Gift of Prophecy

Dr. Couch, we have a man in our church who claims to be a prophet. This is a very conservative church. What do we do? And, what is a NT prophet? ANSWER: First of all, he's a fool, and very ignorant of Scripture, and of church history. Ignorance is growing and not diminishing. Several decades back, or more, people started saying, "We don't need to study doctrine in church, just make us 'feel good' with light devotionals on Sunday morning!" In both our OT and NT a prophet is one who may be a teacher or foretells into the future. CONTEXT is what determines what is going on in a given passage. And, people have such poor interpretative skills that they do not know how to study the Word of God by Context! If we had true prophets today who could foretell into the future then someone should walk behind them, record their prophecies, and put them in a book as "The Word of God." But we do not have such people around, though with their egos, they try to convince the foolish that they are foretelling prophets. People forget that a prophet could both tell the future but also be a teacher. Once the canon of the NT was complete, such a role of being a teaching prophet or a foretelling prophet was no longer needed. The only one in the NT who is recorded as foretelling into the future, besides the apostles, was Agabus. He gave a prophecy about the apostle Paul. Philip had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses (Acts 21:8-14. Why did they not make a future prophecy about Paul? Agabus did but they did not! The reason would be that they were not prophetesses who were foretelling into the future. They would be "teaching" prophetesses, and, they would only be teaching women, because Paul makes it clear that women were not to be teaching men (1 Tim. 2:12). When the canon of Scripture was completed, with the writing of the book of Revelation (cir. AD 90-95), we have no record of legitimate foretelling prophets or even of teaching prophets. Paul makes it clear that the three most important gifts that had to do with communicating the Word of God, before the canon was complete, would someday disappear: the gifts of (1) prophecy, (2) linguistics (or tongues), and (3) and of knowledge. The gift of linguistics (glossa) helped spread the truth among those who spoke different languages. Again, one must compute that the canon of the NT was not complete. Our Bible is in Greek and is translated for different language groups! Another "communication" gift was the gift of knowledge. The one with this gift had special insights into doctrinal knowledge. This was important because as mentioned, the entire NT was not completed. Those with this gift had special doctrinal insights because the canon was not finished. When the NT was completed, it became the authority for spiritual truth. We know for a fact from 1 Corinthians 14:29-32 that the gift of prophecy had to do mainly with teaching and not foretelling into the future. But as mentioned, only the apostles along with Agabus had the ability to foretell into the future. Again, how are we certain that the gift was used for teaching and not prophesying into the future? Paul writes that those who had this gift in the church of Corinth were to exercise their gift "one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted" (v. 31). "Learning" and "exhortation" had to do with the dispensing of spiritual truth in order to inform the church of doctrine and facts that helped "grow up" the fledgling congregations. This is not the giving forth of some prophetic future message! The Greek text is very strong in the way it describes the going away of these three "communication" gifts. The apostle writes: "Love is never falling; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be in the future made inoperative; if there are [the gifts of] linguistics (tongues), they will in the future stop themselves; if there is knowledge, it will in the future stop themselves, … but when the 'completion' comes, the partial will be done away" (vv. 8-10). The "perfect" or the "completion" is the Greek word "teleion" and it is in the Neuter gender not the masculine. Some ignorant folks say this "perfect" is Christ, but it can't be; the word is a neuter word and He would be described with the masculine gender! I personally would ask the one who says he has the gift of prophecy to leave the church because, he is not only very egotistical and foolish, but I promise you he will be a trouble maker. He enjoys the "power" of saying he is a prophet and having information about the future that others do not possess! Thanks for asking. Dr. Mal Couch