Your Sons & Daughters Shall Prophesy - Prophetic Gifts Today In The New Testament Church

FOREWORD

I AM CONVINCED that one of God's chief springboards for taking the Church into the twenty-first century is the rapid emergence and broad acceptance of the ministry of prophets and apostles. During the decade of the 1980s prophets began to gain a recognition they had not previously enjoyed. The same thing happened to apostles during the decade of the 1990s. This is extremely important. Up until now most churches have been attempting to function with a government of evangelists, pastors and teachers. Many churches have done well, but biblically it is clear that they cannot be all God wants them to be without prophets and apostles. The reason I say this is that I take a literal interpretation of Ephesians 4:11, which says that "Uesus] Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers" (NKJV). I must confess that for years I felt comfortable somehow drawing an artificial exegeti cal line between the first two offices on the list and the last three. Ernest Gentile agrees with me. In fact, Ernest understood and practiced the biblical ministry of prophet long before I began to tune in to the fact that prophecy did not cease with the early Church. Of all those I know who are involved in active prophetic ministry, he would be considered among the most mature and experienced. I know of no one more qualified to write what I would describe as the first literal textbook on the subject. Let me hasten to say that there is other excellent literature in the field. The book that helped me most to tune in to contemporary prophetic min istry was Bill Haman's Prophets and Personal Prophecy (Destiny Image). My choice for the best book on how prophecy functions on the personal level would be Cindy Jacobs' The Voice of God (Regal). I would also men tion Jack Deere's Surprised by the Voice of God (Zondervan) as a con 11.