There’s a desire among some quarters of the church to be ‘prophetic’. Now, at first glance, that’s not a bad thing – 1 Cor. 14 tells us to eagerly pursue prophecy after all! The problems sneak in, however, when we equate the New Testament call to prophecy with the Old Testament office of Prophet. They are simply not the same thing.

Prophets in the Old Testament

An Old Testament prophet was a specific category of person, a divinely appointed office. They rarely enjoyed it, took great pains to avoid it, and we’re often lambasted for it too! Ezekiel lay on his side for 430 days, Isaiah walked around naked while preaching for three years, Hosea was told to marry a prostitute, Balaam had to compete with a donkey, Nehemiah went on a rampage—mostly pulling people’s hair, and Jeremiah wasn’t allowed to wash his pants. Does this sound like a glitzy job description? Prophets were unique, very rare individuals who were called to speak into specific times within the developing drama of biblical history.

Apart from some eccentricities, you can tell an Old Testament Prophet because they consistently did three things: they clarified the past, interpreted the present, and they predicted the future(s). This is a formula that’s unique to the Old Testament Prophetic office. The uniqueness of their office is underlined because their words carried enough divine inspiration to be able to say with no irony: ‘thus saith the Lord.’ Put another way, their words were infallible, beyond question, and subsequently could be added to the Bible.

It’s my belief—and as rare as this is for me, it’s the belief of most of the Christian Old Testament scholastic community—that the office of Old Testament Prophet no longer exists. If they did, then we’d constantly be adding to the Bible, and there’re all kinds of reasons that that’s a bad idea. However divinely inspired I might sometimes feel, I wouldn’t dream of boldly suggesting that my words are infallible or beyond question, and that there should be a ‘book of Tim’ in the Bible … well, not another one anyway! If you’re interested, I think the last ‘Old Testament-style’ piece of prophecy was Peter’s speech at Pentecost in Acts 2.

Prophecy in the New Testament

Now prophecy in the New Testament is a different thing all together. There’s some overlap, but not in the most obvious places. First, it’s important to understand that within Paul’s epistles, the English translation of the word ‘prophesy’ doesn’t cover all the contextual nuances of the Greek. In some contexts, it’s clear that all Paul actually means is ‘preaching’ or even just speaking some kind of gospel message. The puritan William Perkins wrote an entire book on preaching based on this simply called ‘The Art of Prophesying.’

Under that definition, which we unfortunately easily miss through the limitations of English translations, we should understand prophesy to primarily mean something like the movement of an edifying message from a speaker to a hearer. As pretentious as that sounds, it’s the best I can come up with to explain the concept without just saying ‘preaching’, which would be too narrow.

So, the broad umbrella of prophecy is simply sharing God’s word and truths with each other through preaching, talking, edification, and encouragement.

Who actually receives the gift?

Right now onto ‘noetic quality’. This was what 19^th Century psychologist and philosopher William James called the idea of obtaining information in a way you wouldn’t have known otherwise, or ‘hearing directly from God.’ This is what we tend to mean when we use the word prophecy. Prophecy certainly can have noetic quality, but this is not the central feature of it, and is not even required of it. In fact, like most spiritual gifts in 1 Cor. 12, we have interpreted the preposition for this backward. Let me see if I can explain.

Take ‘gift of healing’, for instance. We assume if person A prays for person B, and person B is healed, then person A is the one with a ‘gift of healing.’ This is why we say some people are ‘faith healers.’ But that doesn’t make any sense logically, and it’s not supported textually. Logically, the person who is healed certainly seems to be the most obvious recipient of a ‘gift’, not the other person praying for it. I’ve I’m healed, then I received a gift of healing from God, right? Textually, almost every English version of the Bible makes a basic translation error: It should read gifts of healings, not gift of healing. It’s two plurals, not two singulars. That makes it gifts and healings.

So, prepositionally, the person who receives the effect receives the gift—and this makes sense contextually too, as the verses all around it are about mutual edification, not mutant superpowers. It’s about building each other up, not coming to grips with our individual tool-belts.

As a quick example, my young people often ask me to pray for their exam results. If they do well, they don’t then tell me I have a ‘gift of good grades, as they understand they are the recipients of those grades.

