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

The Use of Prophecy in Church Today

call this "the test of purpose." "True prophecy will always say something worth listening to." 28 C. K. Barrett makes a good point in his introduction to spiritual gifts. He explains that in 1 Corinthians 12 Paul "is dealing with the phenom ena of inspired, ecstatic speech, and indicating how such speech should be judged." Barrett feels-rightly, I believe-that Paul is "claiming that content, not manner, is the criterion." This "fundamental proposition" has to precede the discussion of spiritual gifts and persons. 29 4. Does the prophecy have value within specific limits of time and space? Robeck calls this "context specificity" and points out (using as an illustration Agabus' foretelling of a famine) that sometimes a prophecy has certain limitations, "and the ability to test the prophetic gift ade quately also lies within that context." 30 As it happened, the church at Anti och exercised faith in the prophet and rallied to the immediate challenge. To respond later with an offering would have been too late. Another "limited-time" prophecy was apparently given to the church at Jerusalem just before the city was put under siege by the Roman gen eral Titus. According to Eusebius, the third-century historian, all the believ ers fled from Jerusalem in response to prophecy, thereby saving their lives. The city was destroyed shortly thereafter in A.D. 70. "The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella. " 31 5. Do predictions come to pass and lead people to God? Obviously if a clear, unconditional prediction does not come to pass, it was not initi ated by God (Deuteronomy 18:22). This means, of course, that time must be allowed for the accomplishment of such prophecies. Outlandish prophe cies (such as, California will slide into the sea on a certain date) can be evaluated by responsible Christian leaders. A prophecy might not come to pass for several reasons. If there is a condition involved, such as a call to repentance, the outcome depends on the recipient's obedience. Or sometimes persevering faith is needed to bring a word to pass, such as when Paul challenged Timothy to "war a good warfare" (KJV) or "fight the good fight" (NIV) according to the prophecies that had once been made about him (1 Timothy 1:18). 6. Does the message give hope to the people? Is the prophetic theme one of helpful restoration or judgmental condemnation? One of God's great attributes is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and a prophecy that reflects this aspect will be of great benefit to the Church. True prophecy produces life, not death, and presents a promise of God to a hopeful people. • 322