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

Definition of Christian Prophecy

A Revelation from God

Insight of the Spirit is essential.Without perception of the divine will, there can be no prophecy.It is not the result of a human mind thinking up a nice religious thought, even if appropriate.It is a word from God, a communication from heaven, a divinely inspired thought for a current sit uation.Paul's prayer for the Ephesians holds true for today's churches as well: that God "may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlight ened ..." (Ephesians 1:17-18, NKJV). An event in Matthew 16:16 illustrates the sharp contrast between divine revelation and man's own ideas.Peter's great declaration, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," was more than a personal conclusion. Jesus pinpointed the divine Source: "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven" (verse 17).Within moments of the commendation, however, Peter was severely rebuked by Jesus for blurting out a hasty statement that challenged the very reason for Jesus' coming (verse 2 3)! Prophecy occurs at the influence of God's Spirit.The words spoken while a person is "in the Spirit" come not from reflection, premeditation or study but are initiated by God for the benefit of His people. 4 This rev elation "occurs when a Christian either hears, sees or senses a prompting from the Holy Spirit and speaks what he or she has received." 5 James D.G. Dunn comments: "For Paul prophecy is a word of revelation....It is a spontaneous utterance, a revelation given in words to the prophet to be delivered as it is given (1 Cor 14.30).At this point Paul stands wholly within the (Hebraic) tradition of prophecy as inspired utterance." 6 Some might ask, "Is prophetic revelation some form of ecstasy?" We have already discussed ecstasy in chapter 5.Here I will say simply that Paul teaches that those who prophesy in church are not to be out of con trol or out of their minds (1 Corinthians 14: 32).It is often someone who has not received one of the "utterance gifts"-prophecy, tongues and inter pretation of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:10)-who feels that biblical prophecy is an out-of-body ecstatic experience in which the person loses sanity. Unfortunately various Old Testament scholars have given the impres sion that the prophets of old were possessed by frenzy or mania in which their normal faculties were suspended.I have already challenged this con cept but would like to state again that scriptural support for such an assumption is just not available.There is no authority to compare the Hebrew or Christian prophets with the heathen soothsayer (the mantis) who worked himself into a religious frenzy, attempting to gain favor with his observers by undergoing some kind of spirit transport.I agree with 163 ■