A deeper dig into 1 Cor. 14

So, who receives the gift of prophecy—the one who speaks, or those who hear? And what is the gift? Is it noetic quality, or just clear gospel truth? 1 Cor. 14 can help us out with both.

Who receives it? It is the collective church who should eagerly desire prophecy (14:1), as the church needs to mutually hear God’s word. The person who prophesies (v.3—and note it is in third person plural) does so for the strength, encouragement, and comfort of the whole body, and edifies the church (v.4). Prophecy is a gift for the church (vv.12, 22).

What is it? Throughout this whole chapter, Paul is contrasting prophecy with tongues. It’s the longest explanation we have of prophecy in the whole New Testament, and not once does Paul even mention noetic quality. Instead, he talks about speaking intelligible words to instruct others (14:9, 19). Words that clearly set out the gospel (v.24). If anything, it’s the gift of tongues that actually holds noetic quality (vv.5, 16). Paul does mention revelation in v.6, but that is not the same as prophecy either (he says or).

However, there is possibly one spanner in the works for my interpretation here, as Paul says, prophecy will ‘lay bare the secrets of the heart’ (v.25). This verse might need a second look, as on first glance it sounds like a public revelation of someone’s personal secrets using the noetic quality of prophecy. Widely regarded as one of the best commentators on 1 Cor. Anthony Thiselton says this is not noetic, but is the natural result of clear gospel preaching. He says, ‘the words of the prophets bring home the truth of the gospel in such a way that the hearer “stands under” the verdict of the cross.’ And even Gordon Fee (who was immensely charismatic in his theology!) says that this refers to the Spirit’s accompaniment to gospel teaching—so the Holy Spirit reveals sin directly to the listener through conviction—not through the open public revelation of a ‘prophet.’

The problems with claiming to be a ‘Prophet’ today

The reason this is important to clear up is there are a lot of voices in the contemporary church who claim to be prophets, or to have the gift of prophecy uniquely or keenly—and by that they almost exclusively mean noetic quality.

This bothers me for a few reasons, but first a caveat:

I believe God can and does reveal truths to people who pray, and those truths can and sometimes do have noetic quality. I believe in that continuing phenomenon in the church today. I think praying and asking God to speak directly to us is a good practice for the church.

I don’t believe, however, that prophecy is a gift that only some people ‘own’ individually, or that it is specifically attached to only certain people. It might manifest itself at certain times or places or even people as the need arises, but it’s not a ‘skill’ or ‘tool’ that God bestows on someone for all time. The gift is receiving the message, not being the messenger, and often it is sharing the gospel or even just reminding people of what God has already said. I think this is available to everyone through prayer as need arises – which is why Paul tells the whole church to eagerly desire it, not just a few selective people.

So, what’s my problem? My issue is when someone says, ‘I am a Prophet’. Usually, they have in reality mixed some Old Testament office theology with some misunderstanding of the New Testament concept and wodged together a job description for themselves. There are several ways this can manifest is itself, and all of them I think are unhelpful.

How does this manifest itself in the church?

It can manifest as a person or a group of people who seemingly have ‘extra knowledge’ or ‘special revelation’ in the church that exist as a separate power-base to the pastor, subtly (or not so subtly) undermining the pastor’s shepherding of a people.

It can manifest as pride or even manipulation of those around, coming with a sense of ‘God prefers me’ and ‘others must do what I say.’ This can lead to all kinds of abuse and a broad lack of accountability.

It can manifest as street preachers who think they are divine inspired and are impossible to talk to. These come with a sense of misplaced authority, and a shocking lack of understanding of both preaching in the Bible, and how to communicate effectively.

It can manifest as competing revelation—with each other, and with the Bible—so if they say something different to somebody else, or to the Bible, then who has, ultimately, the true ‘infallible’ revelation.

It can manifest as unhealthy church plants, missional organisations, or ‘apostolic’ ministries, where a ‘prophet’ refuses to connect with a church, and continually isolates themselves, or they just surround themselves with similar (or susceptible) people.

Prophecy is a beautiful thing. It’s not a power to be harnessed and wielded like a sword, but a Spirit-filled sharing of God’s word together across the entire church. Let’s ask to receive it together, not try to ‘own’ it for ourselves.

So, should we want to be Prophets? No. But we should eagerly desire the gift of prophecy!

Photo by Luis Morera on Unsplash