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

The Prophetic Confusion at Corinth

thing strange is going on.A meaningless tongue, unless interpreted, con fuses both visitors and uninformed church members. This approach maintains the unity of the passage, raises the interpre tation out of the nonsensical and says more accurately what Paul meant. Verse 24. But if all prophesy. The possibility exists that any church member may prophesy.The word all appears three times in one sentence: "All prophesy ...an unbeliever or an ungifted man ...is convicted by all . ..called to account by all" (emphasis added ).Also, note the three "alls" in verse 31. J. Rodman Williams comments: "Whenever the Spirit is outpoured, the result is that people without distinction of sex or class are able to prophesy....Thus at Corinth and in all Spirit-anointed assem blies, everyone may prophesy." 40 Verse 25. God is certainly among you. It is marvelous to see a per son turn to God in repentance because a prophetic word has touched his or her heart! Sometimes in a worship service unsaved people come forward and fall on their knees, calling out to God.These things hap pen when God is "really" (NIV) among us.Forbes observes that "the effect of prophecy on unbelievers is, in Paul's view, a sign for believers in a quite specialized sense....The unbeliever's confession, provoked by prophetic conviction of his sins, is a sign to believers of the eschato logical presence of God among his people." 41 The confession of the unbe liever, "God is certainly among you," lines up with Isaiah 45:14, Zechariah 8:23 and other Old Testament texts emphasizing that God's blessing brings heathen acknowledgment that God is truly among His people. Recently in a prophetic presbytery in Moses Lake, Washington, three of us were ministering prophetically to church candidates, including a couple who came forward for ministry.Unknown to us, the husband was backslidden and no longer serving God.(He probably should not have come forward at all, but his wife was desperate to see him restored.) Suddenly Bob Isabel, one of the prophets, began to speak forth several secrets of the man's heart.Before we had finished, their two teenage children had run up to the platform and were hugging their parents and crying, while the man was overwhelmed with repentance and the grace of God.

Orderly Conduct in Public Worship

Paul uses his authority to suggest the proper decorum for public serv ices.He is concerned that there be no distractions in the spiritual utter ances or the women's behavior. 225 ■