The prophet's handbook

branch of the prophet’s readiness program. It always involves a teacher, mentor, and steward-type relationship with the learner. Different developers that contributed to the minister’s education all leave a portion of God’s handprint on that person’s soul, in or out of the classroom. Elijah and Elisha, Samuel and Eli, and the school of prophets they trained to staff Israel’s prophetic offices continually are examples of this. Apprenticeship is closely related to structured training in that it is the intern arm of the learning process. Once actual study has been completed, theory is translated to practice. Apprentices are thus assigned to work as subordinates or juniors in the field where God will use them. Apprenticeships can last many years and are dictated by the call, field, and territory in which the laborers will subsequently work. For example, Elisha poured water on Elijah’s hands for twenty years before installation to office. Joshua served Moses for over forty years to become successor to his mission: to bring Israel into the Promised Land. Dramatic Induction speaks to the prophet being suddenly, and often radically, pulled into service. The motives for this method are varied and can be as simple as God needing to have a speaker immediately and finding none reliable in a particular region, or His having to utter a rebuke to established prophets and therefore needs a fresh messenger groomed and trained outside of His present systems. Amos’ induction appears to fall under one of these categories. (See Amos 7:14–17.) The call of the twelve apostles of Jesus also fit this category. One minute, it’s business as usual, the next, the person’s entire life is upside down. God’s reason for this approach typically centers on a new move for which He desires to use a new staff of prophets. Paul’s Damascus road encounter with Jesus of Nazareth illustrates this perfectly. Divine Confrontation is what the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel and the apostle Paul encountered. The theme of such prophets’ message is the holiness of God. Their words concentrate on His hallowed glory. Usually the prophetic stance is one of awe and reverence for the Most High—the kind the majority of God’s people cannot fathom. Moses’ fresh from the burning bush experience conveys this outcome of a face-to-face with Jehovah most eloquently. God chooses particular ministers for this type of induction to confirm eternity, qualify the afterlife, and to help them grasp the depth of human sinfulness in contrast with the Maker’s holiness. His aim is to equip them to centralize these teachings in their ministries to their respective groups. Supernatural Enlistment combines the previous two and includes the servant’s