our church’s One Story series, we are patiently preaching, teaching and living our way through the entire Bible. From Genesis to Maps, so to speak, we are skipping none of it. 

Some books preach and teach more easily. Others appear on their surface to be less exciting, less accessible to the reader, or more awkward in a shared experience. 

Then, there are the prophets. My dear friend and mentor, Bo Prosser, likes to say that “A little of the prophets goes a long way.” Other minister friends urge caution, saying that to truly preach and teach the prophets is a dangerous undertaking. 

Why would they say those things? Well, Dr. Prosser’s statement is a little easier to explain. The prophets spoke honestly on God’s behalf to groups of people. Their content is heavy. So a little goes a long way. 

But why is teaching the prophets potentially dangerous? That may be for at least two reasons. First, what a lot of more judgmentally-minded Christians believe is in there actually isn’t in there much at all. But the accusations that are in the prophets’ writings will often present inconvenient truths. They’ll hold up a mirror into which we wish we hadn’t gazed. 

They will say things that if we take them seriously in our time, they may cause us to reevaluate cultural, political and yes even spiritual stances we have long held. The prophets come along and may have messages that are just as challenging in our day as they were in their specific era. 

Prophets also had bad news to deliver. Almost universally, they foretold or explained why Israel was taken over by conquesting neighbors and absorbed into other empires. Generations would live within this liminal exile, yearning for a return or at least trying to adapt. 

In a world that sometimes you or I may be struggling to adapt to, we may share a basic question. Is there hope for right now? The book of Daniel might have a timeless answer. That is, if we are willing to separate the concept of “hope” from the notion of getting “answers.” 

That is, we may not get answers to the ills of our particular day. There may be no fast fix to what we think is wrong. In fact, let’s stay open to the possibility that some of what we think should be fixed may not need to be after all. 

But I do believe Daniel could help us out with the “help” part now, just as perhaps he did with his people back then. Because for Daniel, hope may be found in a few righteous practices. 

At the heart of Daniel’s prophecies are propositions that we should trust God. In fact, Daniel urges people to trust God enough to pay attention to their own regular practices of faith and religion. He believes worship and ritual are vital to us being intentional with God. Specifically, in the challenging times of their persecution he urged them to keep up their regular worship and devotion. 

He also wanted them to remember that, ultimately, knowledge and power lie so much more with God than with us. God knows in ways that are far beyond our knowing. God has power that we may not always be able to summon up when and how we want to. But God’s power is beyond our own. 

Daniel also believed that there was a brighter future ahead for his people. But there may be no fast way to get there. He wanted them to remember that in exile as at home, God was always their God. 

God wanted sufficiently awakened and humbled people to be able to come home, if they chose to do so. Similarly, I believe God always prefers for us to return to home, if our home remains with our God. 

What should we do with Daniel? Why will it matter that we have visited this book of the Bible? Want hope for right now?

Arthur Jeffrey, in his notes on Daniel, believes it is a book that is written for a time like ours. That is, there are some dynamics present that inspired a message that could prove to be insightful for a time beyond just Daniel’s.

He says, “Days of testing, days when life is hammering you, are days of temptation. Specifically, it is tempting to play it safely. To live small, when in reality the times call for the opposite.” It is also a call to devotion. A challenge to faithfulness.

DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 757-562-5135.