Dave Burke

“Do not treat prophecies with contempt”

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In this session we will think about the status of the so called ‘charismatic’ gifts and ask whether they have ceased to function since the completion of the New Testament cannon. Then we will look specifically at the gift of prophecy: How was it used in the New Testament churches? We will look at prophecy in guiding Christians into God’s will and in public worship. We will see that the NT prophets were not given the same authority as OT prophets. Finally, we will consider how the gift of prophecy should be used in the modern church.

This session is about the gift of prophecy. It is a controversial issue; some would receive a prophetic word very naturally, others would be deeply worried, inclined to the view that this gift ceased to function after apostle’s generation had died out.

The latter are called Cessationists; believing that some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit were only given to fill in the gap between the ascension and the completion of the New Testament cannon. Cessationists say that Paul fully expected some gifts to fall out of use, which is why he wrote:

“Where there are prophecies, they will cease, where there are tongues they will be stilled…” [1 Corinthians 13:8]

However, the rest of this sentence says, “…where there is knowledge it will pass away”, and to explain that this will happen, “…when perfection comes” [1 Corinthians 13:8-10]. Yet those who say that certain gifts have been withdrawn from the church rarely make out that perfection has come. Fewer would claim that knowledge has ceased! No, the biblical case for saying that certain gifts, but not others, have had their day is very slight indeed.

In fact, some Cessationists will occasionally admit that God can speak through a person prophetically today: Arnold Dalimore’s biography of the great preacher C.H. Spurgeon, published by the Banner of Truth Trust reports a prophecy made about Spurgeon whilst he was still a child. “This child will one day preach the gospel, and will preach it to great multitudes, and I am persuaded that he will preach it at the chapel of Rowland Hill” [1] The prophecy was treasured by Spurgeon’s family and came was fulfilled in every detail.

Yet even those who believe the gift is available today are uneasy about prophecy. It is an easy gift to abuse; many horror stories could be told about overbearing, manipulative, or just plain wrong prophecy. And then there is the suspicion that the bible is being added to, with all the attendant risks of real revelation being forsaken in favour of something immediate and apparently more relevant. There are indications that some churches are, in practice, abandoning the bible in favour of more prophetic ministries. This is dangerous.

Yet, as we will see, the prophets of the New Testament church were not delivering messages destined to be a substitute for Scripture. Last time, we concluded that Jesus’ team of apostles were the New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament prophets. Only prophecies associated with these apostles were included in the cannon [for example, the book of Revelation], but those given by ordinary Christians with the gift of prophecy were never regarded in the same way. We need to examine how this gift of prophecy was used in the New Testament church. We will do this in two areas; guidance and worship.

The gift of prophecy in action – 1. Guidance

We are going to investigate how prophecies influenced Paul at a critical moment of his life, as he travels to Jerusalem from Ephesus. But first, some background information: In AD 46 grain prices suddenly increased. The cause was a failure of the harvest. The crisis lasted several years, indeed the emperor Claudius was mobbed by hungry Roman citizens in AD 51. Sometime before AD 46, a long way from Rome, someone had been tipped off that a famine was looming.

Agabus’ must have developed quite a reputation after this!

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Group work – prophecy and guidance Read Acts 20:22-24

· How did Paul know he should set out for Jerusalem? Have you ever felt a similar conviction? What happened?

· What did he expect when he got there?

Read Acts 21:1-16

· How did the Holy Spirit continue to communicate with Paul on his journey?

· How would you feel to be getting such mixed messages?

· How did Paul handle this situation? What would you have felt if you had been one of the messengers?

· Make a careful summary of what Agabus says will happen to Paul in Jerusalem. Write it as a point-by-point list.

Read Acts 21:27-36

· Summarise, point-by-point what actually happened to Paul in Jerusalem.

· What do you think of Agabus now?

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Prophecy and guidance – a summary

Here are some useful insights from this passage, principles that come straight from scripture and govern how prophecies can influence guidance.

1. Prophecy was a part of the guidance process. Intuitively, Paul already knew that he should go to Jerusalem and that he would have a difficult time there.

2. Prophecy was only one of the ways Paul got his guidance. Here are some others:

· Acts 13:1-2

· Acts 15:36

· Acts 16:6-10

3. A prophet can receive insight from the Spirit, but deliver it with his own feelings mixed in [see 21:4]. New Testament prophets were to be tested rigorously, and not believed passively [1 Thessalonians 5:19-22]. Paul felt free to accept the confirmation of a hard time ahead but reject the advice!

