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

A Profile of the Ancient Hebrew Prophet

two authors agree although many are of one mind that the prophets were ecstatic." 1 2 One meaning, the first listed in my Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, tends to make religious people skittish: "A state of being beyond reason and self-control." Sometimes ecstasy is attached to hallu cination, frenzy, mania, the unconscious, the subconscious, clairvoyance and many more such textbook terms. Actually there is no concrete exam ple of a true prophet of the Lord going into an ecstatic state that would produce an irresponsible delirium or rage. Three frequent proof texts for abnormal prophetic actions concern Balaam (Numbers 23-24), Saul (1 Samuel 19:24) and the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:26-29), but the arguments do not hold water. None of these people was called a prophet or functioned in a typical prophetic manner. 13 One leading commentator described the Hebrew prophet's behavior in the following strange manner, even though there is no one clear biblical instance of a true prophet acting like this: We can now call before our minds a picture of the Prophet's activity in public. He might be mingling with the crowd, sometimes on ordinary days, sometimes on special occasions. Suddenly something would happen to him. His eye would become fixed, strange convulsions would seize upon his limbs, the form of his speech would change. Men would recognise that the Spirit had fallen upon him. The fit would pass, and he would tell to those who stood around the things which he had seen and heard. There might have been symbolic action, and this he would explain with a clear memory of all that had befallen him, and of all that he had done under the stress of the ecstasy. Such manifestations were common, and there were many who were subject to them. 14 Evangelical scholars react against such interpretation, and rightly so, using the Pauline admonition of 1 Corinthians 14:32 that "the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets." The implication is that anyone proph esying should be rational and under control. I agree. But this approach taken to the extreme is not the answer either, for the prophets must not be stripped of human personality and emotion. They are not just cerebral spokesmen for God, especially when their message is dynamic and they are energized by the powerful Holy Spirit. Who among us is the perfect conduit for God's revelation? Every per son has a unique set of responses to a given situation, especially if it is extremely forceful. Consider a live electrical wire lying on the street. One man comes along and picks it up; he jerks and passes out. Another picks it up, screaming and yelling as he does so. Another has violent convul- ■ 82