"God said"... I hated those words - not when God actually said something in the Bible, but when people said that God said something to them. "God said I'm supposed to go to Africa." "God said I'm going to go to Los Angeles and become an actor". Really? What book of the Bible is that in? I hated when people said stuff like that. It didn't help that my best friend and company partner used the phrase in every business meeting we had about the future of our film production company. It started to feel like that person in the group was the only one who had direct access to God's voice, and all our opinions needed to submit to the very WORD OF GOD (from the mouth of my buddy). But are there really modern day prophets, walking around, speaking on behalf of God?
"Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off." (Acts 13:1-3)
Today, evangelicals mostly seem to have a very Old Testament view of what a prophet really is. But at Pentecost, Peter looks back to the prophet Joel, who spoke about the change that was about to take place before the Day of the LORD:
"And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy." (Acts 2:17-18, Joel 2:28-29)
So he's saying that "all flesh" (not virtually all people, but simply both Jewish people and Gentile people) will receive the same Holy Spirit that came down and spoke solely to the prophets of old! What in the world do we do about this? I mean if this is really true, then when we all gather together at church, it'll be chaos! Everyone will say they have a word from God, and people will go off doing crazy things, thinking a prophet told them to do it! Well, it turns out Paul was having that exact problem with the church in Corinth:
"What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up... Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace." (1 Cor 14:26, 29-33)
And likewise, Paul says to the Ephesians:
"And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ." (Eph 4:11-12)
You see, the Spirit is a beautiful thing. It seems that prophecy (along with other gifts) is so valuable to the building up of the church. He has indeed given us the same power that raised Christ from the dead. But why don't we see this in the church today? I think it has a lot to do with a failure to follow Paul's advice here. I know I've seen a huge abuse of "the gifts of the Spirit", where everyone's talking in tongues and prophesying the weirdest, wrongest things I've ever heard. Sometimes, there's a serious spiritual abuse that happens in the name of "walking in our giftings". So now, a large majority of evangelicals despise this kind of stuff. But 1 Thessalonians says this:
"Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil." (1 Thess 5:19-22)
The big deal here is that prophecy is done along with other people - prophets, apostles, evangelists, teachers, pastors. It's all done in a community and refined in that same community. We've seen in the above verses that fasting, prayer, community affirmation, abstaining from evil, and having a wisdom to take the good and leave the bad are all crucial in the practicing of our gifts.
The craziest part of this all is that the New Testament church seems to recognize that a lot of prophecy is "out of the prophet's butt" as my friend says. But because they're no longer the only one who has the Spirit (like the prophets of the Old Testament) we don't need to kill them for blasphemy. Rather, we just "hold fast what is good".
So find a safe community of passionate believers, pray, fast, and seek to grow in your spiritual gifts together. Later in Ephesias 4, Paul says that this kind of living is virtually the only way that we're going to become mature Christians. God is still speaking, indeed. But he's doing it through every member of the Body working together. Instead of creating division with this kind of stuff, seek to let it bring unity! This message is important, and it's something worth considering. Why? Because God told me it was.
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