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

Insights from Modern Church History (A.O. 1830-1980)

intertwined through the teaching is on the subject of order and control in the use of prophecy. In commenting on 1 Corinthians 14 Rowe says:

All will be done in an orderly fashion. For instance, apart from an excep tional activity of divine sovereignty, it would not be expected that the Holy Spirit would operate the gift of Tongues, Interpretation, or Prophecy in such a manner as to break in upon another activity in the service which He Him self has inspired-say prayer or preaching. That would be an unwarranted intrusion and would tend to imply that the Holy Spirit was divided in His activities. Such a disorderly exercise generally happens because of limited knowledge or a lack of experience of knowing how to hold the focus of divine power while it is concentrating in the Gift deep down in the spirit of the believer in order to come forth later with greater richness of purpose.19 Every prophetic person and movement must face the necessity of gov erning the prophetic activity in public services. I am impressed with the wisdom with which W. A. C. Rowe instructs his fellow believers in the AC, such as: "Some uninformed opinions resist any suggestion of gov ernment or control in the sphere of prophecy. This has led to much fanati cism, which has marred the testimony of Holy Ghost movements through out the world. There are principles for the government of Prophets and prophecy laid down in the Scriptures." 20 Rowe stresses that there must be personal control by the individual; the governing of prophecy in local meetings by the elders; the subjection of one prophet to other prophets; and the overseeing of the whole church through apostolic responsibility. 4. Inquiring ofthe Lord through a prophet can produce many unwar ranted problems in a church. There is a personal relationship between the believer and His Lord that should not be violated. Especially in seek ing God's guidance we must be careful to wait on God first and let Him deal personally with us. The tendency in a prophetic movement, however, is for people to seek prophetic shortcuts in finding God's will. Unfortu nately, fervent people sometimes spend large sums of money and travel far distances to "get a prophecy" if they feel they can ascertain God's will without having to wait. One of the dangers of promoting the prophetic in a local church is that people will start gravitating toward those who will give them a prophetic word. This sort of pursuit should not be promoted, for the sake of all involved. It is best controlled by practical pastoral teaching. "The wide spread use of the practice of inquiring of the Lord through a prophet," writes Worsfold, "began to be questioned after the Second World War. It was ultimately restricted to the apostleship and then only in reference to a very important spiritual matter." 21 • 280