The Spiritual Gifts of Prophecy

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What Is the Gift of Prophecy?

Prophecy [Greek propheteia] is the special ability God gives to certain people to speak forth the counsel and the truth of God for God's people.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, God used prophets to Israel about current and future events. But that was not their main function. The Biblical Prophets were there to keep watch over God's covenant with Israel. In the New Testament, prophets were called on to speak the word of God about present and future events (Acts 2:17-18; 11:27-28), equip the saints for ministry (Ephesians 4:11,12). They would teach, support, and encourage the Christian believers. God would give prophecy to reveal what was in a person's mind (1 Corinthians 14:3, 23-25). Agabus (Acts 21:10-11) was an early-church prophet, and the four daughters of Philip the evangelist also prophesied (Acts 21:8-9).

In the Nicene Creed, it is said that the Holy Spirit "spoke through the Prophets". The Creed is not speaking of the phenomenon of prophecy, the gift of prophecy, or of prophets in general. It is speaking about the true prophets of the ancient Hebrews, found in the Scriptures, who prophesied to point the way to Jesus Christ.

Click here for much more on prophecy itself, on the Biblical Prophets, and on the question of whether there is, or can be, the gift of prophecy today.

'WORDS'

The 'words' that the apostle Paul speaks about directly in the context of gifts are "words of knowledge" and "words of wisdom", most clearly in 1 Corinthians 12:8 and 14:6. The context makes it clear that he is speaking not of a person's ordinary knowledge or wisdom, but of something that comes from beyond one's mind, given specially by the Spirit. In that sense, it is a softer cousin of prophecy. The idea may lie behind several other of Paul's uses of the terms 'knowledge' or 'wisdom', or perhaps even 'understanding'.

The 'words' are mostly specially-empowered forms of what we are to be doing in our daily life to express our love for people. For instance, the difference between a 'word of knowledge' for encouragement given by the Spirit and the ordinary course-of-the-day words of encouragement you give to those you care about is very subtle. The difference lies in comforting someone over something you don't know about, or in having an uncanny sense of timing you couldn't have by your own effort. The difference between the types of 'words' is difficult to make. It probably boils down to the difference between the meanings of knowledge (factual matters) and wisdom (understanding how the knowledge applies to the situation, and also the timing and manner of sharing it).

There are a small number of large churches where supposed 'words of knowledge' have acted as a means of social control. The 'words' come out of designated 'prophets' and pass along supposedly divine information about taking on a (church) duty, or how to handle your children (usually as a strict authoritarian), or about business decisions (so you can give to the church), or choosing boyfriends, or the like. Then, when you don't follow what is said, they say you're not 'in submission' to church authorities and you're told you're rejecting the Spirit. This is a lot of crock. God's authoritative word comes from Scripture, and is about the Good News. That doesn't mean that the Spirit won't tug on you in other ways or through the people around you. It's just that it's loving guidance not divine command. When someone tells you it's otherwise, they're trying to get you to do something they want you to do. That's not the voice of God, but the voice of control.
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Dream and Vision Interpretation

One gift which should also be listed as a Scriptural gift (but usually is not) is that of dream interpretation. In the Old Testament, Joseph (Gen 37 and 41) and Daniel (Dan 2) were given this gift, related to prophecy but less connected to a stated 'word of YHWH'. The meaning is conveyed by a visualized story and/or dream in someone other than the prophet, and the interpreter/prophet is able to tell what it means.

Where the gift of interpretation shows itself most as a gift of God is in those rare dreams that are a mirror of what lies beyond ourselves. Carl Jung tried to account for this scientifically in his psychoanalytic theories, with a level of success that was spotty. He stretched his natural theories into an area that runs beyond mere nature. He saw a connection between people's minds (the collective unconscious), and saw that things can happen together in a way that has no natural explanation but work together in the same direction and feed off of each other (synchronicity). In the Bible, synchronic happenings are a hallmark of the Spirit's activity - things just come together for the moment it's needed.

In the not-too-distant past, the field of psychoanalysis once again raised attention to our state of dreaming. We now know that dream interpretation is not as reliable and important as a way of climbing past our mind's defenses as Sigmund Freud proposed. Yet Freud, Jung, and those who came after them did remind us that our dreams do tell us something, often something true about ourselves and our frame of mind that we are not acknowledging. While many dreams are totally unfathomable by way of reason, and many (perhaps most?) dreams don't mean anything that matters, sometimes a dream is a window on the soul's torments or glory. As with most gifts, it comes in the form of a gift, a talent, and a skill, which can all work together or separately. In such cases, the skill of dream interpretation becomes important and instructive.

In recent times, M. Scott Peck (especially in *The Road Less Traveled*) has written wonderfully about the 'supernatural' angle of what Jung described. But even now, I'd bet Ezekiel and Hosea could tell us a thing or three about such things, being that they worked a lot closer with the Source than Freud, Jung or Peck.