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

Who Judges the Prophecies?

When word gets around that a church allows spiritual manifestations to occur during worship services, the news acts like a magnet to draw both the sincere and curious as well as the spooky and strange. Some peo ple search for a church open to spiritual manifestations-or, more specif ically, for a service that might be free enough to allow them to perform their ministries, at least for a while. David Pytches, in his excellent book Prophecy in the Local Church, has a section on "Beware of Theopaths"-a word coined to describe cer tain good Christians who seem to have abandoned their God-given com mon sense, seeing significance in everything that happens. 1 Cindy Jacobs has observed some of the same activity: "Some weird people are attracted to the prophetic movement in the Church. This is a shame because there are many more genuine, balanced prophetic leaders than there are flaky ones. Those who have severe emotional and personal problems have caused real damage to the body of Christ, and have cre ated a severe backlash against others who are used to prophesy. Although this damage may occur, the Bible is clear about the need to be able to receive the prophetic gifts in our midst." 2 Some churches and religious leaders toss the blessings and problems of spiritual manifestations into one bag and then simply ignore the whole thing. Why take the risk? Others shy away from spiritual manifestations because they do not know how to govern or control any manifestation that might occur. Still others simply cannot accept the reality of spiritual gifts. It reminds me of Bishop Butler's rebuke to John Wesley when he invaded the diocese of Bristol: "To pretend to extraordinary revelations from the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing." 3 Nevertheless, the Bible is too specific about the importance of spiritual gifts in the Church to take the good bishop's advice and lose the great benefit that God's Word promises. Our answer must be, "Yes, it is worth the slight risk to get the big blessing!" An important suggestion when considering pouring "new wine" (the activity of the Holy Spirit) into our "old wineskins" (established, dried out church structures) is that some changes may be in order. Jesus advises: "New wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved" (Luke 5:38, NKJV). This approach neither destroys the Church nor wastes the energy of the Holy Spirit, but it does require a new or refurbished wineskin. Gordon Fee's perceptive statement about prophecy in the Church is sadly true and merits serious reflection: "Most contemporary churches would have to be radically reconstructed in terms of their self-under standing for such [i.e., prophecy] to take place." 4 331 •