4. Agabus was broadly right, but wrong in detail. Compare this with Elisha in 2 Kings 6:12. The New Testament gift of prophecy does not have to manifest itself in pinpoint accuracy.

The gift of prophecy in action – 2. Worship

The church Paul planted in Corinth was a nightmare! Wealthy Christians excluded their poorer brothers from worship, moral problems went unchallenged and they were addicted to the spectacular. On top of this, they had a major problem with the abuse of spiritual gifts.

There seems to have been an argument going on about which gifts conferred the greatest importance to a Christian. In addition, overuse of tongues had led to chaotic worship. The Corinthians felt that tongues were incredibly important. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians addressed the issue of gifts very fully.

Paul is stressing two realities; the same Holy Spirit gives each gift, and the gifts are given for the common good, not the glory of any individual Christian. Paul’s first words about spiritual gifts are in effect an appeal for unity.

Paul wants us to see that we are mutually dependent, each gift has a part to play and each Christian is a part of the body of Christ. There was no room for snobbery where gifts were concerned. Right in the middle of this, Paul injected his famous chapter about love. This was not written for newlyweds, but for the status-obsessed, gift-obsessed, spiritual pond-life at Corinth! An appeal to make love our priority could have been written in 1975 or 1994 as Christians fell out over the gifts of the Spirit and the Toronto Blessing.

Against this background Paul got down to details about using the gift of prophecy in public worship.

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Group work – prophecy and worship Read 1 Corinthians 14:1-12

· Paul compares the gift of tongues unfavourably with that of prophecy [see also verse 18-19]. Why is this?

· What functions should prophecy fulfil in the context of worship? [see especially verses 1-5]

· Clearly, prophecy is not ‘teaching’, for that is listed as a separate gift, neither is it ‘thus says the Lord’ like the Old Testament prophets, since it must be weighed and tested [verse 29]. So what kind of contribution to a worship service would you call a ‘prophecy’?

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Prophecy and worship – a summary

1. It is pretty clear that the Corinthian church needed to control what happened in their worship [see verse 40]. Paul was very keen to encourage the gift of prophecy.

2. Tongues were being overused, and without going so far as to stop it, he wanted to curb the excessive emphasis on this gift. He seems to prefer it to be used in private rather than public worship [18-19]

3. A prophetic contribution to the worship would need to be biblical, because others will test it by the bible [29], but it will not be teaching or bible exposition as such; that is a separate gift. Generally, prophecy will be more intuitive and subjective than the teaching ministry, and it will usually be spontaneous; a sudden spiritual insight that will strengthen, encourage and comfort believers and can even convict unbelievers of sin [23-25].

4. The Holy Spirit will bring something to mind, and prompt you to tell it to the congregation. What you say will not be ‘Gods word’ in the way that scripture is God’s word; it will be an insight God has given expressed in your own words. So you will not express in the first person, like the Old Testament prophets: “This is what God says… my children you…” This is wrong, because the gift of prophecy does not work like this. It is helpful to compare verse 32 with 2 Peter 1:20-21.

Prophecy in practice

Phraseology - A long time ago in a prayer meeting in Antioch someone said, “I feel that God may be telling us to send Paul and Barnabas out to preach…” That is the way prophecy is best phrased, in the knowledge that your spiritual intuition needs to be tested and verified. “Perhaps God is saying this to us…” or “I feel that God might be telling us that…” is better than “This is what God is telling you!”

The way we phrase prophecy must reflect the fact that the prophet can be wrong. The only way you or I can be certain God has spoken is when the Bible speaks.

Open worship – Over the years I have found open worship to be incredibly helpful. Sometimes, because the speakers were delivering accurate Bible teaching, but on other occasions it was clear that they were not. Sure, they started with a Bible passage, because that was the convention, and they went on to say things that were biblical, but nothing to do with the passage! They read a Bible passage out because they had to dress it up as Bible teaching, when in fact what they were doing was exercising a gift of prophecy! No one would admit it though!

Preaching - There is some overlap between the gift of teaching and prophecy. Most effective preachers have both gifts. Most effective preaching has some prophetic content in it. However, it is not true to say that inspired preaching is the only manifestation of the gift of prophecy today.

Guidance - Twenty years ago, in a prayer meeting at Keele University, someone came up to me and said…

[1] [Richard Knill, missionary, quoted in ‘Spurgeon’ by Arnold Dallimore].

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