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

Increased Interest in Prophecy

tinuing attempt to define the "authority " of the prophecy of that day (and the associated "authority " of women in the Church).The questions raised by those with strong "canonical consciousness " 2 3 seem to hold little or no interest for Paul and the early Church; they apparently operated from a different frame of reference, showing no concern for some of our pres ent-day prophetic discussions.It is true that the contemporary Church has unique problems that must be addressed, but I still feel safer follow ing Paul's unaffected leadership in this. Paul refers to only two kinds of prophets: those whose oracles are part of the Bible, and the prophets in the Church.He and all the other writ ers of the New Testament treat the prophets of that day as though they are in historic continuity with the prophets of the Old Testament, even if they are not writing Scripture.Since the Scriptures are our authority in the matter, we must rely on Paul's attitude and approach, even if we mod erns might wish for more apostolic explanation. Gordon Fee, in his significant discussion of the Holy Spirit in the letters of Paul, gives this evaluation: "[Paul] undoubtedly saw the 'New Testament prophets' as in the succession of the 'legitimate' prophets of the Old Testa ment, which explains in part why all such prophecy must be 'discerned,' just as with those in the Old Testament.But the nature of the prophecy was also understood to be of a different kind, precisely because of their present eschatological existence.A prophet who speaks encouragement to the Church in its 'between the times' existence speaks a different kind of word from the predominant word of judgment on ancient lsrael." 24 I personally am reluctant to discontinue referring to authentic contem porary prophecy as "a word from God." My reason is simple: The Bible's straightforward teaching gives us no reason to discontinue the practice, and there have been too many accurate, proven prophecies in the con temporary Church.Perhaps the Churchshould use Bible terminology with out shame-but also consistently (and publicly) evaluate prophetic words and people without fear. Why not contend for one hundred percent accu racy in our local church prophecies and still not consider such recognition demeaning or threatening to the universal Word of God? 25 Grudem's description of nonauthoritative congregational prophecy is similar to Rick Joyner's "lowest level of prophetic revelation." Joyner writes: "Most of what is called 'prophecy' today is on the lowest level of prophetic revelation, which is the impression level.These are general rev elations that we have to put words to.Personally, I do not add the adden dum 'thus saith the Lord' to what is in fact an impression that I have expressed in my own words.The word of the Lord is precious, and the last thing I want to do is put my words in His mouth....In fact, it is debatable whether we ever need to include such a statement in our prophe 31 ■