Lots of people are disparaging the prophetic these days. And by this, I mean they are disparaging both the people who are claiming to be prophets and the prophetic gift itself.
Many cessationists believe, without a shred of biblical evidence, that prophecy ceased with the original apostles, but this simply cannot be the case. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:1 “Earnestly desire spiritual gifts but especially that you may prophesy.” Lest we believe the cessationists’ claims that this only refers to apostles, we need only to look at who the book of Corinthians is addressed to:
“To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2).
That’s pretty all-inclusive. It’s plainly obvious that every believer everywhere ought to be seeking to prophesy.
The main criticism I’ve been seeing lately is that “If a prophet is wrong he/she is supposed to be killed.” Nope. That’s also an unbiblical concept. The role of prophet has clearly changed between the old testament and the new.
1 Corinthians 14:3 is clear that prophecy is for “exhortation and edification and consolation.” This is different from the “speaking in place of almighty God” role that old testament prophets played.
In the OT, people did not have the Holy Spirit living inside them. Therefore, they needed the voice of God through prophets, and that voice needed to be perfectly accurate because they were primarily foretelling what God was planning to do, and much of that was conditional upon the behavior of those listening.
In the NT, the role of exhortation, edification and consolation is the role of the Holy Spirit as Comforter and Guide, and is delivered not with a feeling of impending doom but of love, encouragement and support. Prophecy these days is meant to be affirming, and is always supposed to be tested to see whether or not it is true. The implication is that it might not be.
The requirement to kill a prophet if he/she is wrong simply does not appear in the NT. In fact, there is proof of just the opposite. In Acts 27:10, Paul told the crew he was traveling with “Men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.” “Certainly,” he says.
If these words were uttered today, then many Christians would insist that Paul be stoned to death as a false prophet because his prophecy did not, actually, come true, because in verse 22 he says “now I urge you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.” No one said Paul should be stoned to death for a false prophecy, or for changing his mind, or for admitting he was wrong the first time.
There is some clear direction about testing prophets in the NT, in 1 John 4:1:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” We are clearly expected to test these prophets closely. And what is the test? That they prophecy perfectly with no errors? No! The test is “to see whether they are from God.”
And how do we perform this test? Verse 2 tells us:
“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.”
So, the test of a true prophet is this: does this person confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? The test is not “is this person 100% accurate all the time?”
Further definition of the role of NT prophets comes in 1 Corinthians 14:31: “For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted.”
Here again, the emphasis in on exhortation and learning, not on foretelling “the word of the Lord” perfectly accurately.
In addition to all this, we also have the whole topic of conditional prophecy. Even in the OT, God’s prophecies were often conditional upon the obedience of the people. The prophets were often the ones who said “If you do this or that, then God will do this or that.” If the people disobeyed, they nullified the promises that appeared in the prophecy.
So, are we to simply accept everything that is uttered by every human being who considers themselves a prophet? Of course not. That’s where the discernment comes in, and the testing we are urged to partake in according to 1 John 4:1 above. We are to listen, we are to test the prophetic utterances against scripture, against what we know about the character of the one prophesying (1 John 4:2), and against what the Holy Spirit is telling us at the time we are trying to digest all this.
Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 “Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.”
If we are to test what we hear and hold on to what is good, then the obvious implication is that there may be that which is not good in this prophecy, which is why we test it!
When we reject the prophetic, or shy away from it because we’re scared of it or don’t understand it, or if we despise prophetic gifting in blatant disobedience of the Word of God, then we do ourselves and those around us a grave disservice by limiting the amount of “word” that is allowed into our lives.