The last in the series on "Reading the Hebrew Scriptures Again - For the First Time," part of the Adult Education Program at St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church, will be Sunday.
The class meets at 11 a.m. in the church center and will be facilitated by Jerry Gill from Pima Community College.
The focus of this final class session will be on the major prophets who confronted the Hebrew people and their kings during the time of the divided kingdom just prior to their being taken captive by the Assyrian and later the Babylo-nian empires.
These captivities are known as the period of "The Great Exile," an exile from which the people of Israel eventually returned to rebuild Jerusalem and their nation.
The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and Hosea are especially focused on the inevitability of Israel's collapse as a result of its failure to live up to its citizens' calling as "the chosen people."
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The message of the prophets during this time is extremely relevant for us today as we face various national and international crises. They were not making predictions about distant future events, but rather were warning the Hebrew people of their disobedience to God by failing to take care of the poor and disadvantaged among them. Such practices led to the nation's downfall, and they may well carry the same message for contemporary nations, such as our own.
St. Francis in the Foothills is at 4625 E. River Road, at North Swan Road. For more information, call the church office at 299-9063.
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